Joe Biden Tests Negative For Coronavirus Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/02/2020 – 12:17
With stocks already moving higher thanks to Nancy Pelosi’s claim that Congress is working on a relief bill so airlines shouldn’t move ahead with layoffs just yet, the market just got the headline it had been waiting for all morning: Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, has tested negative.
.@mikememoli breaking news: @JoeBiden has tested NEGATIVE for the coronavirus after taking a test this morning.
Biden shared a stage with President Trump during Tuesday’s debate, prompting concern that he could have been infected (as the NYT confirmed earlier, the White House didn’t give the Biden campaign a heads up about Hicks’ positive test).
If Biden were to also test positive, it would introduce even more political uncertainty into the US market, as both of the men competing to serve as president for the next four years would have been facing a serious illness that – as one Wall Street analyst pointed out earlier – “kills people”.
GOP Sen. Mike Lee Tests Positive For COVID-19 Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/02/2020 – 12:03
Sen. Mike Lee has become the latest GOP lawmaker to test positive for COVID-19.
Lee, whose mask use on the Hill was described as “inconsistent” by one reporter, met with Barrett on Tuesday, though she tested negative Friday.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee, Judiciary Committee member, is positive for COVID – and will remain isolated for the next 10 days. As @NBCNews Cap Hill team reports, Lee met with Judge Barrett on Tuesday.
His mask use on the hill could be described as inconsistent at best.
Without Lee, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the GOP might have more trouble voting Barrett’s nomination out of committee. His colleague Lindsey Graham, who is also on the Judiciary Committee, wished Lee a “speedy recovery”.
Talked to Senator Lee earlier today and wished him a speedy recovery.
Look forward to welcoming him back to the @senjudiciary to proceed with the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barret on October 12. https://t.co/OVm0OQbnQF
This photo of Lee standing just feet from Barrett, with both mask-less and indoors, has been circulating.
Sen. Mike Lee just announced he tested positive for COVID-19. Here he is indoors, no mask, less than 6 feet from the SCOTUS nominee, just a few days ago. https://t.co/LIJQoDuTlO
Cascend: COVID Mortality Of A 74-Year-Old Man Is 2.68% Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/02/2020 – 11:57
Now that Trump has admitted to having contracted the coronavirus, the next obvious – if morbid- question shifts to what are Trump’s odds of successfully emerging on the other side. To answer that question, Cascend Strategy calculates this morning that the Covid mortality rate for a 74 year old man – such as Trump – is 2.68%, or roughly 1 in 37.
Here are the details behind the Cascend calculation:
The data is based on analysis of five recently published medical studies (May through July 2020; listed below) from U.S. and Europe.
A study published in March from China likely vastly underrepresented the number of infections (denominator) and thus likely vastly overstates COVID mortality (8.6% for people in their 70’s)
Males have roughly 19% higher mortality than average at that age (females have lower than average mortality)
This assumes the population has no preexisting conditions: additional conditions add to the mortality rate
President Trump is a 74-year old man with no known pre-existing conditions
There are likely also inaccuracies caused by calculating mortality rates using infections measured with antibody tests: we discuss below how this may make mortality rates appear higher (smaller denominator) – actual mortalities may be lower, especially for populations who exhibit few or no symptoms
Cascend re-weighted studies by age to directly compare results
Some other observations from Cascend:
Doctors have noted President Trump’s weight as a factor
However, we don’t have data of mortality versus weight (or BMI) to use for our analysis
The studies we have found do not specify weight or BMI in their results
So our data should only be corrected IF President Trump is substantially overweight (higher BMI) than the participants of these medical studies
Common impactful pre-existing conditions include heavy smoking, diabetes, and heart disease
Socioeconomic factors appear to have some impact on mortality rate
There are also dispersions indicated by race/ethnicity, but it is unclear if these may be corrected by socioeconomic factors, or if there are other systemic factors
A study published in March from China (and heavily quoted by the Media today) likely vastly overstated mortality
Data is significantly outside of the 95% confidence interval of the five other studies
It likely underrepresented the number of infections (denominator) in our opinion
And thus likely vastly overstates COVID mortality (8.6% for people in their 70’s)
Data coming from China (particularly infections, mortalities and origin) has been questionable
However China has been aggressive in administering quarantines, particularly at the beginning
And this may instead be indicative of healthcare efficacy for older patients in China
Using Antibody tests as a measure of infections is a nice idea
But it is likely systematically (and inadvertently) undercounting infections
The newest most accurate antibody tests have 80% accuracy (based on a study from the University of Texas at Austin in collaboration with Houston Methodist study from two weeks ago) – on patients who have or just had COVID within the month
However, this is measuring antibodies for patients that have COVID or just had it – high viral load
Antibody tests on patients who had COVID but waited several months cause accuracy to be much lower
CDC Director Robert Redfield said in June that true case numbers are 10 times higher than confirmed diagnoses.
