This is Post one of a series of posts from doctors, Nobel prizes and other authorities highlighting the absurdities and propaganda we have been served concerning the Corona Virus crisis. Now that we are almost 6 months into the so called pandemics, some conclusions can be drawn. I do not necessarily agree with all the points discussed bellow but still believe these people are worth listening to, to form an educated opinion.

In this first post, based on strong statistical evidence, Prof Michael Levitt gives his opinion that the lockdowns were not only mistakes but counter-productive. This is a scientific opinion. We will later listen to economists showing us from an economist point of view, how the social over-reaction was not only counter productive but will in the end kill more people than doing nothing, on top of course of destroying our economies which by itself will end up being even more costly in human lives in the long term.

After these last few posts on Corona virus, we will move to the economic and social consequences as they start boiling over to the surface as can be seen most clearly in the US now. One thing is certain, the virus was only a black swan, our social and economic systems will be facing daunting risks and challenges over the coming years. This is the beginning of a process of transformation on a scale we haven't seen for the last 500 years.   

Nobel Prize Winner: Lockdowns Are "A Huge Mistake"

Authored by Edward Peter Stringham via The American Institute for Economic research,

Michael Levitt is Professor of computer science and structural biology at Stanford Medical School and winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

He has been a close observer of the pandemic and the response from the outset through its movement to Europe, the U.K., and the U.S.. Last month, speaking to the Unherd podcast and youtube channel, he offered some compelling thoughts and observers, and a striking conclusion.

Below is a transcript of the parts I found most relevant.

