investorpolitico

From an article of the magazine Science (US), Nature Medicine (HK). OggiScienza (Italy) and backed by research.

-Covid-19 develops in clusters and superspreaders (in the study 70% of infected did not infect anyone, while 8% of infected is responsible of 60% of infection. A different study sgiws that 20% of infected was responsinle of 80% of the spread.

Most of the superspreader events occour in a closed space or space with low ventilation/ high humidity.

The Ro is 2.5, but there is another factor called K (transmission factor in the population). This is much lower than the flue, hence a cluster style of development.

This indicate two main developments.

-The diffusion of the virus is non-linear. This means that a period of low cases can be followed by a high number . A few superspreaders events can blow out the numbers. Large scale lockdown is ineffectual unless you intend to keep it on forever.

-The location of danger events are offices, places where you have to lower your mask (eg restaurants) or raise your voice and physical exertion.

The North-eastern University showed that the West used “flue like” statistical models to combat the virus that are wrong (in the East models were based more on SARS experience, much better). Instead of contact tracing a rewind tracking model should be used (identify the super spreader and track his movements – it has been used successfully in South Korea and Japan).

There are a lot of really well written analysis out there, but few point to a glaring error that will make it impossible to recover from this spending binge.

On page 2 of the budget there is a forecast of a GDP Growth of 3.75% for 5 years (4.75%pa in 21/22).

Australia in the last good 10 year achieved an average slightly more than 2% pa with only in 2012 reaching 3.92%pa.

With a net loss of immigration this is impossible. Hence all the Government forecasts are wrong.