Macro Afternoon

By in Australian Dollar, Australian Shares

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See the latest Australian dollar analysis here:

Australian dollar drops as RBA talks it down

by Chris Becker

The soft mood in Asia continues as we end the trading week as stock markets remain in retreat mode and wipe out the start of week gains. The USD is reversing slightly against the majors, with gold just hanging on after its fallback last night while other risk assets are also stable but looking weak going into the last session of the week.

In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite is still falling after its big slump yesterday, down 0.5% going into the close at 3193 points while in Hong Kong the Hang Seng Index is the odd one out, up nearly 0.6% to 25123 points. The daily chart shows the full retracement of the big breakout above the 25000 point barrier:

Japanese stocks slipped again with the Nikkei 225 falling 0.3% to be at 22695 points while the USDJPY pair is largely unchanged from its overnight rebound, still unable to make any gains above the 107,20 level:

The ASX200 was higher at the open but is slipping in the afternoon session, currently down 0.1% and wanting to hold on to the 6000 point barrier, while the  Australian dollar has put on a small rebound from its overnight retracement but is still stuck here below the 70 handle:

Eurostoxx and S&P futures are slightly higher going into tonight’s session that has a few Euro-centric economic events. The four hourly chart of the S&P500 still looks choppy despite the previous tilt higher, with price still gravitating around the 3200 point level:

And that’s it for the trading week, have a good weekend and stay safe!

Latest posts by Chris Becker (see all)

Comments

  4. Rowan McKenzie

    We know that Vitamin D deficiency is a large factor for how serious a COVID case turns out to be.

    The biggest clusters in Melbourne are from people with darker skin, half of whom cover up when outside.

    How much is Vitamin D deficiency in this group a factor in the overall outbreak?

    Should we be banning burkas and niqabs to prevent further public health crises?

    • T BagMEMBER

      In fact, just ban the people that wear them from entering Australia full stop.✊🏿

      • Rowan McKenzie

        The majority of people in lockdown, isolated Melbourne are probably Vitamin D deficient now.

        And we were shaming people from going to the beach a few months ago – so dumb.

        Why isn’t Dan Andrews giving out free Zinc and Vitamin D supplements?

    • skippy

      Factor but large is a stretch in a multivariate problem set E.g. one could argue poverty is just as significant to all health outcomes. You might also note that nutrients are just as or more important as the sun derived source, curiously vitamins were created due to the over taxation on the nutrients in soil from excessive cultivation and increased industrialization of Ag to supplement the loss of a previous naturally occurring necessity to life.

      How much is that market worth now, how many investors are dependent on its income, how many workers dependent on its survival, but yeah, you made this about genetics.

      • SweeperMEMBER

        “one could argue poverty is just as significant to all health outcomes”
        I would be amazed if there is a counter argument.
        One could also argue that inequality is just a significant to all mental health outcomes

          • SweeperMEMBER

            well.. the winners are currently laying off their staff via zoom from the safety of their beach house lounge room while the losers are either being laid off or told to continue facing the winners customers and be exposed to corona.

    • Jim's Central Banking

      Vitamin D is dirt cheap. Even a broke kent like me can afford it.

      You could send a few bottles to the towers if you’re so concerned.

      • Arrow2MEMBER

        No idea if the Vit D thing is legit but spent the weekend snoozing in the sun anyway.

        Winning.

          • Arrow2MEMBER

            Thanks D!

            Weekend links had some discussion of the result.

            We didn’t win the auction, it went past what we considered fair value (not lowball) and then it went a bit further. So feeling good, no regrets, time is on our side in the current market. Worth noting that despite being a high quality house with very strong interest during inspections, there were still only a couple of credible bidders.

            Feeling even more comfy with the decision after this week’s COVID results…

        • DominicMEMBER

          Walking that fine line between cancer and Covid. Love your moves A2. 😉

          (Apologies, I have precisely stuff-all else to contribute to this debate aside from some occasional levity)

          • Arrow2MEMBER

            It would be vaguely hilarious if those who spent lockdown upside down at dawn sunning their… fundaments … turned out to be on the right track after all.

        • DominicMEMBER

          “It would be vaguely hilarious if those who spent lockdown upside down at dawn sunning their… fundaments … turned out to be on the right track after all.”

