Another point of view about Coronavirus

I wanted to add four comments about Coronavirus.

• Media Impact
• Are we going to be infected?
• The US has got a bigger problem than the rest
• When the vaccine will come, and how?

It was difficult to imagine, it is even difficult to know where the world will be within a couple of months. Fear is the worst company that the world can have in this battle, and it seems it is with us.

Coronavirus has become the main conversation, it does not matter if you have a business meeting, a dinner with friends, or if you are playing golf or doing trekking. We simply cannot take it away from our thoughts, sometimes with deep concern, as if it was getting ebola, and others with a sense of humor.

Regarding business income and the stock market, it is undeniable that the impact is being incredible. Airlines are suffering a lot, and hotels in certain areas are with RevPars that was unthinkable not long ago. If this situation stands still for many months the scenario is going to become very difficult, I am sure that the first measure is to ensure cash flow. Today, thinking about old conversations about occupancy back in December (going up or down small figures) sounds like gossips from the rich about concerns not important for the rest ...

The word "death" causes the most terrible fear, but ... in Spain we've got today 25 deaths and 645 cases, that sounds terrible, but digging into the figures, all of them had previous diseases and: five of them had more than 90 years old, 8 between 80-90, 4 between 70-80 and one had 69. It is horrible, but it is good to put some perspective. What could happen if instead of covid19 they've got seasonal flu? Will the figures change a lot? Is the number of deaths of the seasonal flu going down? We need this kind of info to do informed decisions.

The media

Imagine that there is no information about it, or at least, that there is an agreement to avoid having this information in the header of any newspaper. Fear will slowly getaway.

In my opinion, the media is doing a very bad move for everyone with coronavirus. Did we had a live report of the seasonal flu every year? Why do we have it from this coronavirus, that, it seems it is quite similar to the flu, quite close in the dead ratio also? This is crazy. Just in the US seasonal flu is the reason of between 20.000 and 55.000 deaths in the last 12 months in the US, according to CDC figures, with around 42 M infected, that is a death ratio between 0,05% and 0,13%. Total deaths today (Anthony Hopkins Coronavirus on March 9th) was 3840 with 110315 infected globally, that is 0,348% global, and outside China 0,28%. I am sure real figures of infected are much higher, as there will be thousands of non detected infected and some deaths not imputed, but, for sure real figures will push the death ratio lower. So, my final view is that probably we are talking about a disease with x2 flu's death ratio. That is bad, but, is it so terrible?

Are we going to be infected?

I think that the answer is yes, and it should follow with, "and it is normal, we do not have to worry much more than about getting the flu". Mathematical disease simulators use a figure called R-0, which means how many people are going to be infected from one person ill. If that number is <1, then the disease will go down by itself. If it is greater than 2-3 then it will be difficult to stop. Several teams have studied the case, and WHO gave between 1.4 to 2.5, but some Chinese teams said that it was between 3.3 to 5.5. The average is 3.8, and that means that, probably, we are going to get it. In words of one Harvard epidemiologist, this is: "thermonuclear pandemic level bad", a very bad statement if the disease had a high death rate, but THIS IS NOT THE CASE. I think that we should not fear it, we should get prepared and try to reduce the speed of the outrage to be able to handle it with the actual medical resources.

In Spain the first person to die from coronavirus was a person (above 90 years old) that died on feb 12th, and, they authorities did a new autopsy and discovered that the reason given (pneumonia) was not the real one, it was covid19, so ... the virus have been in Spain (and everywhere) before we knew it. Some say that in east Asia there was a very strong and strange flu in september.

Of course, we have to follow the guidelines, which will help to have a more steady flow of infected population. That will avoid the hospital to collapse, and we will be able to cope with the flow of infected people. So, the measures will be a way to reduce the "logistical" impact, but the real stopper will be when a relevant part of the population will have a genetic barrier to stop de disease. That, together with the vaccine, will slow down the outrage.

So, we should all be calm and ready to go through it, as it will be a quite similar flu disease. Of course, we should try to isolate those that are on the danger zone, elder population, or people with low defenses, and those who had suffered strong pneumonia, or have not the proper health level.

Within a couple of years that will be like another flu, with a very relevant part of the population with the right defenses, acting as a natural barrier, and will only affect young people, that will overpass it without noticing it.

The US ...

The US is a great country, but this global issue is going to blow up into their hands, and, for sure is going to contaminate the rest. Why? Because the way they handle medical resources, and medical treatments are very far away from the efficiency needed with this outbreak, and it will act as kerosene for the citizenship fears.

In the US around 50 M do not have the proper medical insurance, that, without counting the ones that have medical insurance, but probably this kind of treatment will cost them money. If you add this, to the way they handle job absences (if you do not go to work, directly you do not get paid). What does that mean? Basically that the outbreak will not be stopped by those Americans that: 1) live on their weekly wage (above 21% do not save a penny), and 2) those that cannot pay their medical costs either because are without any insurance, or because they cannot or do not want to pay a franchise. That means that this flu is not going to be stopped by citizenship.

I do not have answers, perhaps they should recover a kind of "Obamacare" for coronavirus, and change the way the work absences are considered.

Last, but not least, the US is a country where medical treatments are, by far, more expensive (total costs per citizen goes above 10.000 USD, vs 7000 Switzerland, 3500 UK, etc). Does it mean it is the best one? Nope, is the most expensive, and it is the one where doctors and pharma companies get a huge piece of it.

The vaccine

The vaccine will get sooner than later. There are hundreds of teams working on it, and there is money on the table. Some labs have been set up only for this goal. I think that the ones that will get it faster are going to be the investigators in China, as they do not have the legal procedures and guarantees that takes a pharma company in the rest of the world, and because they've been testing in real cases, probably, from a very long time.

When this happens, and I hope it will be before the summer, that may give us the following scenario:

1) I think that the stock market will bounce back strongly, recovering half of the losses in one week.

2) Even though production capacity will be gauged to the maximum, there could be some market dysfunctions. Imagine what will happen if the medicine is available in china, but not yet with the CDC (US) or ECDC (Europe) as they will need some time to have the testing done. There will be a temporary black market, and there should be some mechanisms to avoid it.

My final statement

I think that REM song is good ... "it is the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine". My view is that there should be some kind of global agreement to scale down news about coronavirus, avoid having a daily update, avoid using headlines of newspapers, do not talk figures of dead people, change the criteria, people that have had other diseases and where above a certain age cannot be counted really.

The governments should start talking about normality, they should give figures and inform that below 60 years old, the death ratio is much lower than XXX diseases, inform about ways to take care from the elder population, and vaccines, and we all should start considering that Covid19 is going to be like A-flu disease, with a new treatment, and something bad, but, please this is not ebola.

I do apologize for the extension, thanks for reading it. :)