Q: So you noticed that the curve was less of an exponential curve than we might have feared, in those early days?
A: In some ways there was never any exponential growth from the minute I looked at it, there were never any two days that had exactly the same growth rate — and they were getting slow…of course you could have non exponential growth where every single day they’re getting more than exponential — but the growth was always sub-exponential. So that’s the first step.
Q: [In the UK] we talk endlessly about the R-rate — the reproduction rate — and apparently that began very high, maybe as high as 3, and … [we’ve now] got it down below 1 in the UK. Intuitively, if there’s a high reproduction rate, you should see that exponential curve just going up and up.
A: Well no, wait, okay. The R-0, which is very popular, is in some ways a faulty number. Let me explain why. The rate of growth doesn’t depend on R-0. It depends on R-0 and the time you are infectious. So if you are twice as long infectious and have half the R-0 you’ll get exactly the same growth rate. This is sort of intuitive, but it’s not explained, and therefore it seems to me that I would say at the present time R-0 became important because of a lot of movies — it was very popular — talked about R-0.
Epidemiologists talk about R-0 but, looking at all the mathematics, you have to specify the time infectious at the same time to have any meaning. The other problem is that R-0 decreases — we don’t know why R-0 decreases. It could be social distancing, it could be prior immunity, it could be hidden cases.
Q: You’ve been observing the shapes of these curves and how the R-0 number tends to come down and the curve tends to flatten in some kind of natural way regardless of intervention. Is that what you are observing?
A: We don’t know. I think the big test is going to be Sweden. Sweden is practicing a level of social distancing that is keeping children in schools, keeping people at work. They are obviously having more deaths in countries like Israel or Austria that are practicing very very strict social distancing but I think it is not a crazy policy. The reason I felt that social distancing was unimportant is practicing very very strict social distancing, but I think it is not a crazy policy.
The reason I felt that social distancing was unimportant is that I had two examples in China to start with and then we had the additional examples. The first one was South Korea (yeah), and Iran, and Italy. The beginning of all the epidemics showing a slowing down, and it was very hard for me to believe that those three countries could practice social-distancing as well as China. China was amazing, especially outside Hubei, in that they had no additional outbreaks. People left Hubei, they were very carefully tracked, had to wear face masks all the time, had to take their temperatures all the time, and there were no further outbreaks.
So this did not happen in either in South Korea or in Italy or in Iran. Now, two months later something else suggests that social distancing might not be important, and that is that the total number of deaths we’re seeing in New York City, in parts of England, in parts of France, in northern Italy — all seem to stop at about the same direction of the population so are they all practicing equally good social distancing? I don’t think so.
The problem I think is outbreaks occurring in different regions. I think social distancing that stops people moving from London to Manchester is probably a really good idea. My feeling is that in London, and in New York City, all the people who got infected, all got infected before anybody noticed. There’s no way that the infection grew so quickly in New York City without the infection spreading very quickly. So one of the key things is to stop people, who know that they’re sick, from infecting the others. Here again, China has three very, very important advantages that are not high-tech that don’t involve security tracking of telephones.
What they involve is, number one, the tradition in China for years, of wearing a face mask when you’re sick. As soon as the coronavirus started everybody wore a face mask. It doesn’t have to be a hygienic face mask it just has to be a face covering to stop you spraying saliva, micro droplets of saliva on somebody you talk to. The second thing in China is that because they were so scared of the SARS epidemic in most airports, stations where you pay tolls et cetera, there are thermometers. Infrared thermometers that that measure your temperature. So having your temperature measured at every single store entrance — either with a handheld thermometer or with something mounted on the wall — is something completely standard in China. And the third thing is that almost all payments in China are made not using a credit card, so in some senses it is very much easier there to practice social distancing. Of course, in addition they know where people are.
Q: What’s your view of the lockdown policy that so many European countries and states in America have introduced?
A: I think it is a huge mistake. I think we need smart lockdowns. If we were to do this again, we would probably insist on face masks, hand sanitizers, and some kind of payment that did not involve touching right from the very beginning. This would slow down new outbreaks and I think that for example they found as I understand, that children, even if they’re infected, never infect adults, so why do we not have children at school? Why do we not have people working? England, France, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Holland, are all reaching levels of saturation that are going to be very, very close to herd immunity — So that’s a good thing. I think the policy of herd immunity is the right policy. I think Britain was on exactly the right track — before they were fed wrong numbers and they made a huge mistake.
I see the standout winners as Germany and Sweden. They didn’t practice too much lock down, they got enough people sick to get some herd immunity. The standout  losers are countries like Austria, Australia, Israel that actually had very very strict lockdowns but didn’t have many cases. So they have damaged their economies, caused massive social damage, damaged the educational year of their children, but not obtained any herd immunity. 
I think in many ways the European countries are fine. They didn’t need to have lockdown but they have all reached a high enough level of infection not to have to worry about further future attacks of coronavirus. The United States seems to be heading that way, they’re certainly that way in New York City but they still have a long way to go
Q: What you’re saying is that, you believe success — as we are currently measuring it which is as few cases as possible and as small a spread of the virus as possible — is actually failure?
A: I think if you really control your epidemic, for example, California, it’s now had lockdowns for six weeks, and wants another four weeks, they have so far less than a hundred deaths, that means they don’t have more (let’s say a hundred thousand) in people, that is not enough to give them significant herd immunity. They didn’t need to do all that lock down.
The lockdown is particularly hurtful in countries that don’t have good social infrastructure, countries like the United States and Israel. Many, many people have been really really hurt — especially young people. You know I think that everybody panicked — they were fed incorrect numbers by epidemiologists and you know this I think led to led to a situation. 
There is no doubt in my mind that when we come to look back on this, the damage done by lockdowns will exceed any saving of lives by a huge factor. One very easy way to see this is, and again I am getting into a sensitive territory here, but economists have a very simple way of looking at death. They don’t count people. They come to the conclusion that if you’re 20 and you die that’s a greater loss than if you’re 85 and you die. It’s a hard issue, but in some ways are we valuing the potential future life of the 20 year old? Are we valuing the loss of more senior persons by what’s called daily disability-adjusted life years. Basically if somebody is in their 80s, has Alzheimer’s disease, and then dies from pneumonia (perhaps due to corona) that is less of a loss than if a 15 year old is riding his motorcycle bike and gets run over. This is an important way of looking at death.
It’s also you know, right now, the number of excess deaths is around 130,000 up to yesterday, [May 1st]. This is for all of Europe, for a population of around 330 million people. So an excess of 100,000 for this whole year, is actually not that much. In some of the worst flu epidemics we get to those kinds of numbers — sometimes it’s a bit more, sometimes a little bit less. 
Now, I’m not saying flu is like coronavirus, I’m just simply saying that the burden of death of flu is like coronavirus. Especially when we correct for the fact that people who die from coronavirus are older on average than people who died from flu. Flu kills young people, it kills two or three times more people under 65 than does coronavirus. If we put those facts into the situation we find that the burden of death from coronavirus and Phillip Shaw will, in Europe, where we have good numbers in less than that of a very flu.
Another factor which has not been considered are all the cancer patients who aren’t being treated, or all the heart cardiology patients who aren’t being treated. I’ve got estimates of tens of thousands of people who are basically going to be dying because of lack of that treatment — and generally again the age group who die of cancer are younger than the age group who die of coronavirus. 
There’s one very easy way to sort of summarize coronavirus. I put an article in the medium by the pretty famous British statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge [University] and he had said that the numbers coming from Ferguson suggested that we had to lose about one year of people. It turns out that I immediately wrote an article in the same medium and replied to him, saying that in fact the answer was actually one month, not one year. So basically my feeling is, and it’s being supported by the numbers, is that the amount of excess death you need to reach saturation, I’m not going to call it herd immunity, where the virus by itself stops, is on the order of four weeks of excess. Now to give you some idea in the European area where there is good monitoring, by a website called EuroMoMo, run out of Denmark, which covers about 300 million people. Every week in Europe in that area there’s around 50,000 natural deaths. So in four weeks there will be about 200,000 extra deaths in that year — and it looks like coronavirus in Europe where it’s no doubt that it’s the most severely hit area in the world — we’ll probably reach around 200,000 or 4 weeks worth.
Q: So what happens if what you’re saying is there’s a sort of statistical observation which is around four weeks of excess death and then the pandemic seems to peter out, or begin to flatten out. What does that mean policy-wise for these European countries then?
A: If we could protect the old people perfectly, then the death rates would be very, very low. So for example in Europe there were about 140,000 excess deaths in the last nine weeks. The number of those excess deaths who are younger than 65 is about 10%. So basically 13,000 of 130,000 deaths are actually under 65 years old and if we had simply been able to protect elderly people then the death rate would have been much much less. But the key thing is to have as much infection for as little possible death and also do whatever you can to keep the hospitals full but not overflowing. It’s a difficult calculation and the trouble is that in Sweden there’s no political concerns.
The trouble is is that in Israel and I know as well in the United States, everything is political and therefore nobody could say something like this. They would say, “Ah, but you are not valuing death — the thing that should have been done is for the media to stress to people that everyday somebody dies. These people are essentially in the same age band, and they die from Corona and other comorbidities, other diseases. 
I’ve become a huge fan of Twitter. I’d never used twitter before and for me Twitter is the best discussion forum I had seen since I was a student at the Cambridge Laboratory of Natural Biology. Which is a 26 Nobel Prize winning lab. The best lab in the world. The Twitter discussion is phenomenal and I’m getting documents from Italy showing that many of the Covid deaths were either dead before they were tested or else they had up to three other conditions. There is nothing wrong with this, people die for all sorts of reasons, but the news should be stressing this and maybe they should be counting it as a 0.1 Covid death.
Countries seem to be racing to have as many Covid deaths as they could, and this is a huge mistake. In the flu season no one cares about these people. I mean, the total number of Covid deaths in Europe will be very similar to a severe flu season, and you know, this is serious. Flu is a serious disease. Maybe we should just shut down the economy during the flu season. I mean people should have been made to understand it. Unfortunately I think in Britain they started out wanting to go for herd immunity without too much lockdown, there was then a scary paper — which is likely to be retracted — which influenced Italy as well where basically it was claimed they were — [Interviewer interrupts]
Q: I know you had some specific queries about Neil Ferguson’s paper; we had him on the show last week. So, what did you think he got wrong in those models and predictions?
A: His work was on modelling, and around the 10th of February he had his first paper (that I saw) and in there he was getting a case fatality ratio of around 15%, whereas all my observations were saying that it was around three or four percent. So I was suspicious: I looked at the paper very carefully and in a footnote to a table it said “assuming exponential growth for six days at fifteen percent a day.” Now, I had looked at China, and never, ever seen exponential growth that wasn’t decaying rapidly so I was suspicious. My numbers were 10% of the numbers that Ferguson had obtained. I pointed this out, in a reply in the medium — which was out there, it’s clear nobody has ever seen it but it’s there, and I didn’t hide it it just didn’t get any likes and this said that it was much more like one month than one year and have an exchange with Spiegelhalta and Ferguson, where I tried to show my case.
But all I was doing was just simple proportionality using exactly the same profile of — different ages have different death rates, so there’s a profile saying that people over 80 have a certain fraction of the disk [deaths] people between 17 and 80 have a different fraction — just using that data… and simply saying we want the number of deaths that occurred on the Diamond Princess to be the same number that we found which was 7 or 8. If you do that, and then you apply that proportionality to Britain and the USA, you find that for Britain the half a million drops to about 50,000 and in the United States the two million drops to 200,000. Essentially a year dropping to a month.
Q: And so the the argument that is made here is that whether you believe the infection fatality rate is point three percent or whether you believe it’s point eight percent there is still a big chunk of the population, the majority population who hasn’t had been exposed to the disease or hasn’t had it and therefore if we just let it rip there will be many many tens possibly even further hundreds according to Professor Ferguson of thousands of deaths and that’s why it’s politically totally not an option to be at do anything other than follow this ultra cautious approach.What do you say to that?
A: The World Health Organization, and epidemiologists in general, can only go wrong if they give [politicians] a number smaller. If I said it’s going to be 1 billion deaths from coronavirus and it’s, “oh, you guys have done what I’ve said and there’s only gonna be a hundred thousands,” that is considered good policy. They overestimated bird flu by a factor of a hundred, or ten thousand in The Guardian. The Guardian wrote about this. Ebola was overestimated by a factor of 100 I think. They see their role as scaring people into doing something. I can understand that and there’s something to be said for it. If you could practice lock down with zero economic costs, and zero social costs — let’s do it. But the trouble is that those costs are huge, we’re gonna have fatalities from hospitals being closed down, additional children in trauma, businesses damaged — maybe less so in the UK because of the compensation policy — but certainly massive economic damage in the USA and in Israel, and in other countries. So you need to balance both of these things.
That is what I don’t think is responsible. In my work if I say a number is too small and I’m wrong or a number is too big and I’m wrong, both of those errors are the same. If I’m 10 percent too high or 10 percent too low that is okay. It seems that being a factor of a thousand too high is perfectly okay in epidemiology, but being a factor of three too low, is too low. 
Q: I’m trying to think about what this means for the UK and for these countries that are trying to work out what to do next.Is your view then having looked at the numbers that if we had not implemented lockdown we would have seen a fall off anyway is that a fair summary?
A: We could have had smart lockdown. Sweden, for example, doesn’t allow gatherings of more than 50 people. I think a football game would be a really bad idea right now, because people shout and therefore spray saliva on everyone around them, and they could infect a lot of people. But you know Sweden is doing fine, their deaths again are very localized to nursing homes, like they are in England — it’s the same profile.
I think that you know again it’s Sweden so all the evidence suggests that. So my contradiction is the following: Britain, if they had done nothing would have had reported deaths. Now remember there’s a difference of reported death, my numbers are all reported. This would have four weeks of additional reported death when the numbers actually came in from what were the real axis death. My guess is they would be less than that so it would not have been double. It wasn’t in the month but maybe one and three quarters or so on. So that is my feeling — we’re seeing this in Europe we will know the answer in three or four weeks time. We will know for all of Europe exactly what the excess death of coronavirus was, right now it’s a hundred and thirty seven thousand.
Q: Do you find when you’ve been making these points — in the media that you received a lot of backlash? Do you think there’s a lot of political pressure, as an academic and as an academic you know they’re one of your colleagues in Stanford dr. Ioannidis has also put out studies that seem to become skeptical and has received a lot of political blowback.
A: I went on CNN once when he was CNN Vicky Anderson out of London. I appeared on Fox News a couple of times basically said this is all just common sense because I appeared on Fox News CNN wouldn’t have me anymore. So basically I have had very clear of things. I had one article in the Los Angeles Times which did great but since I was not saying things that were too extreme none of the East Coast newspapers wanted me, they quoted me, but they wouldn’t have me. What’s disconcerting is, a few of my academic colleagues — even relatives — were very upset with me. Because in my earlier writing I published a report, the medium report from the 22nd of March but on the 13th or 14th of March I distributed a 19 page report,and three academics got very upset with me. I think they were totally panicked, and they felt that if anyone thought this was true they wouldn’t lock down as tightly as they should, I’m in fact friends with all the people again, there are no hard feelings. 
Q: Let me leave you with one final question: what’s your prognosis, what do you think is now gonna happen with this… what happens next?
A: There will be a reckoning. Maybe countries will start to see that they need governments that are not necessarily great in rhetoric, but actually thinking and doing. I often go back and think about what Socrates said 2,400 years ago: use your common sense instead of listening to the rhetoric of leaders. We have become very influenced by [rhetoric] that. I think this is another foul-up on the part of the baby boomers.
I am a real baby-boomer, I was born in 1947, and I think we’ve really screwed up. We cause pollution, we allowed the world’s population to increase three-fold, we’ve caused the problems of global warming, we’ve left your generation with a real mess in order to save a really small number of very old people. If I was a young person now, I would say, “now you guys are gonna pay for this.”
We have my family whatsapp and very early on I said this is a virus being designed to get rid of the baby boomers. You know I don’t know, I think my wife thinks this is going to be a take it to the streets thing,and we’re gonna have the young people on the street saying you guys have really screwed up it’s time to go. And I always joke with her, saying well at least I’ve made lots of friends among the young people, I’ll be okay.
But quite frankly you know I’ve had a great life, and I must say this to all the young faces in front of me. I have a grandson who’s 17. I’d much rather have young people live for a very long time. That said I do have a mother who’s a hundred and five years old living in London with my brother, she’s in lockdown and I talk to her by whatsapp every single day on FaceTime, and she’s fine. She still uses her phone and so on so you know these differences but…
You guys should get out there and do something don’t accept this anymore we screwed up too much 

