iftttwall

Authored by Christina Ramirez, fist published in Real Clear Politics,

In most countries in Europe and North America, governments have imposed lockdowns of their populations and economies. At first glance, this strategy would seem to strike a reasonable, if painful, bargain: pay the price of (hopefully temporary) limits on civil liberties and economic recession (if not depression) to slow virus spread. The price has been very high. In the U.S. alone, the bill has already reached trillions of dollars of lost economic activity and tens of millions out of work. The material pain may go beyond economic insecurity. Many Americans face the real prospect of food shortages.  

Sweden, however, has forged its own path. The government is emphasizing voluntary action over government mandates. Elementary schools and businesses, including bars, cafés, restaurants and gyms, are open. The government has urged people to act responsibly and follow social distancing guidelines.

Stockholm has reasoned that COVID-19 will require sustained interventions, even under optimistic timelines for the development of a vaccine. If true, the economic hardship and sacrifices to civil liberties involved in long-term societal shutdowns would become unjustifiable. So, the Swedish Public Health Authority has elected to pursue what it regards as a feasible goal of slowing the spread to prevent the overwhelming of its health care system while protecting the most vulnerable populations.

Commentators in the media have accused the Swedes of pursuing a “risky coronavirus virus strategy” or of “Russian roulette-style COVID strategy” that has caused an alarming acceleration of the pandemic, triggering a “death spike” leading to “10 times the number of deaths than its Nordic neighbors” have seen.

These commentaries seem to extrapolate too much from a narrow view of the data coming out of Sweden or are under the false impression that Sweden is not socially distancing and simply allowing the disease to spread. In fact, recent reports claiming an acceleration in COVID deaths in Sweden appear to be based on misconstruing the data at hand and narrow comparisons to other countries.

The Swedish Public Health Agency (SPHA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) have been reporting different daily COVID-19 death counts in Sweden. The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare also releases COVID-19 death statistics. Although the cases reported by the SPHA and SNBHW show daily deaths on a decreasing trend, the data from the ECDC shows large swings in the death rate (Figure 1).

To understand these discrepancies, one must look into the nature of the data. The ECDC uses the day that deaths are reported. The SPHA reports the actual date of death. Using their national identification system, they report the day of death for every confirmed COVID-19 death. These numbers, unlike those in many other countries, include deaths that occur at home, nursing homes and long-term care facilities and not just those occurring at hospitals. The National Board of Health and Welfare examines the death certificates and looks for deaths that are attributable to COVID-19 and reports the date of death. Thus, they report the day of COVID-related death regardless of whether the person was tested for COVID-19 or not. It is interesting to note that roughly 4.5% of the COVID-19 deaths in the SPHA count are cases where COVID-19 was not listed as a cause of death; in other words, people died with COVID-19, not from it. Further, there are reporting delays, with weekends having lower counts and larger counts occurring later in the week.  Taken together, these distinctions can paint different pictures.

Cross-country comparisons may suffer similar problems. Data cited in the press and on Twitter comparing Sweden to its Scandinavian neighbors are sometimes reported in cumulative numbers of deaths without adjusting for population size. The population of Sweden is roughly double the size of that of each of its Nordic neighbors. Such comparisons of death counts can misrepresent Sweden as a massive outlier (Figure 2).

A fuller picture should bring into the comparison nearby Ireland and the United Kingdom. As daily counts can suffer from a great deal of random variability, plotting the data using a three-day rolling average of deaths per million (to account for population size differences) smooths out some of this noise and resolves the trajectory of the mortality rate into sharper focus. Appraised with this improved vision, Sweden does not appear to be such an extreme outlier (Figure 3).

Sweden represents a unique alternative as a national approach to bending the COVID-19 death curve. Perhaps as nations are contemplating relaxing their lockdowns, we should step back and take an objective, thoughtful look at what could prove to be an invaluable case study.

Stockholm trusts that people will act in their own self-interest to reduce the viral spread and, therefore, in the interest of society. This voluntary approach, however, does not exclude selective interventions and closures. While primary schools remain open to assist parents who may be health care workers and to prevent infections of elderly neighbors or grandparents who otherwise would be pressed into service as child caregivers, secondary schools and universities are closed. Visits to nursing homes are banned, and people aged over 70 have been instructed to self-isolate. Distancing is required at restaurants and gatherings larger than 50 are banned.

