Last night after the state of the union address, futures were slightly lower. Then about midnight, or possibly later, they fucking exploded on a report from Chinese media of a coronavirus breakthrough. Separately, UK scientist claim to have sequenced and now working towards a fucking vaccine, all in 14 days.
I’m too cynical and jaded to report on this type of stuff, especially when the WHO comes out and says ‘WHOA, fuck off, nothing to see here.’
The World Health Organization (WHO) has played down media reports of a drug breakthrough against the coronavirus outbreak, saying there are “no known” drug treatments against the virus.
“There are no known effective therapeutics against this 2019-nCoV and WHO recommends enrollment into a randomized controlled trial to test efficacy and safety,” WHO said in a statement on Wednesday.
“A master global clinical trial protocol for research and prioritization of therapeutics is ongoing at the WHO,” it added.
Earlier in the day (See 7:00 p.m. update), Reuters said a Chinese TV media outlet had reported that a research team at Zhejiang University had found an effective drug to treat people with the new coronavirus. The news agency, citing traders, suggested this was a reason for the move higher in stocks.
Separately, Sky News reported Wednesday that a scientist from Imperial College London had made a significant breakthrough in the race to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus. The vaccine is thought to be able to reduce the development time from “two to three years to just 14 days,” Sky said.
Nevertheless, futures have given up zero of their splendid gains and stocks look to chop hands and dicks off at the open. We’re looking at another 100 Nasdaqs when it’s all said and done. NO BIG DEAL. This is good, especially since I bought all of them stocks yesterday.
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Tencent claimed 154,023 confirmed infections on Feb1 , 10 times the official figure at the time, with a death toll of 24,589.
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/did-chinas-tencent-accidentally-leak-true-terrifying-coronavirus-statistics
Apparently this was the **third** time they posted numbers like this. Why would they do that if they knew the numbers they were psoting were fake? That just induces panic and the ire of Chinese officials. If it was fake, wouldn’t somoen at tnecent be fired/executed by now, after the third time?
Investors really aren’t taking this seriously. This South Korean article should open eyes:
” 38-year-old South Korean man who recently visited Singapore for work and came into contact with an infected Malaysian tested positive for the virus.
…
The 18th case is a 21-year-old South Korean woman who is the daughter of the country’s 16th patient, who returned from a trip to Thailand on Jan. 19 but moved freely for around two weeks before being diagnosed with the virus.
…
South Korea’s 12th case is of a 48-year-old Chinese man who worked as a tour guide in Japan and could have been infected by a Japanese associate.”
http://m.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20200205000121#cb
There are also 2 more quarantined cruise ships, including one with 10 confirmed victims.
Regardless of China, this thing is about as “contained” as the Housing crisis was in 2007.
Also, I find it highly unlikely that Africa has no nCov carriers considering their heavy trade with China. More likely, they don’t have the facilities to detect them quickly, which allows t to spread more rapidly like it has in China Of course, many of you are thinkign these are “sh!thole countries”, but there is stil la lot of international travel to and form those countires.
Chinese businessman or tourist in Africa infects local African ->
African infects another African ->
Western tourist or businessman gets infected by African ->
Asymptomatic Westerner carries disease home
This is the situation that the WHO is most likely concerned with and why the former FDA Director says that a US epidemic is inevitable.
The Masque of the Red Death.