(Confirmed cases in the U.S. were 3.8 million at the time– that means 38 million U.S. infections likely)
* * *
Works cited:
1) Indiana University (Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health) and the Indiana University School of Medicine (Justin Blackburn, PhD, Constantin T. Yiannoutsos, PhD, Aaron E. Carroll, MD, MS, Paul K. Halverson, DrPH, Nir Menachemi, PhD, MPH)
2) “Serology-informed estimates of SARS-CoV-2 infection fatality risk in Geneva, Switzerland Javier Perez-Saez, Stephen A Lauer, Laurent Kaiser, Simon Regard, Elisabeth Delaporte, Idris Guessous, et al.; Published:July 14, 2020; DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30584-3
3) “Antibody prevalence for SARS-CoV-2 in England following first peak of the pandemic: REACT2 study in 100,000 adults; Ward, Christina J Atchison, Matthew Whitaker, Kylie E. C. Ainslie, Joshua Elliott, Lucy C Okell, Rozlyn Redd, Deborah Ashby, Christl A. Donnelly, Wendy Barclay, Ara Darzi, Graham Cooke, Steven Riley, Paul Elliott; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.12.20173690 4) “Infection fatality risk for SARS-CoV-2: a nationwide seroepidemiological study in the non-institutionalized population of Spain
Roberto Pastor-Barriuso, Beatriz Perez-Gomez, Miguel A Hernan, Mayte Perez-Olmeda, Raquel Yotti, Jesus Oteo, Jose Luis Sanmartin, Inmaculada Leon-Gomez, Aurora Fernandez-Garcia, Pablo Fernandez-Navarro, Israel Cruz, Mariano Martin, Concepcion Delgado-Sanz, Nerea Fernandez de Larrea, Jose Leon Paniagua, Juan Fernando Munoz-Montalvo, Faustino Blanco, Amparo Larrauri, Marina Pollan, Marina Pollan; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.06.20169722 5) “Estimating excess 1-year mortality associated with the COVID-19 pandemic according to underlying conditions and age: a population-based cohort study Amitava Banerjee, DPhil Laura Pasea, PhD Steve Harris, PhD Arturo Gonzalez-Izquierdo, PhD Ana Torralbo, PhD Laura Shallcross, PhD et al.; Open AccessPublished:May 12, 2020DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30854-0
6) Estimates of the severity of coronavirus disease 2019: a model-based analysis (data from Wuhan); Robert Verity, PhD; Lucy C Okell, PhD; Ilaria Dorigatti, PhD; Peter Winskill, PhD; Charles Whittaker, MSc; Natsuko Imai, PhD et al. Published:March 30, 2020
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2EXQUm2 Tyler Durden
Trump Faking Covid? Michael Moore, Other Leftists Peddle New Conspiracy Theory Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/02/2020 – 11:40
Filmmaker Michael Moore peddled a conspiracy theory on Thursday night, suggesting that President Trump might be “lying about having COVID-19” in order to “gain sympathy.”
“He’s an evil genius and I raise the possibility of him lying about having COVID-19 to prepare us and counteract his game,” Moore posted to Facebook, just hours after President Trump announced his positive test result “He knows being sick tends to gain one sympathy. He’s not above weaponizing this.”
“Democrats, liberals, the media and others have always been wrong to simply treat him as a buffoon and a dummy and a jackass. Yes, he is all those things. But he’s also canny. He’s clever. He outfoxed Comey. He outfoxed Mueller. He outfoxed 20 Republicans in the GOP primary and then did the same to the Democrats, winning the White House despite receiving fewer votes than his opponent,” Moore continued.
Moore also suggested (in all caps): “HE MAY USE THIS TO PUSH FOR DELAYING/POSTPONING THE ELECTION.“
And “He may use his Covid as a pretext to drop out of the race and move Pence to the top of the ticket. Pence would temporarily become President, and then Pence could pre-emptively pardon Trump for all of his crimes.“
Meanwhile, as Summit News notes, the ‘Trump faking it’ conspiracy theory is gaining steam.