Judging by several indicia, Swedes are heeding the recommendations. Ridership on public transportation has dropped, working from home has increased, restaurants remain open but operate at lower capacity, and travel over the Easter holiday declined dramatically.

Sooner or later the lockdowns must end, as people become more afraid of losing their livelihood than losing their life, or as other overlooked mental and physical costs pile up to the breaking point. In the absence of effective and widespread vaccination, the viral spread can be slowed but not stopped. Singapore, for example, initially did well at containment, but now new cases are appearing. It is possible that Sweden’s larger initial wave of infection pulled forward infections that other countries are likely to encounter in subsequent waves as those nations’ lockdowns are inevitably relaxed. Indeed, Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of the health emergencies program of the World Health Organization, suggested that perhaps Sweden “represents a future model” of what a post-lockdown society might look like .

It is too early to make definitive judgments on the relative merits and risks of the different national approaches to the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, given differences in population composition, culture, health care infrastructure and other factors, successful approaches in one country or even one region might not enjoy equal effectiveness elsewhere.

But in the uncharted world of COVID-19, we must learn from all available data, including that of systems and approaches that differ from convention. Sweden has embarked upon a promising, but unproven, departure from the orthodoxy of government-ordered lockdowns. To date, Stockholm’s reliance on individual responsibility has succeeded in holding caseloads within the country’s capacity to care for the stricken. As we prepare to slowly come out of lockdown and embark for the “new normal” of tomorrow, we have lessons to learn from Sweden today.

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Christina Ramirez, Ph.D., is a professor of biostatistics at the Fielding School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles.

Millions of Americans have lost their jobs in the past six weeks, the fastest destruction of the labor force in history, effectively wiping out every job created post-GFC. About one in five people have filed for unemployment benefits, suggesting coronavirus lockdowns have severely damaged the economy. 

New data released via the Labor Department tells a troubling story of how people who have filed for initial jobless claims aren’t receiving their benefits in a timely manner, which has further stressed households. In March, the Labor Department said 14.21% of the 12 million people who filed for jobless claims received their first payments in the same month. 

Reuters says the distribution of benefits to folks in some states was not immediate. It said labor departments in some states could not handle the surge in processing new claims: 

“They are struggling with the demand and that is very frustrating to people,” said Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, which published a report this week on employment trends. “This data gives you a sense of it.”

In one instance, Las Vegas residents protested on April 23 over delays in unemployment. One protester told NBC Vegas that some people have tried to file for 4-5 weeks with zero success. 

“I have no issue with the stay-at-home” order, Susan Olvera said. “I will gladly respect it, and we have been, but we can’t stay at home and be told ‘don’t go outside’ when we have no money coming in to at least keep the lights on.”

Stettner said states are bound by a three-week rule to send initial payments from the time the claim is filed. With a high influx of job losses and chaos of lockdowns, many states have become overburden with processing claims. 

Indiana, Arizona, Minnesota, and Florida were found to have only 3% of people filing claims in March receive payments that month, “which could cause them to understate the number of jobless people in the state by some estimates,” Reuters notes. 

On the flip side, 51% of people filing claims in Rhode Island for the month were almost immediately paid out. West Virginia and Virginia were two other states that had payments distributed in the same month.

The volume of claims over the last six weeks has completely overwhelmed some state filing systems and likely resulted in delayed payments. To compensate for the increased volume, state labor departments have hired additional staff.

We noted on April 28 that the left-wing Economic Policy Institute conducted a survey and found for every ten people who have successfully filed unemployment claims, three or four people have been unable to register and another two people have not tried to apply at a time of acute economic crisis. Ben Zipperer, the survey’s lead author, found that upwards of 50 million Americans could have lost their jobs since March. 

Stettner said before the pandemic, some states slashed unemployment benefits and made it more challenging for people to file. “They’ve been more throwing up barriers to people getting assistance,” he said. 

Another factor leading to uneven time distribution of unemployment benefits is population. He found labor departments in certain states catering to smaller communities had a much quicker distribution in benefits.

