2019 Bordeaux EP Campaign

[felixp21]

"I must side with Alex on his arguments of fake news. The media is causing a mass hysteria and everyone is falling right into the pit. "

.... DST golf, a couple of days ago.

I am not interested in continuing the aggression, now it seems everyone on this DB understands what I was saying, but perhaps just a little reflection by the above author (particularly if he is a doctor, as I am lead to believe) might be appropriate.
To be honest, the World has reacted much too slowly with this extremely dangerous illness, which no amount of media "hysteria" could ever over-hype. The choices faced by Italian doctors now were faced by their colleagues in WuHan two months ago, the lesson simply ignored by the Western World (but not by the much smarter Asian countries who were well aware how good the Chinese medical system is, and therefore how dangerous this new virus was. Singapore, Korea Hong Kong and Japan reacted quickly, effectively and cohesively to avert total disaster. Bravo to them, I say. )
Why weren't the lessons learnt quickly enough? Because the dismissive attitude some members here displayed were simply a reflection of their society as a whole.... oh, yea, the Chinese are sick, but after all, it is China, and our country is MUCH better and smarter than those guys. Sorry to say, as a doctor living in China half-time for the past seven years, and having trained in both the USA and the UK, that is utter drivel. As much as the West won't admit it, China's medical system and pandemic planning leaves most Western countries in it's wake, and sadly, we are about to see how inadequate those systems are.

[jal]

Avi Schiffmann a high schooler in Washington State, USA created the ultimate Corona Virus website updated every minute:

https://ncov2019.live/data

[dstgolf]

Jacques,

Danielle has been following a very similar site. Incredible death rate in Italy I suspect reflects how their health system has been overwhelmed and lack of ventilator access for the severely ill. Not sure otherwise. Thanks for the link.

[JimHow]

If China was so smart, Felix, then why do the rest of us in the world have the infection?
I don’t think anyone should be casting stones, least of all Asia.
Asia is ahead of us in dealing with this because it happened in Asia first.
I have a friend in China, she says they are just dealing with it, without hysteria.
I’m sure we will deal with it as well.

[jal]

Here you go guys, our government is taking lessons from Yes Minister

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNjFIwRYEIo

[felixp21]

Jim, yes, China is totally at fault in this, and I don't think for one second anyone there is ANY throwing stones.

Believe me, the people are unanimously ashamed at what has transpired, but that does not alter the fact that they have responded incredibly well to what has happened.
Italy, a country with a population less than 5% that of China, will pass China's death toll within days, which speaks volumes for both the way the Chinese have handled it and the way the Italians have been unable to.

The fact is, without any possible dispute, the World (China included) has responded way too slow with this. Same came be said for H1N1, sadly the final toll of that disease was around 284,000.

[JimHow]

Courts are closed in Maine until May 1st.
I'll be doing a lot of work from home, I'm hunkering down on my 3 acres.
You guys all saw in the NYT Times today that lawyers are among the most at risk!
What's going to happen when the virus starts populating the jails.

[felixp21]

Couldn't resist.

On March 8th, your dear friend from Bordeaux called this "fake news" in one of his many arrogant posts. It seems he knows very little of his "front door"

If his ignorance reflects French society in general, no wonder so many have died. Very sad indeed.

Hope you are all coping well, I'm busy working in a country that fortunately took this virus very seriously from the outset, it hasn't been fun, but in a country of 25 million with around 100 deaths, I think our realisation this was never "fake news" has saved thousands of lives.

Adieu.

[Racer Chris]

Let it go Felix, let it go.

[JimHow]

Lol, trolling over the coronavirus.
You must be very proud of yourself Felix.
We are fine, don’t worry about us, we are opening back up after a difficult spring battling the virus that was allowed to spread from your part of the world.
Yes, adieu and au revoir, little man.

[RPCV]

Let us hope that one of the results of this is that our countries come together and repatriate our manufacturing of critical goods. China can make all the toys it wants, just like the old days.