I am making a list of possible reasons why setting up a fake illness and recovery right before the election could help Trump’s reelection campaign. Can anyone add anything?#TrumpHasCovid#TrumpViruspic.twitter.com/EVKzXG771u
— Mitch Clark 🌹🍞☮️ #AnarchoCommunism (@dboon2024) October 2, 2020
And now, the hashtags #TrumpIsFaking and #TrumpIsFakingCovid are trending…
Well, well, well. Isn’t this convenient? Thirteen days till your next debate. Quarantine is 14 days. Seems like @realDonaldTrump is attempting an easy way out of second debate.
#TrumpIsFaking
He doesn’t want to debate.
His fortune is faked.
He owes 400+ million.
He needs to get so many things out of the news.
Then get over it miraculously and call it a hoax. Never mind the 206K+ dead.
I am a billionty percent sure Trump is lying about having COVID. It is a GOP-orchestrated hoax to distract, deflect, gain sympathy, avoid the next debate. I guess the only thing that could convince me I’m wrong is if he actually died.#TrumpHasCovid#SureJan#TrumpIsFaking
— Parsley 🇨🇦#TRUMPFASCISTDICTATOR🌈🌊 (@pazesez) October 2, 2020
I have just been called ‘unhinged’ because I suspect Donald Trump could be telling a lie! Have I stepped through the looking glass? Are we in arse-about world.
Something smells fishy here. Maybe I’m crazy but this looks like his “out” without actually “quitting.” TRUMP: “Well, for the safety of the country I had to step down.” Or worse, a good excuse to postpone the election. #TrumpCovid#TrumpHasCovid#TrumpIsFaking#TrumpIsFakingCovid
Small Caps Go Green, Erase Trump-COVID Crash Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/02/2020 – 11:31
US equity futures tumbled over 2% overnight as Trump testing positive for COVID headlines sparked derisking. Some ‘hopeful’ comments from Pelosi this morning are being assigned as the reason for this cash-opening melt-up that has squeezed Small Caps into the green for the day…
But note that Nasdaq has been sold as Small Caps surge.
All the US Majors are hovering around their 50DMAs…
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/33lvAAf Tyler Durden
WaPo Tweets ‘Imagine Never Having To Think About Trump Again’ Just As COVID Diagnosis Broke Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/02/2020 – 11:15
Within the same hour of news breaking late Thursday into early Friday morning that Trump and the First Lady are positive for coronavirus, The Washington Post tweeted, “Imagine what it will be like to never have to think about Trump again.”
The tweet via WaPo’s official Twitter account may have been up for as much as an hour, but it’s unclear how fast it was deleted, and garnered many angry responses as news of the diagnoses broke, before the Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper deleted it.
A subsequent “correction” and explanation of the now deleted tweet claimed the tweet had been written Thursday, before news of the positive COVID-19 test, and released through an automated program.
The Post admitted it was “tasteless” but stopped short of issuing any level of an apology.
The Post has removed a tweet pictured below, which was written Thursday and released through an automated program, because the subsequent news of President Trump’s infection rendered it tasteless. pic.twitter.com/yVsocNl2MG
“The Post has removed a tweet pictured below, which was written Thursday and released through an automated program, because the subsequent news of President Trump’s infection rendered it tasteless,” the follow-up statement said.
As we detailed earlier, it took a mere minutes following the announcement of the positive coronavirus test for self-styled “journalists” and “politicians” to tweet crude jokes, or even go so far as to claim they were praying for both the president and First Lady to succumb to their infections.
Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!
No doubt WaPo’s theoretical “imagining” of “never” having to “think about Trump again” added official establishment media fuel to the fire.
Jeff Bezos should be ashamed.
Editorial independence is one thing, but when you own something like that it behaves in such a disgusting way, you have an obligation as a decent person to interject.
Top administration officials are scrambling to get tested, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has decided to cancel a trip to Asia scheduled for later this week out of an “”abundance of caution”, despite testing negative. No decision has been made yet, Pompeo told a group of journalists on the flight from Rome to Dubrovnik in Croatia. “I spoke with the Vice President’s office this morning as well,” Pompeo said. “We’re taking this obviously very seriously.” Nancy Pelosi said earlier that she hoped Trump’s experience with the virus might prompt him to take the threat more seriously.
With Russia’s COVID-19 outbreak still ravaging Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered “sincere support” to President Trump and the First Lady. The Kremlin says Putin sent Trump a telegram saying “I hope that your inherent vitality, good spirits and optimism will help you cope with the dangerous virus.”