It was noted that states experiencing process claims difficulties could be underreporting job losses. 

“Florida, for example, had an insured unemployment rate of 2% as of mid-April, but it was also severely behind in processing claims as of March – making payments to only 2.4% of people who filed initial claims that month. Rhode Island, which paid benefits to more than half of people filing claims in March, had a higher insured unemployment rate of nearly 17%,” Reuters said. 

And the result of delayed unemployment benefits and households cracking under the weight of economic depression and pandemic, could be the cracking of the American household.

Berkshire Hathaway, the diversified, cash-rich investment vehicle/conglomerate controlled by Warren Buffett reported a record $49.7 billion loss – that’s $30.65 per Class A share equivalent, compared with $21.66 billion, or $13,209 a share, from Q1 2019 – the largest quarterly loss in the conglomerate’s history.

As the coronavirus wiped more than three years’ of gains from the US equity market in March, both Berkshire’s investment portfolio and wholly-owned subsidiaries were “negatively impacted”.

And like most of its peers, Berkshire can’t reliably predict when business conditions will return to normal.

Here are a few highlights courtesy of Yahoo Finance:

• Q1 operating earnings: $5.871 billion, up from $5.555 billion last year ($5.56 billion expected by analysts
• Q1 investment gains: -$54.517 billion, down from $15.498 billion last year
• Q1 net earnings per A share: -$30,652, down from $13,209 last year
• Q1 net earnings per B share: -$20.44, down from $8.81 last year

More from Reuters:

• IN THE FIRST THREE MONTHS OF 2020, BERKSHIRE PAID $1.7 BILLION TO REPURCHASE SHARES OF CLASS A AND B COMMON STOCK
• BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC SAYS IT ENDED Q1 WITH $137.3 BLN CASH AND EQUIVALENTS
• BERKSHIRE OWNED $63.8 BILLION APPLE AAPL.O SHARES AS OF MARCH 31, COMPARED WITH REPORTED $73.7 BLN AS OF DEC 31
• BERKSHIRE OWNED $20.2 BILLION BANK OF AMERICA BAC.N SHARES AS OF MARCH 31, COMPARED WITH REPORTED $33.4 BLN AS OF DEC 31
• BERKSHIRE OWNED $9.9 BILLION WELLS FARGO WFC.N SHARES AS OF MARCH 31, COMPARED WITH REPORTED $18.6 BLN AS OF DEC 31
• BERKSHIRE OWNED $17.7 BLN COCA-COLA CO KO.N SHARES AS OF MARCH 31, COMPARED WITH REPORTED $22.1 BLN AS OF DEC 31
• MOST OF CO’S BUSINESSES NEGATIVELY AFFECTED IN SECOND HALF OF MARCH AND THROUGH APRIL DUE TO CORONAVIRUS
• BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY- CANNOT RELIABLY PREDICT WHEN BUSINESS ACTIVITIES AT CO’S NUMEROUS AND DIVERSE OPERATIONS WILL NORMALIZE

Underscoring the impact from the outbreak, Berkshire’s 10-Q mentions COVID-19 31 times.

As WSJ reminds us, Berkshire’s quarterly earnings are especially volatile “due to an accounting rule that went into effect in 2018 requiring companies to include unrealized investment gains or losses in their net income. Berkshire holds large stock investments, and their quarterly changes in value can have a big effect on Berkshire’s net income.”

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Despite being one of the first countries to begin relaxing its lockdown laws, authorities in Austria have said that police may intervene if they see people kissing.

Yes, really.

From May 15th onwards, Austrians will once again be permitted to visit re-opened bars and restaurants.

As of today, they are already allowed to visit friends.

Fearing that this will incentivize a rash of dating, which in turn will lead to couples being very physically affectionate, Austria’s Health Minister Rudolf Anschober warned that the love police will be watching.

In an interview with Ö3, Anschober made clear that kissing is prohibited for couples who don’t live together.

Not only is kissing in public prohibited, Anschober even said that a kiss between lovers who don’t live together indoors is also a violation of the law.

“Existing rules do not override this either,” remarked Anschober.

“Kissing is therefore also prohibited in your own four walls,” reports UnserTirol.

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