[Claudius2]

Guys
The last few days I had been cluster bombed by importers and retailers regarding 2019 EP. Quoted prices for most wines are way below other recent EP deals. I think the lesser wines such as Cru Bougeois and Cotes wines (SE satellites, Castillon, Francs, Fronsac etc) are at supermarket prices. Here of course taxes and freight add considerably but the actual cost of the wine itself is lower than I can recall for some yrs.
The usual trophy wines and garagiste wines are expensive but I seriously think that many good deals will be found.
However I wonder if the non classified estates will in many cases go broke. The top estates can just drop prices for a while but the lesser estates will really struggle.

[AKR]

Couldn't resist.

On March 8th, your dear friend from Bordeaux called this "fake news" in one of his many arrogant posts. It seems he knows very little of his "front door"

If his ignorance reflects French society in general, no wonder so many have died. Very sad indeed.

Hope you are all coping well, I'm busy working in a country that fortunately took this virus very seriously from the outset, it hasn't been fun, but in a country of 25 million with around 100 deaths, I think our realisation this was never "fake news" has saved thousands of lives.

Adieu.

Felixp21: It's easy to claim that policy differences are all that mattered, but a huge part of the (so far) relative better situation is simply geographical chance. Australia and NZ are very remote, and not connected to the same degree to the global infection routes. It is sort of like suggesting that New York and Billings, MT had different outcomes, solely due to their different responses. Unfortunately not that simple (and blameworthy/schadenfreudable): NYC has lots of visitors, travelers, conferences, subways, crowded streets etc. Billings not so much.

Australia has always been lucky. Interestingly I work closely (they're my direct managers) with an Aussie and another Kiwi and they aren't as bullish as I would think on their homelands.

Claudius2: It seems to me that pretty much ever non essential item is getting reprioritized. That non collector grade bdx is at the end of the day, just wine, which is fungible among regions. A world of high unemployment seems like one where people can/will trade down to cheaper local wine. I'd hope this eventually filters through to the cru classe, but who knows. And in any case, even the customers who might have bought those can see their purchasing power reduced too. Our employer has been 'resetting' our compensation expectations for the next year (at least, perhaps longer) already.

[Claudius2]

Arv
I get your point about non-famous Bdx.
I have been buying CB's, second wines and some Cotes wines and St Emilions (other than the most famous) for bargain basement prices here.
While a few are not very nice, the average quality of these wines has surprised me.
The retailers are not getting any walk-in customers and are having to discount over the Internet to sell anything.
It is going to be really bad news for many smaller and less renowned producers.

By the way, Singapore has been lucky and unlucky with the virus.
We are a tiny nation what is built or trading and commerce and most of the work (I mean labouring) is done by foreign workers who are on work passes.
There have been about 28,000 infections, of which by far the majority are in worker''s dormitories - they are being thinned now but new general population infections have virtually disappeared.
As an example, yesterday, there were about 500 workers yet only 1 general population infection diagnosed.

In Singapore, there has been extensive screening and testing, so we at least have a handle on the real incidence, and there have only been 22 deaths.

[JimHow]

Our population in Maine is 1.3 million, Claudius, about a quarter of Singapore's.
We've only had 1,700 infections, we have been very lucky, relatively speaking
Almost all deaths have been in nursing homes and among the very elderly.
Most of the state is opening back up, including restaurants/bars, etc., on June 1st, although you still need to quarantine for 14 days if you come in from out of state.
We are about to enter into our busiest time of year, summer/fall tourist season.

[DavidG]

I think a parallel can be drawn between worker's dormitories, nursing homes, and food processing plants where many people are in close contact within an enclosed space for prolonged periods of time. That's very conducive to spread.

As to 2019 EP, I agree with Arv and Mark - it's likely going to be very difficult for the non-collectibles.

[Ianjaig]

I’m sure geographical isolation has helped somewhat AKR, but I don't think it has been the deciding factor in how hard a particular country has been hit by the virus. For example, a country like Vietnam has been very successful in mitigating the impact of Covid-19 from what I understand, and their borders are relatively connected (e.g. China)? Singapore is not particularly isolated either?

Personally, I don’t think we can underestimate the importance of effective leadership in the handling this crisis, and this (or the lack thereof) has been a significant factor in mitigating the impact across the globe IMHO. In that regard, we’ve been very fortunate here in NZ with Jacinda Ardern shutting down our borders very quickly and implementing strict measures early.

