Go figure.

The US yesterday, 4/8/2020, experienced the largest number of deaths ascribed to the COVID-19 zoonotic virus pandemic, 1,914, for any day thus far. The mortality rate, as a percent of confirmed cases of the virus, also jumped by 0.2% over the previous day to 3.21%.

Today, the Dow Jones Industrial average increased by 779.71, a gain of 3.44% over yesterday's close.

Go figure.

Sorry, but this is not a mystery. Markets know that number of deaths will come down later, after number of cases and hospitalizations comes down and those are starting to come down, esp in hardest hit areas. Further, Italy and Spain are also confirming that lock downs work around this timeframe, so this is another indication that we are at the apex for cases and apex for deaths will inevitably come within 1-3 weeks. Projections for total deaths are also coming down.

Mortality rate is jumping BECAUSE number of cases is starting to decrease while deaths are not there yet. That's expected at the Apex for # new cases.

On separate note, I think there is also optimism about OPEC+ talks tomorrow.

Slavister said:

Sorry, but this is not a mystery. Markets know that number of deaths will come down later, after number of cases and hospitalizations comes down and those are starting to come down, esp in hardest hit areas. Further, Italy and Spain are also confirming that lock downs work around this timeframe, so this is another indication that we are at the apex for cases and apex for deaths will inevitably come within 1-3 weeks. Projections for total deaths are also coming down.

Mortality rate is jumping BECAUSE number of cases is starting to decrease while deaths are not there yet. That's expected at the Apex for # new cases.

On separate note, I think there is also optimism about OPEC+ talks tomorrow.

Click to expand...

Hi! I'm not sure about the cases decreasing. I've been following the daily data since 3/18 and see no sign of significant decrease at this point. Data upon request.

Regards, stay safe and be well.

Torus34 said:

The US yesterday, 4/8/2020, experienced the largest number of deaths ascribed to the COVID-19 zoonotic virus pandemic, 1,914, for any day thus far. The mortality rate, as a percent of confirmed cases of the virus, also jumped by 0.2% over the previous day to 3.21%.

Today, the Dow Jones Industrial average increased by 779.71, a gain of 3.44% over yesterday's close.

Go figure.

Click to expand...

The stock market has become unhinged from reality, thanks to Fed interventions.

And Bernie dropped out of the race.

Torus34 said:

Hi! I'm not sure about the cases decreasing. I've been following the daily data since 3/18 and see no sign of significant decrease at this point. Data upon request.

Regards, stay safe and be well.

Click to expand...

Source

In the past 3 days we have not grown at all relative to the max 34196 confirmed daily cases. Nowhere else on that graph you will find that # new cases has not exceeded 3-days-earlier number.

But above picture is misleading too. If you look at state-by-state level, you will see that states like WA, CA and others that shut down earlier have reached their max daily cases a lot earlier. The reason we don't decline more is states that closed up later and are still increasing their cases.

This, plus Italy + Spain graphs give visibility to the markets. We know how to stop this. What we don't know yet is whether we can exit lock downs properly.

Slavister said:

View attachment 67277454

Source

In the past 3 days we have not grown at all relative to the max 34196 confirmed daily cases. Nowhere else on that graph you will find that # new cases has not exceeded 3-days-earlier number.

But above picture is misleading too. If you look at state-by-state level, you will see that states like WA, CA and others that shut down earlier have reached their max daily cases a lot earlier. The reason we don't decline more is states that closed up later and are still increasing their cases.

This, plus Italy + Spain graphs give visibility to the markets. We know how to stop this. What we don't know yet is whether we can exit lock downs properly.

Click to expand...

Beware of visual assumptions. Look at the chart up to, but not including, March 31st. It would seem obvious that things were flattening out. The last four days might be nothing more than a quirky variability. I just keep compiling data until there is a real, ongoing decrease with extraneous causes eliminated. Note that NYC intends to begin including deaths at home in its reports.

Regards, and stay well.

Regards,

Torus34 said:

Beware of visual assumptions. Look at the chart up to, but not including, March 31st. It would seem obvious that things were flattening out. The last four days might be nothing more than a quirky variability. I just keep compiling data until there is a real, ongoing decrease with extraneous causes eliminated. Note that NYC intends to begin including deaths at home in its reports.

Regards, and stay well.

Regards,

Click to expand...

Yes, good point. As you realize even in that period number of deaths was increasing and only now we've experienced 3 days of numbers lower than prior peak.

Still, I agree with you that this is not enough data in itself to support a likely-peak assertion.

However, the reason I think we might plateaue here or close to here is because of the additional underlying States data that I mentioned, and because it's been similar amount of time to Italy and Spain since we locked down a decent amount of the country.

Your observation about NYC would suggest that we might have a spike due to how we count deaths and NOT due to real spike there. In any case though, deaths are still not plateaued. Only # confirmed cases might be.

However, your observation brings me to another variation we might see: if we start testing more and more, # confirmed cases might be going up despite a true plateaue in infection rate.

So, honestly, # of hospitalizations is probably the best measure but I don't have that data. I believe Dr Fauci and others are indicating that number is stable or going down now...

If you have data on number of new admissions, I would love to see it.

@Slavister: Good morning.

I haven't looked for a decent source of data on admissions. As Fox Mulder said, though, 'The truth is out there.' Somewhere.

On the subject of testing, I've been running a simple calculation. I start with the low point in deaths as a percent of reported cases -- 1.2% on 3/24. Then, for later dates, I calculate the mortality percent and determine the number of confirmed cases required to bring it back to 1.2%. [The calculated % for 4/8 is 3.40%, yielding a factor of 2.83.] That gives an indication of the number of confirmed cases needed and thus a hint of the lag in testing. [Can't confirm a case without testing.] As of yesterday, the US is behind by roughly 1.2 M tests. It's admittedly very rough and ready number crunching, but it's all I have to go by. The self-serving comments of those in charge of getting testing gear distributed isn't trustworthy, I'm afraid.

Meanwhile, I'm plotting the number of deaths attributed to the COVID-19 virus daily. That plot eyeballs to a geometric curve, with the current number at 1,940. The data variability is considerable, but the increase over the past week or two appears to be a bit more than 100 cases/day. There's no indication of a significant change.

Regards, stay safe and be well. j