New coronavirus in/from China

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 18 Mar 2020, 15:44

clv101 wrote:Agreed, the situation has gone far beyond party politics.

Still beginning to look like a fast crash scenario to me. The global financial system could grind to a complete halt, or become completely detached from the real world.

boisdevie · Post by **boisdevie** » 18 Mar 2020, 15:44

Yesterday I noticed that bullionbypost were talking about delivery delivery problems. I emailed to ask if I could turn up and buy some gold. Here's their reply
"In line with government recommendations to reduce non-essential contact, we have also temporarily suspended our collection service. While we understand it is frustrating, we feel this is best for the safety of our customers and staff at this time. Any orders placed during this time will be held securely at our facilities until such time as we can resume our normal service."

I'm not too sure if I'd like my gold held at their facility at the moment.

Vortex2 · Post by **Vortex2** » 18 Mar 2020, 15:45

At that rate, if we are talking repeated close contact accumulated risk, hairdressers and barbers need to close now.

The numbers - however rough and ready - do indicate why so many social creatures such as politicians are becoming infected.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 18 Mar 2020, 15:48

boisdevie wrote:Yesterday I noticed that bullionbypost were talking about delivery delivery problems. I emailed to ask if I could turn up and buy some gold. Here's their reply
"In line with government recommendations to reduce non-essential contact, we have also temporarily suspended our collection service. While we understand it is frustrating, we feel this is best for the safety of our customers and staff at this time. Any orders placed during this time will be held securely at our facilities until such time as we can resume our normal service."

I'm not too sure if I'd like my gold held at their facility at the moment.

In the current situation, that is completely useless. They have in effect stopped selling metals.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 18 Mar 2020, 15:49

https://www.ukbullion.com/

TRADING PAUSED: Our operational system is currently under review. Phone lines and website will be live again as soon as possible.

Bedrock Barney · Post by **Bedrock Barney** » 18 Mar 2020, 15:55

UndercoverElephant wrote:
boisdevie wrote:Yesterday I noticed that bullionbypost were talking about delivery delivery problems. I emailed to ask if I could turn up and buy some gold. Here's their reply
"In line with government recommendations to reduce non-essential contact, we have also temporarily suspended our collection service. While we understand it is frustrating, we feel this is best for the safety of our customers and staff at this time. Any orders placed during this time will be held securely at our facilities until such time as we can resume our normal service."

I'm not too sure if I'd like my gold held at their facility at the moment.
In the current situation, that is completely useless. They have in effect stopped selling metals.

Bought a few sovereigns at a general auction house today (via online bidding). Completely bonkers. Some coins selling for 20% over the market rate, a few 5% under. Never seen that before. I think people are losing it left right and centre.

Mean Mr Mustard II · Post by **Mean Mr Mustard II** » 18 Mar 2020, 15:55

Anecdotal from Grim Up North...

Wife's just been on the phone to one of her friends, in her 70s. To put it mildly, she's not the sharpest knife in the drawer. She and her husband were standing outside their grand daughter's school, waiting to pick her up. They're not going to self-isolate, because they're fit, it's only like the flu and it's not up here anyway: it's down in London. God knows how she can't see that if it got here from China, there's nothing to stop it travelling another 200 miles. Their son-in-law is working from home, I wonder why.

Bedrock Barney · Post by **Bedrock Barney** » 18 Mar 2020, 16:00

fuzzy wrote:Shame carpenters bricklayers or plumbers didn't save their considerable wages.

There are a lot of relatively unskilled workers on building sites as well. They work hard but are not paid particularly well and their bodies take a major pounding.

Mean Mr Mustard II · Post by **Mean Mr Mustard II** » 18 Mar 2020, 16:01

The global financial system could grind to a complete halt, or become completely detached from the real world.

When was it last attached? Pre-Bretton Woods? Gold Standard? Medici money printing?

Snail · Post by **Snail** » 18 Mar 2020, 16:02

The local Morrison's had very little fresh produce. No potatoes, onions. Hardly any tomatoes etc.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 18 Mar 2020, 16:05

The whole world is now where China was on January 24th:

UndercoverElephant wrote:Death toll now 26, "at least ten cities under travel restrictions", Beijing has cancelled all large-scale new year events and Disneyland China shut down.

Either the Chinese are suddenly moving fast to get ahead of the curve, or the curve is suddenly out of sight. These restrictions won't work. The timing could not have been worse. 300,000 people left Wuhan before the first ban was in place.

They bought the rest of the world two months, and it was wasted.

Vortex2 · Post by **Vortex2** » 18 Mar 2020, 16:05

Snail wrote:The local Morrison's had very little fresh produce. No potatoes, onions. Hardly any tomatoes etc.

Aldi had quite a lot of stuff except flour, eggs. Limit of 4 of any item,

Milk, cereal, bread, leeks all OK ... but gaps.

Snail · Post by **Snail** » 18 Mar 2020, 16:07

Hopefully, this is a short term supply/logistics problem. It was quite shocking seeing no potatoes. The seed potatoes shelf in the garden centre had gaps in it.

careful_eugene · Post by **careful_eugene** » 18 Mar 2020, 16:07

My daughters school has effectively closed down for all years except 11 (GCSE's) & 13 (A levels) for the rest of the week. This is due to staff shortages, they are making provision to supervise children of those with "significant childcare issues" but I suspect the school will be fully closed by the end of the week regardless of what the government decides. Another secondary school close to where I work has closed after it was confirmed that a parent has contracted Covid-19.

Vortex2 · Post by **Vortex2** » 18 Mar 2020, 16:18

From earlier:

HMG : 2626 cases today 18th march
....

Don't forget that the real count is between 6 and 20 times higher due to hidden cases, and then higher still due to a roughly 6 day reporting delay. My calculations, using an 8.3 scale factor, suggest 115,992 infected cases in reality today.

UPDATE: HMG suggest that 55,000 is probably near the real figure today.
I suspect that they are using a shorter time offset than the 6 days I use. They may also be using the 6 x scale factor found by the Chinese rather than my 8.3 x. scaling

UPDATED UPDATE: Just checked : a reporting delay of 4.25 days plus a 6.2 scaling fits the bill. Seems a bit optimistic to me.

EDIT: Just checked the predictions .. the difference between my over-keen prediction and the HMG variant is just 3 days .. exponentials at work.