Whilst New Zealand is coming out of this relatively unscathed from a health perspective, the economic impact will be as severe as anywhere else (particularly with tourism being the number 1 industry here).

As others have said, there are no ‘winners’ from any of this.

[JimHow]

JC Penney bankrupt, now Hertz rental.
One iconic American business falling after another.
Massive numbers of lives ruined.
Did you read that article in the NYT today, like none of the restaurants and bars in NYC are going to be able to reopen.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/opin ... e=Homepage
Places like Lewiston are facing devastation but, hey, who ever cared about meaningless places like us anyway.....
State and local budgets are being bankrupted.
We are printing up trillions at the federal level like it is Monopoly money, jeopardizing our future.
I hope all the face masking and business-closing is worth the devastation. Not sure I'm seeing it.
Myself, as I was at the beginning, I remain skeptical.
And it's not just the right-wing Neanderthals beginning to question things, as evidenced by this Harvard doctor in the Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... Kra7_lZpAo
We've had a few deaths here in Maine, almost all in nursing homes. We need to do a better job protecting our vulnerable 90 year olds in nursing homes.
You can go buy liquor at the liquor store but you can't hold your 90 year old Mom's hand while she's dying.
You can go in the kitchen section at Home Depot but not the paint section.
You can play golf, but your client has to sit in jail indefinitely waiting for his jury trial.
We've gone insane.
There are too many exceptions to the exceptions to the rule for any of this devastation to the lives of millions to make sense to me.
I know I'm a Neanderthal, but I'm sorry guys, and you can Covid shame me all you want, I'm just not buying it.
I know Sanjay Gupta and the good doctors here and elsewhere will look at me with disgust, but I'm skeptical.
I'm sure Sanjay is still cashing his ckecks, not sure when the permanently laid off JC Penney workers stop getting their enhanced unempoyment, late June, I think, right? Then, they are on their own. Msybe Sanjay can loan them some money. I'm sure most of the university ivory tower crowd is getting paid but there was an article in the local newspaper about the non-tenured professors at Bates College -- 150 year old institution, heavily endowed, a tremendous liberal arts school, questioning the "existential" threat to the school. That's unbelevable.
As far as I can tell, Georgia has not become a population of zombies since CNN ridiculed their governor for opening up two weeks ago.
CNN seems to have gone quiet on the Georgia front.
We did not suffer the 2.2 million deaths in the U.S. that Felix and others originally projected.
I don't think they even ended up using a single bed at the Red Cross ship docked in the Hudson.
I wear my mask when I go to the supermarket but I was in deserted Boothbay Harbor on the 90-degree day today in Maine, and all was fine.
Nobody was dropping dead in the streets.
Was at old Orchard Beach earlier in the week staring down the Second Amendment protesters glaring at my Asian friend and I as we made our way, maskless, across the sand.
On a side note: This could cost the Democrats the election, by the way.
Ah, the groupthink.
I wonder how history will look back at this.

[Claudius2]

Jim
Actually the situation in Maine sounds similar to Singapore BUT there is a big difference in the death rates.
When this argument started, you may recall that I added a link to the Chinese CDC which clearly showed that age and co-morbidities were salient factors in death rates.
If you are under 40, then your probability of death is very low but 74 times as high if you are 80+ yrs. Add existing health issues, which most very old people have, and that rate in even higher.
So in Singapore, we have 30,500 infections yet only 23 deaths. Thus a rate of only 0.075%

Yet a lot of this is little more than luck, though the exact strain of the virus can differ from one place to another. Viruses are good and morphing into different forms.
Singapore managed to avoid mass outbreaks in aged care facilities and hospitals, and even then, just about everyone who has died had serious health issues already.
Densely populated areas obviously have greater risks and that has been borne out here with the vast majority being foreign workers living in in high density housing (which have since been thinned out).
The current death rate in the USA (sorry I am not aware of all details in Maine) is 6%, yet it is much worse at 13-15% in the UK, Italy, France and Spain.
Yet the foreign workers are nearly always fit, healthy young(ish) men. They do the vast majority of real "work" here (construction & engineering, mfg, heavy industry, cleaning and maintenance, etc).
I read that in NYC, the virus has devastated some aged care facilities and that is very sad - by the time the virus hit NY, its effects on aged and ill people were well and truly known. A better job should have been done.
However, I get a bit sick of the people saying that we need to be better prepared for future pandemics.
For god's sake, you can't actively prepare for something that does not exist. Similarly, we may as well shut everything down in case of an earthquake, tsunami, floods, drought, asteroids or meteorites.