It comes as Russia reports 9,412 new infections, its highest daily tally since May 23, pushing the national total to 1,194,643 cases, while Moscow, the epicenter of the Russian outbreak, reported 2,704 cases alone. 186 people had died nationwide in the last 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 21,077, though some claim that death toll probably underestimates the true tally.
India’s Narendra Modi chimed in on Twitter to wish the Trumps a speedy recovery.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel also made a perfunctory statement expressing hope for a speedy recovery. Meanwhile, an amusing clip from the European Council summit in Brussels showing Merkel cautioning Italian PM Giuseppe Conte is going viral.
With the world speculating on what treatments, if any, will be used to treat the president, fears linger as former FDA head Dr. Gottlieb noted that President Trump’s risk to the virus is “high”.
“There’s every reason to expect the president to recover… but the risk is still high,” @ScottGottliebMD tells @SquawkCNBC, citing age and BMI, of President Trump’s diagnosis with #covid19
As of Friday morning in the US, global cases have reached 34,289,709 after another 318,181 cases were confirmed, according to Johns Hopkins University data…
…while the worldwide death toll spiked by 8,697, the largest daily tally since Sept. 7, bringing the death toll to 1,022,878.
Finally on the vaccine front, AstraZeneca, which is facing an expanded probe by the FDA that has caused a lengthy delay in its US trial, announced Friday that trials were continuing in Japan, and that the company is “in talks” to supply the proper data to the FDA to get it to greenlight the US trials. Most of AZ’s trials for its experimental vaccine around the world restarted shortly after an initial disruption,
Here’s more COVID news from overnight:
Malaysia reports its highest-ever number of new infections, 287, surpassing the 277 reported on June 4. The virus is believed to have widely spread in the Eastern State of Sabah, which recently held elections (Source: Nikkei).
India’s case tally climbs to 6.39 million on 81,484 new infections in the last 24 hours; deaths are just shy of the 100,000 mark, data from the health ministry shows. Fatalities from coronavirus infections rose by 1,095 in the last 24 hours to 99,773, the ministry said (Source: Nikkei).
New daily infections in Australia’s hot-spot state of Victoria have fallen to a near four-month low as it records only imported cases, raising the prospect of more domestic borders reopening. The state of Queensland, meanwhile, says it may open its border with the country’s most populous state, New South Wales, on Nov. 1, if New South Wales goes 28 days without recording a new case (Source: Nikkei).
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3nf557g Tyler Durden
Softbank Is Back With “Gamma Squeeze” Part 2 Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/02/2020 – 10:45
After dropping to an overnight low of just one tick above 3,300, Eminis have since rebounded sharply after the open, reversing almost all overnight losses.
Why was the 3,300 ES level so important? Because as SpotGamma reports in its morning note, that is where the Zero Gamma level is, which makes “3300 critical support.”
As our friends at SpotGamma further note referring to the chart below, a break of 3300 could “turn on” large put gamma positions from 3250 down through 3200, and add that “the concern is that many of those larger put positions reside out post election and so if the market declines now those puts may fuel volatility for an extended period.”
Meanwhile, to the upside 3400 is the largest call interest area, and a move above would trigger self-reinforcing buy a la gamma meltup.
What is perhaps most notable is that as the SpotGamma wrote overnight, highlighting the strong rally in many tech names “there are notes out detailing large options positions building in tech. Looking at FB as an example you can see how call activity has picked up over the last two weeks.”
The punchline: “this chasm between call & put gamma is starting to look similar to that of early August.” While the key to remember with these large options positions is that they bring negative gamma and therefore volatility aka “instability” to markets, they also means that SoftBank is back with another attempt to corner tech (and market) gamma once again after the historic August meltup.
And sure enough, moments ago CNBC’s David Faber confirmed that SoftBank yesterday morning bought $200M worth of calls in NFLX, AMZN, FB and GOOGL. Only this time the dealers know where the gamma is coming from…
… and if they wish to, they can easily cripple Masa Son by forcing tech names sharply lower and undoing the billions in profits the Japanese unicorn chaser generated in August during the market low-volume meltup.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3imB0PO Tyler Durden
Migrant Caravan “Blows Through Guatemalan Border” Towards US Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/02/2020 – 10:39
Around 1,000 migrants began walking Wednesday from northern Honduras toward the Guatemala border, hoping to reach the United States for better living conditions as coronavirus paralyzed Central America’s economy.
By Thursday, Al Jazeera reports, the caravan of migrants “had crossed the border from Honduras without proper documentation on their path to the U.S.”