Did we allucinate an epidemics?

The corona virus in perspective.
So much economic destruction for so few casualties.
In France the median age of death from the virus is 84 year old.
This is older that life expectancy!
In many cases, it is not even certain that the virus is the cause of death.
Which practically means that the added mortality in 2020 will be nil!

This crisis will remain as one of the biggest blunder in political history when decisions were taken based on faulty mathematical projections from Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College in London which showed hundred of thousands of deaths within months which obviously did not materialized.
Conversely, the successful strategy pursued in Asia to wear masks and isolate a few hot spots resulted in a death rate 10 to 20 times less in countries like Japan and Korea.

Now the medical emergency is almost over in Europe and past its peak in the US, just as the economic crisis is gaining speed. The social and political consequences will wait until later this year but will probably go far beyond a mere epidemics.

Coronavirus, what happens when you get the statistics wrong?

The truth is out. We've got the data of the pandemic wrong! Now what?

The Wuhan Coronavirus was born under suspicious circumstances. China obfuscated, tried to hide the truth for as long as possible. First reprimanded the doctors who rang the alarm bells, then put the P4 laboratory in Wuhan under military supervision, ordered all samples destroyed and a shut down of independent publications. Finally, the country reacted strongly, putting the city, then the whole Hebei province under a two month long lock-down, while declaring that there was nothing to fear and the W.H.O parroting the Chinese position, prevaricated for months before declaring that a pandemic was on-going.

But thanks to the one major characteristics of this Coronavirus, its very high number of asymptomatic cases (people being sick but showing no symptoms), the virus did spread around the world, first to Korea and Italy, then to all other countries with very few exceptions. Asia reacted quickly by closing down stores early, requesting that people wear masks and comprehensive detection and tracking policies. The results were immediate and the number of cases slowed almost immediately to a crawl. Europe and especially the US did not. The number of sick people exploded and a couple of weeks later the death's curve followed suit.

Early on, based on a very limited number of test, a low R0 (spread of the virus), and an extremely high death rates of close to 3% were calculated, and models showing millions of deaths down the line were built, especially by the London Imperial College in the UK. Most countries panicked and followed the Chinese example of a complete lock-down... and all without exceptions got it wrong! The reason for the mistake was simple and basic; they got their statistics wrong. The extremely high number of asymptomatic cases created an illusion of a high death rate whereas we now know that this was not the case.

In the end, the Wuhan Coronavirus is a dangerous virus. For people with weak immune systems, mostly the old, obese and diabetics, the risk is clearly high and whenever someone gets sick, the road from emergency to respirator to death can be a quick one. But for everybody else... nothing. Not even mild flu symptoms! The one exception which in itself is a scandal is the very high number of doctors and nurses who have succumbed for the simple reasons of high viral loads and poor protection.

But bad statistics were not limited to poor projections, most countries went one step further by declaring that whenever the virus was detected, the causes of death should be attributed to the virus. Consequently, the number of old age people dying from the virus exploded, while the real number of death in most countries stayed flat. Now that the numbers are out, especially in France, we finally know that the total number of death did not show any uptick. 2020 is turning out to be another ordinary year, and in most case a rather low flu season in Europe. 

But do not expect any countries to cancel their lock-down order any time soon, and even less to apologize, declaring that they got their numbers and consequently policies wrong! That's unfortunately not how things work.

Responsible people will hide their incompetence behind dubious numbers then politicians will focus their attention of the terrible economic consequences of their failed virus mitigation policies. Few will show that countries who did not implement a complete lockdown of their economies like Sweden did not see the predicted explosion, proving that these policies were an over-reaction.

But the legacy of this failure will be with us for years to come. In the end the virus, beyond a few very limited hot spots will not have killed that many people compared to any other ordinary year, but if, as it seems more or more likely, it becomes the pin which burst the financial bubble, it will then have proved far more dangerous than expected, by showing the weakness of our system and the real risks of the contagion of fear.