Singapore is starting to wind down the restrictions starting 2 June, but there is no specific plan to eliminate them entirely, and thus F&B operators will continue to be shut or only open for take-out and delivery services.
I understand your point about the devastating effects on businesses. Like pretty well everywhere, the best data here shows that 40% of F&B businesses here will not re-open. They have been provided with some relief (rent, wage subsidies, etc) but most are now entirely broke and won't have the capital to start again, even if the restrictions are progressively would back. Banks are also making massive provisions for bad and doubtful debts and that means that there will be a huge credit squeeze post-COVID-19. So come the end of the virus, everybody - individuals, households, businesses of all sizes and governments, will be broke, overloaded with debt and will face slow revenues for some time.
In India, Modi's shutdowns have had to be reversed in many cases, with the provincial govts and businesses saying that 800M people will face starvation.
Here in Sg we have seen numerous stories of workers starving to death, dying of exhaustion or being run over on roads and train tracks after being sent home to their villages.

Can I also mention another issue.
You probably noticed that I pointed out that the CCP has not acted in good faith, with the usual messenger shooting, denials, censorship, and at times, just plain lies. Even worse, the WHO simply parroted false information which was already known to be false by China's CDC. It was also that CDC which has identified more than one strain of the virus, which in fact has now been known for several months. Again, I linked to original research earlier.

Yet at this point in time, I am actually a LOT more concerned about international relations involving China than I am of the virus.
China is now aggressively threatening HK, and it has NEVER operated in good faith since 1997. The treaty signed by Deng and Thatcher were that HK would maintain political, administrative and legal separation for 50 yrs.
The CCP has repeatedly said it does not feel compelled to honour the "one country two systems" model, and in recent days, is asserting that the "one country" part is their priority. It will get uglier.
In Taiwan, China is repeatedly saying that it will use military force to ensure that Taiwan does not declare independence or align itself with the west. That's why it is throwing a tantrum regarding arms purchases from the USA.
China has been developing bases on islands in the South China Sea for years, and even on islands that are claimed by other nations. It is now more fully mobilising them, raising a lot of tensions.
Further, there are now regular skirmishes on the China-India border, in the north west of India, being near the previously independent country of Sikkim - now part of India - which is directly north of Bangladesh.
As most locals here are ethnically Chinese or Indian (plus some Malays and a few Angmohs) there is significant concern over recent escalations. In short, China is claiming Indian land as its on and building roads and fortifications on it.

A view expressed locally in the independent media is that China is using the virus as a trojan horse for expansionism both of territories and political & economic interests.
I am not offering an opinion other than to say that the CCP are opportunists yet keep their eye on the long game.

By the way, I might be missing a piece of your story.
You say that this may cost the Dems the next election.
I thought it was more likely that it may cost Trump the oval office???

cheers
Mark

[JimHow]

By the way, I might be missing a piece of your story.
You say that this may cost the Dems the next election.
I thought it was more likely that it may cost Trump the oval office???

You would think that, Mark, but what is happening instead is the right wing is becoming even more ravenously energized -- they are literally bringing assault rifles into state house protests in places like Michigan -- and it is energizing the vote against Democratic governors and legislators. Trump is calling for a "liberation" in blue swing states that elected him four years ago.

[Racer Chris]

Its a very small minority of "outspoken" nutjobs Jim. There will be a backlash against such behavior.

[JimHow]

Indeed, Chris, even a majority of Republicans generally support the shutdown.
It will be fascinating to watch as/if Orange gets more desperate.

[Chateau Vin]

Its a very small minority of "outspoken" nutjobs Jim. There will be a backlash against such behavior.

I don't see things turning positive any time soon. We have not reached bottom yet. Probably we won't see sane and positive vibe in our lifetime either. News outlets with political agenda will never die in the name of free speech...Not to mention the foreign vested interests.