          I think they should all be forced to … 😉

    • AngryMan

      https://www.sciencedaily.com/search/?keyword=#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=covid%20vitamin%20d&gsc.sort=

      There is a long established link between vitd and catching/severity of ANY respiratory disease which of course includes covid. And vitd is not a vitamin. It’s a hormone. It was called a vit by suppliers for purposes of getting FDA approval. So yes we can expect dark skinned people to be more susceptible. And that is science fact. On a typical SUMMER day between 11am and 1pm a white skinned person can generate in 15 min vitd that would take a dark skin person 45 min to 1 hour.

      • adelaide_economistMEMBER

        Yes but we’re in a period of radical denial of difference in the furtherance of political goals and ill health consequences be damned.

  7. NikoMEMBER

    I am disinfecting myself with Balvenie – DoubleWood 12 years while listening to Tool.

      • NikoMEMBER

        my ex manager (who is a mate now) got me on listening to them and he is raving about the drummer too. agree, he sounds real good. Guitarist is nothing special (does not play anything difficult) but still produces great sound.. could be because I have weakness for fuzz pedals.

          • DominicMEMBER

            That’s awesome. I can barely pat my head and rub my tummy simultaneously.

            That guy is a freak — and a threat to women (can he multi task! Geez)

          • skippy

            No such thing as multi tasking, its a behavioral market meme deployed to get workers to take on additional tasks at the same pay whilst the business increases its profit margin – same goes for the boomers meme.

            From a Scientific stand point the activity is called task switching and could be compared to driving whilst texting on your Smart [tm] phone whilst driving.

            Your welcome.

      • two plus twoMEMBER

        To my evolving tastes, they have gotten even better with each album. Opiate wasn’t a bad starting point. Seen them a few times as well, and yes, Danny is a beast, behind a beast of a kit.

    • Know IdeaMEMBER

      Perhaps “Sober” would be worth a listen.

      I may just take my own advice while drinking this vodka.

    • SwampyMEMBER

      I always knew you were awesomer than you let on

      Balvenie my fave
      And also Tool (I think I still like Propagandhi, Lagwagon, Clutch and Soundgarden more for consistency, especially Clutch and Soundgarden, and man Propagandhi are getting better with age). But only up to and including Lateralus. It’s easy to forget how good Ænima really is. Third Eye my fave, but hard to split 46&2, Push(t, Eulogy, Stinkfist. The Bill Hicks intro genius. But then there’s Flood, a masterpiece. I lost my head when we got Flood and Third Eye the Domain in, what, 2006?

    • Rowan McKenzie

      The baseline is caused by sea level rise from global warming, but the excess is still from tides and storms. Putting down some blocking rocks along the shore will buy them another decade.

      • GavinMEMBER

        It’s a good thing global warming is another hoax just like WuFlu so this is all just fake news.

      • OswaldMEMBER

        The baseline is they should never have built on the dune system in the first place. Protection works might succeed in moderate seas but when the really big swells come (long period waves at the tail end of the occurrence) at some time in the future, nature will prevail. Inevitable that owners will have to walk away at that stage. Global warming compounds the risk, but nature would have prevailed eventually in any case..

      • DominicMEMBER

        “Putting down some blocking rocks ….”

        Er, yes, but these kents think it’s the responsibility ‘other people’ to fund it. Entitlement is the watchword of the current era. Don’t matter whether you’re rich or poor.

        Frankly anyone who buys a home right on the beach has only themselves to blame — you have to be retarded to believe that taxpayers should fund defences for such property.

    • Reus's largeMEMBER

      It is the councils fault because the council did not want to pay for their seawall, so they could have built a seawall a long time ago, if you can afford the 3-4 mil for the house then I am sure you can afford to put up a seawall to save it.

    • DominicMEMBER

      Think of the moneybags (sob) ..

      “It’s someone else’s fault”

      (Ain’t that a sign of the times we live in — personal responsibility? RIP)

    • GunnamattaMEMBER

      rewrite history so that the Dambusters dog didnt have such an outrageously offensive name and wasnt buried with it….