It may also have a positive consequence demonstrating that our over centralization and over reliance on the state have become toxic and destructive. But don't count on it. The isolated voices of reason will quickly be drawn in a tsunami of spin and propaganda proving that all the wrong decisions were taken for the right reasons; The destruction of millions of jobs and countless thousands of small businesses, the unfortunate byproduct of the need for precautions. The trampling of individual freedom, an absolute necessity for the better good of all.

It would be great if people kept clapping their hands and banging their pans once a day to remember this terrible episode of failed policies of social engineering. But most probably, they won't. They will be far too busy putting back their lives together and coping with the disastrous economic consequences of a virus most caught without even noticing.   

As for the real economy, let's see what happens once the dollars, Euros and Yens stop dropping from the sky. But will they? Or conversely will we see the takeover of the whole economy by the states? We've seen how this worked, rather poorly, in the past. Don't expect miracles, this time won't be different! 

Coronavirus: Who is right?

While trying to understand the arguments about Coronavirus, slowly a clearer picture is emerging. The virus is neither benign not the end of the world, just in-between. Still, the economic consequences of our over-reaction will be beyond our expectations...

The best article I have found which resume this conclusion is the one below.

The Facts That Prove Almost Everyone Is Wrong About This Pandemic

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,
When it comes to COVID-19, most Americans seem to be gravitating toward one of two extremes.  Some are treating this pandemic like it is the end of the world, while many others are dismissing it as a “nothingburger”.
But the truth is somewhere in between.
Nobody can deny that lots of people are getting sick and lots of people are dying.  In fact, the U.S. death toll has doubled in a little over a week and it has now shot past the 47,000 mark.  And as this pandemic progresses, a lot more people are going to get sick and a lot more people are going to die, and this is going to be true whether the lockdowns continue or not.  The lockdowns were never going to stop COVID-19, and anyone that believed that was just being delusional.

The only time a lockdown should be instituted is if a pandemic has gotten so bad in an area that hospitals are being absolutely overwhelmed, because if people can’t get treatment that is a factor that could potentially increase the overall death toll substantially.
In most of the United States that is not happening right now, and so in most of the nation the lockdowns should be immediately ended.
But won’t a lot more people start getting sick if that happens?
Of course, and this is something that the “nothingburger” crowd doesn’t understand.  Lifting the lockdowns is going to cause the virus to cycle through our population at a much faster rate, and the numbers will get pretty ugly.  But as long as the medical system can handle it, lockdowns are not necessary.
What “the end of the world” crowd does not understand is that when you are dealing with a virus that spreads as easily as this one, it is inevitable that most of the population will eventually become infected.  You can “flatten the curve” and delay the inevitable with lockdowns, but that also prolongs the pandemic.  In the end, roughly the same number of people will get sick and roughly the same number of people will die no matter how the pandemic is “managed”.

This week, the “nothingburger” crowd has made a really big deal out of the fact that a study conducted in L.A. county discovered that about 4 percent of all residents had already developed COVID-19 antibodies, and they were trying to use that study to prove that this pandemic is not much of a threat at all.
Actually, it shows just the opposite.
This pandemic is not going to be over until herd immunity is achieved, and according to Johns Hopkins that does not happen until 70 to 90 percent of a population has developed immunity…

When most of a population is immune to an infectious disease, this provides indirect protection—or herd immunity (also called herd protection)—to those who are not immune to the disease.
For example, if 80% of a population is immune to a virus, four out of every five people who encounter someone with the disease won’t get sick (and won’t spread the disease any further). In this way, the spread of infectious diseases is kept under control. Depending how contagious an infection is, usually 70% to 90% of a population needs immunity to achieve herd immunity.

So let’s do some really quick math.
Let’s assume that the study conducted in L.A. County is representative of the nation as a whole and that approximately 4 percent of all Americans have now developed antibodies.
And let’s also assume that herd immunity for COVID-19 will be achieved when 80 percent of the total population has developed antibodies.
If 47,000 Americans have died at the current 4 percent level of exposure, that means that we could potentially be looking at an overall death toll of 940,000 once we hit an 80 percent exposure level.
Does anyone in the “nothingburger” crowd want to try to claim that 940,000 dead Americans is not a big deal?
I keep hearing people say that this virus “is just like the flu”, and that is absolutely absurd.  As Mike Adams of Natural News has pointed out, COVID-19 has killed more Americans in the last 17 days than the flu did in the last year…

In the last 17 days, the Wuhan coronavirus has killed more Americans (35,087) than the regular flu kills in an entire year (34,157 for the last year). It obliterates any last shred of the argument — still heard across the independent media — that the coronavirus is “no worse than the flu.”
The coronavirus remains the No. 1 cause of death in America on a day-to-day basis, clocking in at 2,804 deaths just today. Total deaths in the USA will exceed 46,000 tomorrow, confirming our earlier projection that estimated 46,000 to 93,000 deaths from coronavirus in the USA by the end of July. It’s not even the end of April, and we’re already beyond 45,000. (At the time we made the projection, it was dismissed as “crazy” by the very same people who still claim the coronavirus is “no worse than the flu.” Those are the people who can’t do math.)

And actually the number of Americans dying from the coronavirus is being seriously undercounted.
In New York City, if someone dies at home they are typically not tested to see if they have the coronavirus.  So even though the number of city residents dying at home is now nearly ten times higher than normal, the vast majority of those cases are never showing up in the official numbers.
But the “end of the world” crowd seems to think that if we just keep everyone at home long enough that we can significantly reduce the final death toll from this pandemic, and that just isn’t accurate either.

Right now, the virus continues to spread even though most of the U.S. has now been locked down for weeks.  In fact, there were nearly 30,000 more confirmed cases during the 24 hour period that just ended.  Whether it does it relatively quickly or relatively slowly, this virus will continue to rip through our population until we eventually get to the point of herd immunity.
“Experts” such as Bill Gates are suggesting that the lockdowns are “buying us time” until our scientists can develop a “vaccine”, but the truth is that is really not much more than a pipe dream.

As I pointed out yesterday, there has never been a successful vaccine for any coronavirus in all of human history, and now that scientists have discovered approximately 30 different strains of the virus that will just make the task of trying to develop a vaccine even more complicated.
Sadly, the reality of the matter is that this virus is going to be with us for a very long time to come.  Eventually herd immunity will hopefully be achieved, but until then a lot of people are going to get sick and a lot of people are going to die.
And fear of this virus is going to be with us for a long time to come as well, and that is going to paralyze our economy whether there are lockdowns or not.
The bottom line is that this virus is not going to be stopped, and the economic collapse that has now begun is not going to be stopped either.
But this isn’t the end of the world, and most of us will get through this.  Of course even bigger challenges lie beyond the end of this pandemic, but that is a topic for another article.
As of this moment, COVID-19 has killed more than 184,000 people around the globe, and by the end of this pandemic the overall death toll is likely to be much, much higher than that.

There is no way that you can possibly call that a “nothingburger”, and sticking your head in the sand is not going to help anything.  But on the other hand, trying to lock down the entire planet is not going to solve this crisis either.  It will simply delay the inevitable, because this virus is just going to continue to spread no matter what actions our politicians take.