One has to just look at google news trends on its top page to see which way the winds are blowing (If google wants, it has immense information to do analytics to do some good for people, but I don't think they will because corporations are not beholden to states or societies, but to shareholders only, aka themselves too).

The damage has already been done, and can't be undone...Sorry, I am not pessimistic, but just being realistic...

[AKR]

It's crazy depressing watching all of this. We are basically at the beginning of another Great Depression - and its even worse in some other countries like Italy or Spain - and it seems like we don't have any solutions or way out of the 'lockdown box' we have put ourselves into.

The new information that COVID19 can infect young kids and has some delayed, lethal effect has added a new dimension of fear. I'm not sure how our kids heard about that, but they are freaked out and can't sleep. The night terrors have gotten so bad, we've actually had to get one of them counseling, medicine, etc.

Even our cat has gotten stressed by all this (apparently felines can catch COVID19 too) and has been stress eating. We just got her back from a vet checkup, and they put a warning in her file, since she's up again to 18.5 lbs. I keep telling her she's just a shade over 1 stone, so the metrics sound better.

Which reminds me - James Molesworth had a comment yesterday on the Bordelais and their complete disconnect with economic reality.

https://www.winespectator.com/articles/ ... s-campaign

[marcs]

It will cost Trump the election. Under our wonderful U.S. system there is one and only one way to express dissatisfaction when things are going badly, and that is to vote for the one other party on offer. By November we will be looking at hundreds of thousands of deaths plus a major economic depression. The Democrats could run a stuffed animal for president and win. Don't overthink it.

[JimHow]

We shall see. My friend Karolina in Poland emailed me today.
She noted there were 2,000 cases when they closed down the country.
She says there are 20,000 cases now and they are opening it back up.
She says “This coronavirus was the biggest prank in the history of the humankind.”

[Jeff Leve]

We shall see. My friend Karolina in Poland emailed me today.
She noted there were 2,000 cases when they closed down the country.
She says there are 20,000 cases now and they are opening it back up.
She says “This coronavirus was the biggest prank in the history of the humankind.”

Your friend in Poland should say it was a prank to 100,000 families that have lost loved ones in the USA and then to the other 250,000 dead in the rest of the world as of today. For a prank, it is not what I call funny.

[JimHow]

I think the point being made Jeff is that there was no need to destroy the world economy and impoverish 8 billion people.
Not sure if you’re going without food yet but lots are and will be.
I see the cases of 2019 Bordeaux are coming in for you while the JC Penney workers scrounge.
I guess time will tell.

[marcs]

Lockdowns made sense when / if they were part of a reasonable medium-long term plan to fight the virus and lower-income people were properly protected from lockdown impacts. We appear to have no plan and the stock markets have been better protected than retail workers. The economic damage being done is enormous. We will have no choice but to open back up, it's already happening whatever people say.

There are some upsides -- temporarily reduced spread, people got some time to internalize better hygiene habits and mask wearing, employers were forced to get used to accomodating remote work arrangements where this was possible, the NY subway (a major vector) is figuring out how to sanitize, etc. But man, the economic fallout is huge. As a privileged person who can easily work from home and has been significantly insulated from that impact I don't feel I have the right to judge the views of people who experienced those impacts much more than I did.

[stefan]

Yes, although covid-19 kills more quickly, economic hardship kills as surely.

The challenge is to enforce reasonable safety procedures to make transmission less likely. Our kitchen window looks out on a path to a park. We see numerous unmasked groups of younger people walking side by side to the park and making it impossible for an older masked person going the other way to maintain even a three foot distance. So we no longer walk in the park. When we walk on the sidewalk, we often have to venture into the middle of the street to keep a safe distance from unmasked people. So most days we walk in our yard. Many people around here go into stores unmasked and congregate in large groups. We do only curbside service as a result. Most deliverers do not wear masks and some come very close to the driver's side window (against store policy), which I have learned to lower less than one inch, to ask for the order name.

I long for the good ole days in Texas, when people were polite and it was legal to shoot someone who was being egregiously discourteous.

[marcs]

mask up, Stefan!