      Dambusters dog: Headstone replaced to remove racist name
      https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-53436447

      …..for anyone wondering
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgePEO7GUtE

      In Memoriam

      To the unknown driver of an unknown car who struck a blow for justice and equality for all when bringing down an inappropriately named dog belonging to militaristic Royal Air Force white males (from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) en route to bomb the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams, without warning or any form of consultation, in September 1943, causing the deaths the deaths of thousands of innocent women and children in Germany’s Rhur Valley.

      This unknown driver, in ending the life of the unfortunately named dog, struck a blow for righteousness and equality.

        • The Traveling Wilbur

          I see what you did there… or what you nearly did there…

          As there is nothing at all I can add to that which is isn’t deeply offensive to someone, somewhere, I shall just back away carefully, hands in pockets, while whistling softly.

      • GunnamattaMEMBER

        ….maybe his drinking habit stemmed from depression related to having such a name

        ….maybe it was suicide

      • blacktwin997MEMBER

        It’s fortunate that we actually fought WW2 back then, way before dangerous levels of background wokeness resulted in the pussification of the entire Anglosphere. We’d have been no match for the Axis today.

        • GunnamattaMEMBER

          could we have called the Nazis Nazis? could we have identified which country they came from?

          • blacktwin997MEMBER

            Oh hell no, that sort of straightforward thinking could lead to people referring to spades as ‘spades’, and nobody needs that in today’s diverse inclusive utopian society.

        • DominicMEMBER

          The word ‘spade’ has been removed from the dictionary – only ‘shovel’ remains. Thank goodness.

          ‘Progress’

      • AngryMan

        So if you can find the original Dambusters movie from the 50s you will find the dog’s name unchanged in that. When Peter Jackson wanted to make a new Dambusters movie the biggest issue was wether to rename the dog or stay historical accurate.

      • Wing Nut

        So what was the dog’s name? Neville? I can see why someone would get upset about that.

        • AngryMan

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dam_Busters_(film)#Historical_accuracy
          In 1999, British television network ITV broadcast a censored version of the film, removing all utterances of “N*****”. ITV blamed regional broadcaster London Weekend Television, which in turn alleged that a junior staff member had been responsible for the unauthorised cuts. …..The British Channel 4 screened the censored American version in July 2007, in which the dialogue was dubbed so as to call the dog “Trigger”,

          N***** died on 16 May 1943, the day of the “Dam Busters” raid, when he was hit by a car. He was buried at midnight as Gibson was leading the raid. The dog’s name was used as a single codeword whose transmission conveyed that the Möhne Dam had been breached. In the film, the dog was portrayed in several scenes; his name and the codeword were mentioned several times.

      • skippy

        Firstly the roots on said name – as a slur – had nothing to do with a humans ethnic back ground or skin tone, it was a term relegated to those that stole from others and then only later on was used as a broad brush to implicate some genetic disposition to the action. That later became a political fun toy for those like the eugenics mobs that affiliated all social ill upon the the most or least non politically advantaged for all social ills E.g. poverty is a mental illness or predetermined genetic affliction I.e. super predators aka for profit industrial prison fodder.

        The problem is not in the use of the word, but when its applied to implicate a genetic flaw in an entire ethnic group, lest I argue fair skinned people have an over developed propensity for superiority which is facilitated by some random environmental factors over a short period of time in geological timelines.

    • The Traveling Wilbur

      The same as last Friday. And the Friday before that… and the Friday before that…

    • Jim's Central Banking

      I obtained* a copy of “White Fragility” just because I want to know what the opening chapter of the dumbest book ever written actually reads like.

      *absolutely did not pay for the POS.

    • footsore

      Vary between posting things about themselves, passing opinions on others while throwing in a little bit of occasional trolling.

      • haroldusMEMBER

        I found myself agreeing with that, then thought what a pack of self obsessed narcissists the pack of capuchins that comprise the MB commenters are.

        • footsore

          We’re a collection of embittered, cynical and anonymous folk. A bit like tism if you extract the wit and the ability to pass considered comment upon Australian society.

    • DominicMEMBER

      I liked this observation by Avid Commentator:
      – $10bn in super withdrawals in 9 days

      – Record high luxury car sales

      – Above trend retail sales

      – Confidence data shows households believe they will be relatively ok personally

      When you put it all together it’s clear that overall ppl do not think the recession is a big deal

      • Arthur Schopenhauer

        I don’t think that car has a reverse gear. As as a whipper snapper, I briefly worked for a very boorish bloke who would loudly complain his Ferrari had no fkn reverse gear.