Confirmation that the Wuhan Coronavirus genome contains HIV sequences (video)

This is a Bombshell: 
Now that Dr Montagnier, French Nobel Prize of medecine on the HIV virus has confirmed that the Wuhan coronavirus genome contains HIV sequences in addition to the S protein, it is time for China to come clean and admit that these research were indeed being conducted in Wuhan and that the virus escaped from the laboratory. Here's the interview. (in French unfortunately) #wuhancoronavirus #wuhanvirus #breakingnews #chinacoronavirus #china #HIV #coronavirus #coronaviruswho

The Eurodollar Market is the real Matrix!

This is a superb article from Michel Every at Rabobank which explains the Eurodollar financial market and summarize the risks it represents for the world economy. Could the Eurodollar be the cause of the breakdown of our financial system? Quite possible and even likely! Read on!

Submitted to Zerohedge by Michael Every of Rabobank / April12, 2020
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/down-rabbit-hole-eurodollar-market-matrix-behind-it-all

Summary

• The Eurodollar system is a critical but often misunderstood driver of global financial markets: its importance cannot be understated.
• Its origins are shrouded in mystery and intrigue; its operations are invisible to most; and yet it controls us in many ways. We will attempt to enlighten readers on what it is and what it means.
• However, it is also a system under huge structural pressures – and as such we may be about to experience a profound paradigm shift with key implications for markets, economies, and geopolitics.
• Recent Fed actions on swap lines and repo facilities only underline this fact rather than reducing its likelihood

What is The Matrix?

A new world-class golf course in an Asian country financed with a USD bank loan. A Mexican property developer buying a hotel in USD. A European pension company wanting to hold USD assets and swapping borrowed EUR to do so. An African retailer importing Chinese-made toys for sale, paying its invoice in USD.
All of these are small examples of the multi-faceted global Eurodollar market. Like The Matrix, it is all around us, and connects us. Also just like The Matrix, most are unaware of its existence even as it defines the parameters we operate within. As we shall explore in this special report, it is additionally a Matrix that encompasses an implicit power struggle that only those who grasp its true nature are cognizant of.
Moreover, at present this Matrix and its Architect face a huge, perhaps existential, challenge.
Yes, it has overcome similar crises before...but it might be that the Novel (or should we say ‘Neo’?) Coronavirus is The One.
So, here is the key question to start with: What is the Eurodollar system? 

For Neo-phytes

The Eurodollar system is a critical but often misunderstood driver of global financial markets: its importance cannot be understated. While most market participants are aware of its presence to some degree, not many grasp the extent to which it impacts on markets, economies,…and geopolitics - indeed, the latter is particularly underestimated.
Yet before we go down that particular rabbit hole, let’s start with the basics. In its simplest form, a Eurodollar is an unsecured USD deposit held outside of the US. They are not under the US’ legal jurisdiction, nor are they subject to US rules and regulations.
To avoid any potential confusion, the term Eurodollar came into being long before the Euro currency, and the “euro” has nothing to do with Europe. In this context it is used in the same vein as Eurobonds, which are also not EUR denominated bonds, but rather debt issued in a different currency to the company of that issuing. For example, a Samurai bond--that is to say a bond issued in JPY by a nonJapanese issuer--is also a type of Eurobond.
As with Eurobonds, eurocurrencies can reflect many different underlying real currencies. In fact, one could talk about a Euroyen, for JPY, or even a Euroeuro, for EUR. Yet the Eurodollar dwarfs them: we shall show the scale shortly.

More(pheous) background
So how did the Eurodollar system come to be, and how has it grown into the behemoth it is today? Like all global systems, there are many conspiracy theories and fantastical claims that surround the birth of the Eurodollar market. While some of these stories may have a grain of truth, we will try and stick to the known facts.
A number of parallel events occurred in the late 1950s that led to the Eurodollar’s creation – and the likely suspects sound like the cast of a spy novel. The Eurodollar market began to emerge after WW2, when US Dollars held outside of the US began to increase as the US consumed more and more goods from overseas. Some also cite the role of the Marshall Plan, where the US transferred over USD12bn (USD132bn equivalent now) to Western Europe to help them rebuild and fight the appeal of Soviet communism.
Of course, these were just USD outside of the US and not Eurodollars. Where the plot thickens is that, increasingly, the foreign recipients of USD became concerned that the US might use its own currency as a power play. As the Cold War bit, Communist countries became particularly concerned about the safety of their USD held with US banks. After all, the US had used its financial power for geopolitical gains when in 1956, in response to the British invading Egypt during the Suez Crisis, it had threatened to intensify the pressure on GBP’s peg to USD under Bretton Woods: this had forced the British into a humiliating withdrawal and an acceptance that their status of Great Power was not compatible with their reduced economic and financial circumstances.
With rising fears that the US might freeze the Soviet Union’s USD holdings, action was taken: in 1957, the USSR moved their USD holdings to a bank in London, creating the first Eurodollar deposit and seeding our current UScentric global financial system – by a country opposed to the US in particular and capitalism in general.
There are also alternative origin stories. Some claim the first Eurodollar deposit was made during the Korean War with China moving USD to a Parisian bank.
Meanwhile, the Eurodollar market spawned a widely-known financial instrument, the London Inter Bank Offer Rate, or LIBOR. Indeed, LIBOR is an offshore USD interest rate which emerged in the 1960s as those that borrowed Eurodollars needed a reference rate for larger loans that might need to be syndicated. Unlike today, however, LIBOR was an average of offered lending rates, hence the name, and was not based on actual transactions as the first tier of the LIBOR submission waterfall is today.

Dozer and Tank
So how large is the Eurodollar market today? Like the Matrix - vast. As with the origins of the Eurodollar system, itself nothing is transparent. However, we have tried to estimate an indicative total using Bank for International Settlements (BIS) data for:

• On-balance sheet USD liabilities held by non-US banks;
• USD Credit commitments, guarantees extended, and derivatives contracts of non-US banks (C, G, D);
• USD debt liabilities of non-US non-financial corporations;
• Over-the-Counter (OTC) USD derivative claims of non-US non-financial corporations; and
• Global goods imports in USD excluding those of the US and intra-Eurozone trade.

The results are as shown below as of end-2018: USD57 trillion, nearly three times the size of the US economy before it was hit by the COVID-19 virus. Even if this measure is not complete, it underlines the scale of the market.

 It also shows its vast power in that this is an equally large structural global demand for USD.  Every import, bond, loan, credit guarantee, or derivate needs to be settled in USD.
Indeed, fractional reserve banking means that an initial Eurodollar can be multiplied up (e.g., Eurodollar 100m can be used as the base for a larger Eurodollar loan, and leverage increased further). Yet non-US entities are NOT able to conjure up USD on demand when needed because they don’t have a central bank behind them which can produce USD by fiat, which only the Federal Reserve can.
This power to create the USD that everyone else transacts and trades in is an essential point to grasp on the Eurodollar – which is ironically also why it was created in the first place!

Tri-ffi-nity
Given the colourful history, ubiquitous nature, and critical importance of the Eurodollar market, a second question then arises: Why don’t people know about The Matrix?
The answer is easy: because once one is aware of it, one immediately wishes to have taken the Blue Pill instead.
Consider what the logic of the Eurodollar system implies. Global financial markets and the global economy rely on the common standard of the USD for pricing, accounting, trading, and deal making. Imagine a world with a hundred different currencies – or even a dozen: it would be hugely problematic to manage, and would not allow anywhere near the level of integration we currently enjoy.
However, at root the Eurodollar system is based on using the national currency of just one country, the US, as the global reserve currency. This means the world is beholden to a currency that it cannot create as needed.
When a crisis hits, as at present, everyone in the Eurodollar system suddenly realizes they have no ability to create fiat USD and must rely on national USD FX reserves and/or Fed swap lines that allow them to swap local currency for USD for a period. This obviously grants the US enormous power and privilege.
The world is also beholden to US monetary policy cycles rather than local ones: higher US rates and/or a stronger USD are ruinous for countries that have few direct economic or financial links with the US. Yet the US Federal Reserve generally shows very little interest in global economic conditions – though that is starting to change, as we will show shortly.