[Jeff Leve]

I think the point being made Jeff is that there was no need to destroy the world economy and impoverish 8 billion people.
Not sure if you’re going without food yet but lots are and will be.
I see the cases of 2019 Bordeaux are coming in for you while the JC Penney workers scrounge.
I guess time will tell.

Jim

The reason the death toll is as low as it is, 350,000, is due to the closing down of the normal course of business and the stay at home orders. In 1918, you had close to 50 million deaths according to some statisticians. It is doubtful all that many autopsies were conducted in those days, so who knows?

The world was much different in those days obviously. People did not travel, many lived in rural areas, few had the money to shop and go out after the end of WW1. On the other hand, you need to consider the lack of medical knowledge, along with the shortage of hospitals, doctors, and medicine at the time when trying to come up with any conclusions.

With the population today being 400% larger, urban densities, an inner connected world and the ease of travel by plane train and automobile. Even if the death toll was half of what we experienced in 1918, 1/3, 1/4, the numbers of dead people would be staggering.

Yes, there are serious issues from the loss of jobs, but nothing like what the world might have experienced had the virus been able to run rampant.

What is the number of deaths that is ok before you, or others think economies can be closed down? If it is not 350,000, is it 1,000,000, 10,000,000, 25,000,000?

It is not fair to only extrapolate one set of facts, without considering other conclusions. I have a friend of mine, a nurse who volunteered to work in NY hospitals. She came home crying saying that what she saw changed her forever. She will never get over seeing the stacks of dead bodies. She told me that there were some families that lost relatives and of course, they could not say goodbye. So, she used her IPAD to call them, so they could see their deceased relative one last time. She added that every doctor and nurse will never get over it.

To be fair, this is a discussion between friends of mine that agree with you. I am not one of them.

And yes, I am receiving samples of 2019 to taste. I would have received them regardless of other people's employment or not. It has nothing to do with anything.

[JimHow]

Well, I'm not here to fight and create bad will over this issue Jeff.
I'm looking forward to a return to at least some normalcy.
The shutdown has been "great" for me, I haven't had to put on a suit in two months, except the few times I've done court hearings over video conference.
I'm working from home at a more casual pace, no visits to the jail, no in-person court appearances.
I have plenty of work to do from home so it hasn't affected my cashflow.
It is going to be another two months of court by video. Trials are scheduled to start up again in August/September but we shall see.

[sdr]

Restaurants are now open here for indoor dining, but I am trying to figure out how it can work.

If we are 4 couples, do we need to sit at 4 different tables spaced widely apart?

If we want to share a bottle, do each of us have to disinfect it before passing it on?

How can indoor dining ever be safe if there is an AC flow from the vent? That Chinese restaurant spread (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/heal ... rants.html) is very worrisome.

Stu

[AKR]

d

[AKR]

Yes, although covid-19 kills more quickly, economic hardship kills as surely.

I long for the good ole days in Texas, when people were polite and it was legal to shoot someone who was being egregiously discourteous.

Speaking of discourteous, the local park rangers have used the national emergency to ban all alcoholic beverages from our parkway, and surrounding waterways, starting this weekend. They have been itching to do this forever.

Ever since tee totaling Trump was elected its been open season on the hard drinking American taxpayer.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/nobody-lik ... opin_pos_2

[Jeff Leve]

Well, I'm not here to fight and create bad will over this issue Jeff.

No bad will. As I said earlier, I have the same discussion, a lot, with some of my best friends. Most do not agree with me. But if they like the right wine, I am still OK to drink with them

[Tom In DC]

I have to think that NYC without the lockdown would have been a bloodbath. It's no surprise that things seem normal in Downeast, Jim, as population density seems to be a key ingredient to the spread of the virus.

[Claudius2]

Folks
Can I try and make one important point about how many cases of the C-19 virus there are.
Many people with the virus are asymptomatic and further, the gestation period is quite variable across individuals who have the virus. Yet both are likely to be contagious.
The "real" number is totally unknown and is likely to be much higher in every country that has reported any data.
Most countries have simply avoided mass screening and testing - other than temperature testing which is not a particularly useful tool.