        • haroldusMEMBER

          This may be a stupid question, but do they have a reverse gear?

          Or is it a comment about how hard it is to engage reverse in a Ferrari?

          • DominicMEMBER

            Undoubtedly has a reverse gear – just an activity that is not encouraged given the poor visibility for the driver.

            I drove a more modern Ferrari once – but had no need to inquire after Reverse. It was full bore round a race track.

          • GavinMEMBER

            Excellent trolling sir, but comparing a Mondial to an F40 is like comparing a 1990 Ford Capri with an ND MX5.. world’s apart.

        • haroldusMEMBER

          I’ve just gone and broken one down and found this. The F40 has a three-axis design, with first, second, fifth, and sixth gears on an output shaft behind and below the input shaft, and third and fourth gears are on an output shaft in front of and above the input shaft. Both output shaft pinions drive a helical gear with a conventional differential. The clutch is mounted on a dual-mass flywheel to dampen vibrations on whichever output shaft is idle depending upon which gear is selected.

          Triple-cone synchronizers are used on 1st and 2nd gears. These synchronizers have three friction surfaces, which increase their ability to transfer the flow of torque more smoothly from one gear to another. Synchronizers act as clutches to speed up or slow down the gearsets that are being shifted to, and greater friction area results in easier shifting for the driver. The 3rd, 4th, and reverse synchronizers are double-cone, while the 5th and 6th gear synchronizers are single-cone. All of the friction surfaces on the Synchronizer rings are sintered bronze. The ratios in the 6-speed are widely spaced for versatile performance and efficiency.

          So I hope that clears that up. Gavin, Booma and Colin will be happy to take questions on the subject.

          • ColinMEMBER

            That’s written to sound all so good! But doesn’t negate that they revamped their gearboxes in the late 90’s because they were sh1ts to use. Also because the Oh so well thought out & smooth Honda NSX scared the living hell out of them & they had to start earning their money again 😉

    • SnappedUpSavvyMEMBER

      That dealer is in Sydney, yet the car came off the road in Qld, I’m amazed there are 2 F40’s in Australia, such a rare and collectible car, most are sold to the UK cos of the Aussie peso

      Why would a car like that ever be driven on road just nuts

    • MerdoMEMBER

      Was driving back to GC from Lamington National Park and saw this. Turned to girlfriend and said if that’s not a replica that’s a $2mil loss. Very weird place to lose it!!

        • GavinMEMBER

          I’m nearly 100% certain it will be restored, given the $2m value placed on it. It will be a hefty repair bill, at a guess $750K odd of damage. But it will be restored by someone with the pockets.

          • DominicMEMBER

            Zero doubt you’re right. The rare car fraternity are a rare bunch – there’s always someone among them who will have a crack. And I understand the motivation. Anything rare …

    • DominicMEMBER

      Surely the dealer has insurance on all his stock.

      Nice stack though — clearly someone who hasn’t the faintest grasp of physics

      • GavinMEMBER

        My guess is, car hardly ever driven. Tyres probably old, like 10 years old. Slightly frosty / dewy conditions. Put foot down and car spins out of control.

        • DominicMEMBER

          Good point. I once had a spin in a F430 F1 — round a race track. F-me, the power. But that would have been relatively fresh rubber and a motor in its prime.

      • ram

        Or more accustomed to Nismos with traction control etc.

        Hard to beat the thrill of getting side ways in an old rwd. Don’t know if the Ferrari is rwd or fwd. my 2c, but in my younger days I lived on island where there were no coppers and you could by a bush basher for 50 -100 bucks , as 15 year old we created a sand circuit through some dense scrub. Oh the fun in scaring the crap out of our mainlander friends swinging the tale end into trees.

        Rolled a VB commodore, dato 120y, and crashed a 260c into a tree an it set fire, or one of the inbreeds set it a light. All whilst enjoying the locally grown budZ.

        Crazy times.

        • ColinMEMBER

          Rear mid engine, RWD, can make the front end feel light or “push” in some conditions, & makes for a heavier pendulous rear end when it starts swinging…. different to drive till you get used to it.

    • haroldusMEMBER

      Also, on a test drive.

      “Thanks mate, I’m looking at a few, I’ll get back to you OK”.