A second problem is that the flow of USD from the US to the rest of the world needs to be sufficient to meet the inbuilt demand for trade and other transactions. Yet the US is a relatively smaller slice of the global economy with each passing year. Even so, it must keep USD flowing out or else a global Eurodollar liquidity crisis will inevitably occur.
That means that either the US must run large capital account deficits, lending to the rest of the world; or large current account deficits, spending instead.
Obviously, the US has been running the latter for many decades, and in many ways benefits from it. It pays for goods and services from the rest of the world in USD debt that it can just create. As such it can also run huge publicor private-sector deficits – arguably even with the multitrillion USD fiscal deficits we are about to see.
However, there is a cost involved for the US. Running a persistent current-account deficit implies a net outflow of industry, manufacturing and related jobs. The US has obviously experienced this for a generation, and it has led to both structural inequality and, more recently, a backlash of political populism wanting to Make America Great Again.
Indeed, if one understands the structure of the Eurodollar system one can see that it faces the Triffin Paradox. This was an argument first made by Robert Triffin in 1959 when he correctly predicted that any country forced to adopt the role of global reserve currency would also be forced to run ever-larger currency outflows to fuel foreign appetite – eventually leading to the breakdown of the system as the cost became too much to bear.
Moreover, there is another systemic weakness at play: realpolitik. Atrophying of industry undermines the supply chains needed for the defence sector, with critical national security implications. The US is already close to losing the ability to manufacture the wide range of products its powerful armed forces require on scale and at speed: yet without military supremacy the US cannot long maintain its multi-dimensional global power, which also stands behind the USD and the Eurodollar system.
This implies the US needs to adopt (military-) industrial policy and a more protectionist stance to maintain its physical power – but that could limit the flow of USD into the global economy via trade. Again, the Eurodollar system, like the early utopian version of the Matrix, seems to contain the seeds of its own destruction.
Indeed, look at the Eurodollar logically over the long term and there are only three ways such a system can ultimately resolve itself:

1. The US walks away from the USD reserve currency burden, as Triffin said, or others lose faith in it to stand behind the deficits it needs to run to keep USD flowing appropriately;
2. The US Federal Reserve takes over the global financial system little by little and/or in bursts; or
3. The global financial system fragments as the US asserts primacy over parts of it, leaving the rest to make their own arrangements.

See the Eurodollar system like this, and it was always when and not if a systemic crisis occurs – which is why people prefer not focus on it all even when it matters so much. Yet arguably this underlying geopolitical dynamic is playing out during our present virus-prompted global financial instability.
Down the rabbit hole
But back to the rabbit hole that is our present situation. While the Eurodollar market is enormous one also needs to look at how many USD are circulating around the world outside the US that can service it if needed. In this regard we will look specifically at global USD FX reserves.
It’s true we could also include US cash holdings in the offshore private sector. Given that US banknotes cannot be tracked no firm data are available, but estimates range from 40% - 72% of total USD cash actually circulates outside the country. This potentially totals hundreds of billions of USD that de facto operate as Eurodollars. However, given it is an unknown total, and also largely sequestered in questionable cash-based activities, and hence are hopefully outside the banking system, we prefer to stick with centralbank FX reserves.
Looking at the ratio of Eurodollar liabilities to global USD FX reserve assets, the picture today is actually healthier than it was a few years ago.

 Indeed, while the Eurodollar market size has remained relatively constant in recent years, largely as banks have been slow to expand their balance sheets, the level of global USD FX reserves has risen from USD1.9 trillion to over USD6.5 trillion. As such, the ratio of structural global USD demand to that of USD supply has actually declined from near 22 during the global financial crisis to around 9.


Yet the current market is clearly seeing major Eurodollar stresses – verging on panic.
Fundamentally, the Eurodollar system is always short USD, and any loss of confidence sees everyone scramble to access them at once – in effect causing an invisible international bank run. Indeed, the Eurodollar market only works when it is a constant case of “You-Roll-Over Dollar”.
Unfortunately, COVID-19 and its huge economic damage and uncertainty mean that global confidence has been smashed, and our Eurodollar Matrix risks buckling as a result.
The wild gyrations recently experienced in even major global FX crosses speak to that point, to say nothing of the swings seen in more volatile currencies such as AUD, and in EM bellwethers such as MXN and ZAR. FX basis swaps and LIBOR vs. Fed Funds (so offshore vs. onshore USD borrowing rates) say the same thing. Unsurprisingly, the IMF are seeing a wide range of countries turning to them for emergency USD loans.

The Fed has, of course, stepped up. It has reduced the cost of accessing existing USD swap lines--where USD are exchanged for other currencies for a period of time--for the Bank of Canada, Bank of England, European Central Bank, and Swiss National Bank; and another nine countries were given access to Fed swap lines with Australia, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Singapore, and Sweden all able to tap up to USD60bn, and USD30bn available to Denmark, Norway, and New Zealand. This alleviates some pressure for some markets – but is a drop in the ocean compared to the level of Eurodollar liabilities.

The Fed has also introduced a new FIMA repo facility. Essentially this allows any central bank, including emerging markets, to swap their US Treasury holdings for USD, which can then be made available to local financial institutions. To put it bluntly, this repo facility is like a swap line but with a country whose currency you don't trust.
Allowing a country to swap its Treasuries for USD can alleviate some of the immediate stress on Eurodollars, but when the swap needs to be reversed the drain on reserves will still be there. Moreover, Eurodollar market participants will now not be able to see if FX reserves are declining in a potential crisis country. Ironically, that is likely to see less, not more, willingness to extend Eurodollar credit as a result.

You have two choices, Neo
Yet despite all the Fed’s actions so far, USD keeps going up vs. EM FX. Again, this is as clear an example as one could ask for of structural underlying Eurodollar demand.

Indeed, we arguably need to see even more steps taken by the Fed – and soon. To underline the scale of the crisis we currently face in the Eurodollar system, the BIS concluded at the end of a recent publication on the matter:

“...today’s crisis differs from the 2008 GFC, and requires policies that reach beyond the banking sector to final users. These businesses, particularly those enmeshed in global supply chains, are in constant need of working capital, much of it in dollars. Preserving the flow of payments along these chains is essential if we are to avoid further economic meltdown.
Channeling dollars to non-banks is not straightforward. Allowing non-banks to transact with the central bank is one option, but there are attendant difficulties, both in principle and in practice. Other options include policies that encourage banks to fill the void left by market based finance, for example funding for lending schemes that extend dollars to non-banks indirectly via banks.”