Guatemalan authorities are reporting at least 1,000 people had crossed the border from Honduras late this week. The incident was caught on camera:
Here’s the latest migrant caravan blowing through half-hearted Guatemalan police pic.twitter.com/3LIJSxkOJF
Governments in Central America are aware of the caravan traversing the Guatemala–Honduras border. Mexico’s immigration agency released a statement saying it would ensure “safe, orderly and legal” migration is seen. It also said it would not support the caravan nor help promote its size.
The U.S. Embassy in Honduras tweeted Thursday that it will be “more difficult to cross the United States border illegally. The journey has become even more dangerous, given the current global pandemic of #COVID19.”
The latest caravan comes as the Central American economy has imploded, bounded by insurmountable debts, a virus pandemic, high unemployment, and food insecurity woes. The U.N.’s ILO said Wednesday that 34 million jobs had been lost in Latin America due to the virus-induced downturn.
CBS News quoted local television program Hoy Mismo, who interviewed one caravan migrant, who said:
“I’m leaving with my husband and my two children. There is no work here. There is nothing to do, and if you find a job they only pay you 100 lempiras ($4) a day,” the migrant said.
After a series of migrant caravans (read: here & here & here), the U.S. government has strengthened its border defenses against illegals over the last few years. The virus pandemic has also allowed the government to shut down the asylum system at its southern border. The Trump administration has also pressured Mexico to take a more aggressive approach toward migrants by deploying the National Guard to intercept them.
And now, the next migrant caravan could arrive at the US southern border by the Nov. 3 U.S. presidential elections.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/36sGTIY Tyler Durden
The Jewish Democratic Council of America is facing backlash after it produced a campaign ad that compared America under President Trump to Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler.
The video, titled “Hate doesn’t stop itself, it must be stopped,” features a split screen with footage of Trump rallies, and by its side footage of nazi rallies from the 1930s.
For good measure, the Democrats threw in images of white supremacists from Charlottesville in 2017, as well as images from the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue attack.
Watch:
“History shows us what happens when leaders use hatred and nationalism to divide their people,” the narrator on the video states.
“As antisemitism and white nationalism rise to dangerous levels in America, we are all less secure. It’s time to show that we’ve learned from the darkest moments in history. Hate doesn’t stop itself. It must be stopped. Vote — our future depends on it,” the narration continues.
The ad is being targeted at Jewish voters in swing states such as Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
The video is so crude that even the ADL, which routinely labels Trump a white supremacist, has denounced it as “deeply offensive”:
The video from @USJewishDems is the latest in growing references to Hitler, Goebbels or other Nazi leaders. This has no place in the presidential race and is deeply offensive to the memories of 6M+ Jews systematically exterminated during the Shoah. https://t.co/pvO89COrI6
“This has no place in the presidential race and is deeply offensive to the memories of 6M+ Jews systematically exterminated during the Shoah,” ADL head Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted.
“We urge leaders & their surrogates to refrain from invoking the #Holocaust in the context of the current election. It is not the same. Stay focused on the issues,” Greenblatt added.
At the same time, we urge leaders & their surrogates to refrain from invoking the #Holocaust in the context of the current election. It is not the same. Stay focused on the issues.
The American Jewish Committee and Simon Wiesenthal Center have also called for the video to be removed.
JDCA’s executive director, Halie Soifer, defended the ad, stating “We’re not calling Donald Trump a Nazi.”
“We are warning against the ominous parallel of the rise of Nazism and the use of hatred for political purposes and the numerous signs that Donald Trump is doing the same,” Soifer added.
The Trump campaign responded to the ad with the following statement:
President Trump is the greatest ally the State of Israel has ever had in the White House. As Democrats increase their false attacks against the President, Jewish Americans can see the truth for themselves through the President’s actions to fight against anti-Semitism, sign the historic Abraham Accords doing what no other President was able to do and bring peace to the Middle East, recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and tear up the disastrous Iran nuclear deal from the Obama-Biden administration.
The development comes in the wake of repeated comparisons of Trump’s America to Nazi Germany by Democrats.
Last weekend, Joe Biden directly compared Trump to the chief Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels:
.@JoeBiden liken @realDonaldTrump to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels helped carry out the systematic murder of more than six million Jewish people. This is unacceptable, offensive and demeans the memory of the Holocaust. Biden must apologize! pic.twitter.com/HgncgsHQbe
Meanwhile, Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said Thursday that she resents anyone who claims Trump is not a racist, saying that the US has a “fascist in the White House.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/36qxod7 Tyler Durden