When I hear arguments that the number of cases has increased x times under lockdown, I am sorry but I have to shake my head in despair.
That argument is specious - it may sound like a rational argument but it is not as the "real" number of cases is likely to be wildly under-estimated simply as mass testing would be needed, and secondly, there is no control group that any data can be compared to.
If you look at Singapore's death rate (23) it would appear to be a minor issue. As I have noted before, the road deaths in Singapore during the same period was higher (and we started quite early due to ties with China).
And conveniently, the govt here is not bothering to mention the number of people who have died from other diseases due to poor treatment or none at all during the same period, as C-19 patients are the priority now. Only the independent press here has bothered to mention it.

Assume you test 7.8B people (that is, the world's total population) - how many cases would you find?
Published results so far (as at today's date) are 5.38M and deaths are around 344K.

One reason that the death rate here is now less than 0.07% is due to mass testing leading to the govt finding several hundred new cases each day.
Singapore is testing about 8,000 foreign workers a day and the rate of known infection is around 6%.
So the true incidence simply in the worker population (this means foreign workers here with work pass visas) is about 60,000 work pass holders and around 90,000 for the total foreign worker population of 1.5M.
No accurate data for the normal population is available though some research institutes has tried to estimate it based on random testing, and this has shown a rate of 1-2%.
Even if we accept 1% as meaningful, then the real rate is about 40,000 plus 90,000 workers, or a total of around 130k.
And we keep finding several hundred every day as mass testing continues BUT the death rate is virtually nil among the worker population.
That is over 4 times the actual reported incidence here of about 31K.

I would argue that Singapore is one of the very few countries to try mass testing, accepting that we are a city state with only 5.6M people in a tiny land mass, and i also need to say, a relatively compliant population.
If the local experience is anything like a total world view, then the real infection rate is many times higher than the 5.38M reported, though the actual death rate is thus much lower.

Whilst I accept the need for safe measures, how can you just turn off the international economy?
If we look at the issue only from a health perspective, shutdowns, safe distancing and the like are rational.
Yet I keep reading articles in southern and western Asia of people starving to death, dying whilst trying to return home and outbreaks of lawlessness due to simple human desperation.

So I am positing a theory based on the above.
I argue that a middle ground is achievable - being to allow most normal industry and commerce but with reasonable safe measures AND protection of the most vulnerable people - who are the aged and those with co-morbidities.
I say that as someone who has worked extensively in the health industry (including crisis care), academia and in business.
Yes, relaxing some rules may lead to more cases, but it is rare that young, healthy people are killed by C-19 and both EU and Chinese research shows the median age of persons dying to be 79, and nearly all had co-morbidities.
If the vulnerable groups are protected (and they are well known) then the human cost can be massively reduced.

Those arguing for complete shutdowns of just about everything are being unreasonable.
In India as an example, the provincial govts totally blasted Modi when shut-downs were ordered with 4-5 hrs notice.
Some asked Modi if it is okay if 800M people starve to death (the point being that by far the majority of workers are effective day labourers and have little or no savings) and food production is halted?
Even in wealthier countries such as Australia (my old country), the USA and several European nations, what do you do with homeless people?
How do you stop lawlessness, crime and violence as economic chaos hits a large proportion of the population?
Having low infection rates is hardly going to help at that point.

[JimHow]

Indeed, Tom, NYC was ravaged and it would've been far worse.
Cuomo for Veep.
I did a surgical strike into midtown Manhattan recently, it was devastating. Absolutely heartbreaking.
I was looking at renting apartments in Manhattan before the pandemic hit and things were fairly pricey.
Now there are some "great deals" out there.
I have Met opera tickets for November and December but I think that is dreaming.
I think it is going to be a long time before that town recovers.

I am about the most isolated person I know.
Other than a surgical strike into Manhattan and another to the liquor store in Portsmouth, NH, I have led a very isolated routine.
A couple hours in the office alone in the morning.
A three mile walk each day without mask, but nobody near me, often in the woods.
One trip to supermarket with mask per week, carefully washing hands before and after.

I do what my governor tells me, she is getting high marks, although we have our protesters here as well:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/what-ame ... 36591.html

Otherwise, it is working from Fortress How with my laptop and my wine cellar, court hearings by video conference.

I'm trying to figure out a way to get down to visit Jacques/Jill.