In other words, the BIS is making clear that somebody (i.e., the Fed) must ensure that Eurodollars are made available on massive scale, not just to foreign central banks, but right down global USD supply chains. As they note, there are many practical issues associated with doing that – and huge downsides if we do not do so. Yet they overlook that there are huge geopolitical problems linked to this step too.
Notably, if the Fed does so then we move rapidly towards logical end-game #2 of the three possible Eurodollar outcomes we have listed previously, where the Fed de facto takes over the global financial system. Yet if the Fed does not do so then we move towards end-game #3, a partial Eurodollar collapse.
Of course, the easy thing to assume is that the Fed will step up as it has always shown a belated willingness before, and a more proactive stance of late. Indeed, as the BIS shows in other research, the Fed stepped up not just during the Global Financial Crisis, but all the way back to the Eurodollar market of the 1960s, where swap lines were readily made available on large scale in order to try to reduce periodic volatility.
However, the scale of what we are talking about here is an entirely new dimension: potentially tens of trillions of USD, and not just to other central banks, or to banks, but to a panoply of real economy firms all around the Eurodollar universe.
As importantly, this assumes that the Fed, which is based in the US, wants to save all these foreign firms. Yet does the Fed want to help Chinese firms, for example? It may traditionally be focused narrowly on smoothly-functioning financial markets, but is that true of a White House that openly sees China as a “strategic rival”, which wishes to onshore industry from it, and which has more interest in having a politically-compliant, not independent Fed? Please think back to the origins of Eurodollars - or look at how the US squeezed its WW2 ally UK during the 1956 Suez Crisis, or how it is using the USD financial system vs. Iran today.
Equally, this assumes that all foreign governments and central banks will want to see the US and USD/Eurodollar cement their global financial primacy further. Yes, Fed support will help alleviate this current economic and brewing financial crisis – but the shift of real power afterwards would be a Rubicon that we have crossed.
Specifically, would China really be happy to see its hopes of CNY gaining a larger global role washed away in a flood of fresh, addictive Eurodollar liquidity, meaning that it is more deeply beholden to the US central bank? Again, please think back to the origins of Eurodollars, to Suez, and to how Iran is being treated – because Beijing will. China would be fully aware that a Fed bailout could easily come with political strings attached, if not immediately and directly, then eventually and indirectly. But they would be there all the same.
One cannot ignore or underplay this power struggle that lies within the heart of the Eurodollar Matrix.
I know you’re out there

 So, considering those systemic pressures, let’s look at where Eurodollar pressures are building most now. We will use World Bank projections for short-term USD financing plus concomitant USD current-account deficit requirements vs. specifically USD FX reserves, not general FX reserves accounted in USD, as calculated by looking at national USD reserves and adjusting for the USD’s share of the total global FX reserves basket (57% in 2018, for example). In some cases this will bias national results up or down, but these are in any case only indicative.

How to read these data about where the Eurodollar stresses lie in Table 1? Firstly, in terms of scale, Eurodollar problems lie with China, the UK, Japan, Hong Kong, the Cayman Islands, Singapore, Canada, and South Korea, Germany and France. Total short-term USD demand in the economies listed is USD28 trillion – around 130% of USD GDP. The size of liabilities the Fed would potentially have to cover in China is enormous at over USD3.4 trillion - should that prove politically acceptable to either side.
Outside of China, and most so in the Cayman Islands and the UK, Eurodollar claims are largely in the financial sector and fall on banks and shadow banks such as insurance companies and pension funds. This is obviously a clearer line of attack/defence for the Fed. Yet it still makes these economies vulnerable to swings in Eurodollar confidence - and reliant on the Fed.
Second, most developed countries apart from Switzerland have opted to hold almost no USD reserves at all. Their approach is that they are also reserve currencies, long-standing US allies, and so assume the Fed will always be willing to treat them as such with swap lines when needed. That assumption may be correct – but it comes with a geopolitical power-hierarchy price tag. (Think yet again of how Eurodollars started and the 1956 Suez Crisis ended.)


Third, most developing countries still do not hold enough USD for periods of Eurodollar liquidity stress, despite the painful lessons learned in 1997-98 and 2008-09. The only exception is Saudi Arabia, whose currency is pegged to the USD, although Taiwan, and Russia hold USD close to what would be required in an emergency. Despite years of FX reserve accumulation, at the cost of domestic consumption and a huge US trade deficit, Indonesia, Mexico, Malaysia, and Turkey are all still vulnerable to Eurodollar funding pressures. In short, there is an argument to save yet more USD – which will increase Eurodollar demand further.

We all become Agent Smith?
In short, the extent of demand for USD outside of the US is clear – and so far the Fed is responding. It has continued to expand its balance sheet to provide liquidity to the markets, and it has never done so at this pace before (Figure 5). In fact, in just a month the Fed has expanded its balance sheet by nearly 50% of the previous expansion observed during all three rounds of QE implemented after the Global Financial Crisis. Essentially we have seen nearly five years of QE1-3 in five weeks! And yet it isn’t enough.

 Moreover, things are getting worse, not better. The global economic impact of COVID-19 is only beginning but one thing is abundantly clear – global trade in goods and services is going to be hit very, very hard, and that US imports are going to tumble. This threatens one of the main USD liquidity channels into the Eurodollar system.

Table 2 above also underlines looming EM Eurodollar stress-points in terms of import cover, which will fall sharply as USD earnings collapse, and external debt service. The further to the left we see the latest point for import cover, and the further to the right we see it for external debt, the greater the potential problems ahead.
As such, the Fed is likely to find it needs to cover trillions more in Eurodollar liabilities (of what underlying quality?) coming due in the real global, not financial economy – which is exactly what the BIS are warning about. Yes, we are seeing such radical steps being taken by central banks in some Western countries, including in the US - but internationally too? Are we all to become ‘Agent Smith’?

If the Fed is to step up to this challenge and expand its balance sheet even further/faster, then the US economy will massively expand its external deficit to mirror it.
That is already happening. What was a USD1 trillion fiscal deficit before COVID-19, to the dismay of some, has expanded to USD3.2 trillion via a virus-fighting package: and when tax revenues collapse, it will be far larger. Add a further USD600bn phase three stimulus, and talk of a USD2 trillion phase four infrastructure program to try to jumpstart growth rather than just fight virus fires, and potentially we are talking about a fiscal deficit in the range of 20-25% of GDP. As we argued recently, that is a peak-WW2 level as this is also a world war of sorts.
On one hand, the Eurodollar market will happily snap up those trillions US Treasuries/USD – at least those they can access, because the Fed will be buying them too via QE. Indeed, for now bond yields are not rising and USD still is.
However, such fiscal action will prompt questions on how much the USD can be ‘debased’ before, like Agent Smith, it over-reaches and then implodes or explodes – the first of the logical endpoints for the Eurodollar system, if you recall. (Of course, other currencies are doing it too.)

Is Neo The One?
In conclusion, the origins of the Eurodollar Matrix are shrouded in mystery and intrigue – and yet are worth knowing. Its operations are invisible to most but control us in many ways – so are worth understanding. Moreover, it is a system under huge structural pressure – which we must now recognise.
It’s easy to ignore all these issues and just hope the Eurodollar Matrix remains the “You-Roll-Dollar” market – but can that be true indefinitely based just on one’s belief?

Is the Neo Coronavirus ‘The One’ that breaks it?
_______________________________________________________________
ORACLE: “Well now, ain’t this a surprise?”
ARCHITECT: “You’ve played a very dangerous game.”
ORACLE: “Change always is.”
ARCHITECT: “And how long do you think this peace is going to last?”
ORACLE: “As long as it can….What about the others?”
ARCHITECT: “What others?”
ORACLE: “The ones that want out.”
ARCHITECT: “Obviously they will be freed.”

Confirmation that the Wuhan Corona Virus is a chimera!

