COVID-19: Top Five Things To Start Your Day

 1. NYC Case Counts and Deaths

We are seeing continuing good news in terms of new case counts and deaths, especially in NYC where new case counts and hospitalizations are falling off substantially in the last few days. It’s likely that new death estimates will spike in NYC (and perhaps elsewhere) as the way deaths are counted is changing. Every jurisdiction makes its own rules as to how to count COVID deaths, and up to now in NYC has only been counting deaths of those people who had previously tested positive for COVID. But NYC statistics on the number of deaths at home for untested individuals have spiked from ~20-25 per day to nearly 250 (graphic and coverage below). If all of the “excess deaths” in the statistics were counted as COVID deaths (which might be an overstatement, but probably not a gross one), then the NYC death count would be significantly higher. The net is, that the statistics may spike if the counting conventions change, but the underlying actual trend still seems to be much improved. 

2. New Learnings

The problem of counting COVID deaths is only one manifestation of the epistemic challenges presented by COVID. We are learning more every day, and every new bit of knowledge we gain seems to expose another gap or raise another question: there have been pieces in the press over the last ~day or so on the importance of comorbidities, the massive diversity of the coronavirus genome due to mutations, and whether COVID’s respiratory distress might be less like pneumonia and more like oxygen deprivation similar to altitude sickness (this has very important implications for the use of ventilators, which could do more harm than good if patients who have healthy muscles are given too much pressure). The pace of learning that we are experiencing is encouraging (it’s actually breathtakingly fast in any kind of historical perspective), but like any other complex phenomenon, the more we learn about COVID the more we realize how much we still need to learn.  

3. The Economic Front

On the economic front, the newsfeed is reasonably positive on the effects of stimulus to date, with more stories on tweaking or expanding (e.g., for various lending facilities) and significant coverage of relief of early problems in orderly trading in financial markets. Orderly markets and the news of declining case counts is resulting in a surge of coverage into the (still very preliminary) planning for the reopening of economies around the world. The challenges mentioned in the coverage are those that I have written about over the past ~week, e.g., the fact that we will experience flare-ups until there is a vaccines, the fact that there will be no vaccine for a year or more, the need for widespread testing and targeted quarantines to avoid massive lockdowns in the future, the lack of current testing capacity, etc. It’s not good that these remain problems. But on the other hand, we are only about ~one month past the decision to impose the massive shut downs. If the learning curve is as steep on re-openings as it has been on other challenges we’ve faced since early March, then perhaps we have good reason to be hopeful.  

Markets certainly are expressing that hope. Global equities were up again yesterday, in the low single digits. US equities are now ~26% higher than the March 23 bottom (though they remain 21% below the February peak). Today so far (8:00 AM EDT Thursday) equities have been flat-ish in Asia and Europe, and look to be down slightly at the open in NY based on future trading. The VIX is down from recent peaks, but still elevated. 

Volatility and sensitivity to the news cycle is the order of the day, and intra-day swings of 3-4% like the one we had on Tuesday this week are certainly possible. Again for perspective: There were exactly zero days in 2017 when US equities dropped 3% or more. That’s been happening about twice a week for the last month.  

4. WHO Criticism

On the bigger-picture front, the WHO is being subject to increasing criticism for being unduly influenced by China, both generally and specifically with respect to its conduct and the conduct of its director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in the early stages of the crisis. Yesterday there was a dust-up in which the director general accused Taiwan, who has been one of the more critical parties, of making racist attacks against him. I’m not sure this will work for him or the WHO; if I were being accused of being inordinately influenced by mainland China, I would probably avoid lashing out at Taiwan.  

5. Lack of Preparedness

Finally: don’t miss Daniel Henniger’s column on the west’s lack of preparedness for the crisis.  

About this article

Like everyone, I am trying to make sense of the current situation. For the past month, I've been writing daily reflections to help myself and my colleagues make sense of an enormous amount of information and think beyond the day’s headlines. I now offer these thoughts to you in a series of articles aimed to provide perspective and help you navigate the rapidly evolving COVID-19 situation. I hope you find them useful and welcome your thoughts and comments. 

About me

Current President of Marsh Client Advisory Services. Former Oliver Wyman Partner. Avid writer and reader. Husband and father of three.