The artificial origin of the Wuhan Corona Virus is now clear.
In spite of Chinese propaganda to the contrary, ALL the assumptions we made two months ago about the virus have been confirmed as the video below makes clear.
The virus escape from the P4 laboratory was an accident, but the research being done was not. The consequences will be far reaching.
(PS: To view the video, click on the YouTube link below. The video is too large to embed in the article. The first part of the documentary, the research side is the most interesting. The second part is political. It veers toward anti communist propaganda and is much less interesting.)

The truth behind the Wuhan Corona Virus video

Flattening the Coronavirus curve

Most European governments completely misread the epidemic although they had time to learn from the Chinese experience.
First they misunderstood exponentials, (it starts slowly then goes up fast) and did nothing. Then they over-reacted looking at models saying half the population would get sick with 3% dying and finally settled on the only option left: "Flatten the curve!" The result is that in a month or two, a large chunk of the economy will be gone. There will be hell to pay. Confinement and the dictatorial measures which come together will not be tolerated very long in many countries. The 4th turning is upon us!

But for now, that is indeed the only option left. 
Here is a good brief
https://phys.org/news/2020-03-endgame-restart-coronavirus.html
Here is the complete original statistical work from the Imperial College in London:
(The link seems to be broken so I insert a copy of the summary, pdf below)

Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand

Neil M Ferguson, Daniel Laydon, Gemma Nedjati-Gilani, Natsuko Imai, Kylie Ainslie, Marc Baguelin, Sangeeta Bhatia, Adhiratha Boonyasiri, Zulma Cucunubá, Gina Cuomo-Dannenburg, Amy Dighe, Ilaria Dorigatti, Han Fu, Katy Gaythorpe, Will Green, Arran Hamlet, Wes Hinsley, Lucy C Okell, Sabine van Elsland, Hayley Thompson, Robert Verity, Erik Volz, Haowei Wang, Yuanrong Wang, Patrick GT Walker, Peter Winskill, Charles Whittaker, Christl A Donnelly, Steven Riley, Azra C Ghani.

On behalf of the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team
WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics Imperial College London
Correspondence: neil.ferguson@imperial.ac.uk

Summary
The global impact of COVID-19 has been profound, and the public health threat it represents is the most serious seen in a respiratory virus since the 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic. Here we present the results of epidemiological modelling which has informed policymaking in the UK and other countries in recent weeks. In the absence of a COVID-19 vaccine, we assess the potential role of a number of public health measures – so-called non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) – aimed at reducing contact rates in the population and thereby reducing transmission of the virus. In the results presented here, we apply a previously published microsimulation model to two countries: the UK (Great Britain specifically) and the US. We conclude that the effectiveness of any one intervention in isolation is likely to be limited, requiring multiple interventions to be combined to have a substantial impact on transmission.
Two fundamental strategies are possible: (a) mitigation, which focuses on slowing but not necessarily stopping epidemic spread – reducing peak healthcare demand while protecting those most at risk of severe disease from infection, and (b) suppression, which aims to reverse epidemic growth, reducing case numbers to low levels and maintaining that situation indefinitely. Each policy has major challenges. We find that that optimal mitigation policies (combining home isolation of suspect cases, home quarantine of those living in the same household as suspect cases, and social distancing of the elderly and others at most risk of severe disease) might reduce peak healthcare demand by 2/3 and deaths by half. However, the resulting mitigated epidemic would still likely result in hundreds of thousands of deaths and health systems (most notably intensive care units) being overwhelmed many times over. For countries able to achieve it, this leaves suppression as the preferred policy option.
We show that in the UK and US context, suppression will minimally require a combination of social distancing of the entire population, home isolation of cases and household quarantine of their family members. This may need to be supplemented by school and university closures, though it should be recognised that such closures may have negative impacts on health systems due to increased
16 March 2020 Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team
absenteeism. The major challenge of suppression is that this type of intensive intervention package – or something equivalently effective at reducing transmission – will need to be maintained until a vaccine becomes available (potentially 18 months or more) – given that we predict that transmission will quickly rebound if interventions are relaxed. We show that intermittent social distancing – triggered by trends in disease surveillance – may allow interventions to be relaxed temporarily in relative short time windows, but measures will need to be reintroduced if or when case numbers rebound. Last, while experience in China and now South Korea show that suppression is possible in the short term, it remains to be seen whether it is possible long-term, and whether the social and economic costs of the interventions adopted thus far can be reduced.
16 March 2020 Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team

Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic is now a major global health threat. As of 16th March 2020, there have been 164,837 cases and 6,470 deaths confirmed worldwide. Global spread has been rapid, with 146 countries now having reported at least one case.
The last time the world responded to a global emerging disease epidemic of the scale of the current COVID-19 pandemic with no access to vaccines was the 1918-19 H1N1 influenza pandemic. In that pandemic, some communities, notably in the United States (US), responded with a variety of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) - measures intended to reduce transmission by reducing contact rates in the general population1. Examples of the measures adopted during this time included closing schools, churches, bars and other social venues. Cities in which these interventions were implemented early in the epidemic were successful at reducing case numbers while the interventions remained in place and experienced lower mortality overall1. However, transmission rebounded once controls were lifted.
Whilst our understanding of infectious diseases and their prevention is now very different compared to in 1918, most of the countries across the world face the same challenge today with COVID-19, a virus with comparable lethality to H1N1 influenza in 1918. Two fundamental strategies are possible2:
(a) Suppression. Here the aim is to reduce the reproduction number (the average number of secondary cases each case generates), R, to below 1 and hence to reduce case numbers to low levels or (as for SARS or Ebola) eliminate human-to-human transmission. The main challenge of this approach is that NPIs (and drugs, if available) need to be maintained – at least intermittently - for as long as the virus is circulating in the human population, or until a vaccine becomes available. In the case of COVID-19, it will be at least a 12-18 months before a vaccine is available3. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that initial vaccines will have high efficacy.
(b) Mitigation. Here the aim is to use NPIs (and vaccines or drugs, if available) not to interrupt transmission completely, but to reduce the health impact of an epidemic, akin to the strategy adopted by some US cities in 1918, and by the world more generally in the 1957, 1968 and 2009 influenza pandemics. In the 2009 pandemic, for instance, early supplies of vaccine were targeted at individuals with pre-existing medical conditions which put them at risk of more severe disease4. In this scenario, population immunity builds up through the epidemic, leading to an eventual rapid decline in case numbers and transmission dropping to low levels.
The strategies differ in whether they aim to reduce the reproduction number, R, to below 1 (suppression) – and thus cause case numbers to decline – or to merely slow spread by reducing R, but not to below 1.
In this report, we consider the feasibility and implications of both strategies for COVID-19, looking at a range of NPI measures. It is important to note at the outset that given SARS-CoV-2 is a newly emergent virus, much remains to be understood about its transmission. In addition, the impact of many of the NPIs detailed here depends critically on how people respond to their introduction, which is highly likely to vary between countries and even communities. Last, it is highly likely that there would be significant spontaneous changes in population behaviour even in the absence of government-mandated interventions.
16 March 2020 Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team

The Corona virus progression curve

This is one of the most important chart to consider in order to understand how different countries will fare against the Corona virus. From this, it is very clear that Asian countries are doing relatively well fighting the virus, European ones not so much. This will have consequences and may end up speeding up Asia's rise and conversely Europe's decline.

Understanding this trend from the Chinese data early on would have been extremely useful for the rest of the world. We lost about a month. From this data, a month is about two factors, so we can now expect that the Corona pandemic will be about 100 times larger than it should have been!