    • footsore

      If you can’t afford ro crash a Ferrari then you shouldn’t be driving it to begin with.

    • drsmithyMEMBER

      Crazy how those things were so stripped down they didn’t even have door handles.

      It immediately reminded me of playing Test Drive 3 as a youngster – but then when I went and double checked it was actually the Ferrari Mythos Concept Car in that.

      I’d still go a McLaren F1. The central driver’s seat is just cool.

  19. AngryMan

    Well it’s happened. Postive covid person arrived in wa from Victoria on a plane full of people. So much for our hard border. Guess WA will be in lock down again in a few weeks.

    • Rowan McKenzie

      We catch about 5-10% of cases. This is what the Germans worked out, and based on antibody studies.

      So Victoria has about 5,000 new instances a day (I won’t call them infections because most are not symptomatic).

      At this rate Melbourne will hit herd immunity (20% of pop, based on Stockholm data) in 200 days. We have 26 COVID ICU patients out of 450 capacity, oodles of spare capacity (no need to flatten the curve).

      As soon as we get our first 20 degree sunny day, drop all restrictions, ramp it up. Herd immunity by Spring, no more lockdown ever again.

      • DominicMEMBER

        Hopefully at that point everybody will leave QLD head back to whence they came.

      • Curious

        And you will notice the US is in mid summer with lots of warm days, and they are acting via incompetence to accelerate the number of cases. By the time it is warm here we will see whether herd immunity is a viable solution in the US or based on Swedish data is a pipe dream that has most of the economic costs of lockdown as citizens act to protect themselves, but many more deaths. In Victoria we need to heavily suppress over the next 8-10 weeks of winter/ early spring, and then keep it down until a vaccine is plausible in early 2021 in Australia. Yes US and UK could be there sooner but domestic markets will take everything they can produce for quite some time.

      • working class hamMEMBER

        The question you raise in regards to incompetence vs motive is a good one.
        I believe it’s both.
        The way organisations are structured are so that individual incompetence is never at fault, no individual is ever responsible for a decision, always following a pre determined set of procedures. Only those going off book are accountable.
        This system allows absolute morons to be in positions of great consequence. Slow moving organisations are always reactive and wait for shortcomings to be exposed before action is taken.
        Never waist a crisis.
        Corruption and vested interests are always looking for opportunity.
        Quite a shiv house combo.

      • Curious

        That’s not pressure. That’s children wailing in the playground. As Keith Miller, the great Australian cricketer who flew in the Battle of Britain once put it, pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse. And the old adage “Hard cases make bad law” is just as true. The people manning the barriers need to hold the line.

  20. [email protected]

    Did a stocktake on my wardrobe, surprised to discover nearly everything is from Lowes. I’ve become the man I mocked as a youth. *shaking fist repeatedly to nobody as I drink in the dark

  21. NikoMEMBER

    GMN did not hit anything significant in their most promising drill. bugger. But on the bright side they did not drill too deep. I hope next couple of holes will go to at least 800m each.

    Anyway.. REE are due for 2 announcements next week. One is visual interpretation pf their second hole at Trundle and the other is the assays from their first hole at Mordialloc. This is the hole John H (the geo who discovered Cadia) got excited about and wanted to extend at depth.

    • SnappedUpSavvyMEMBER

      I had a small go at gmn, looks like I’m now a long time holder 😆
      On the subject of long term holding aqx has finally come good and nearly a bag 😁 been a year though
      Ree are looking promising, big holding there for awhile now. Sold Mag don’t know what’s happening there

      • NikoMEMBER

        AQX started drilling at Boda and around it.. No results yet though.

        I may sell half of my GMN (it’s a small stake anyway) but keep half until I see assays from deeper holes. I still think GMN can come good but it is very speculative like any other exploration stock.
        I am looking at impact too. They have really intersting ground around Dubbo and just south of ALK’s Boda. But they did sell to ALK one of their tenements for a song.

        Anyway, I think REE will be a winner. Their scarn intercept at Trundle already shows minable grades.. out of the first drill. If they hit good grades at depth then REE will fly – literary.

    • DominicMEMBER

      Look on the bright side – you could be a long suffering shareholder of DCN. What a total c0ck up that stock’s been.

      As for explorers, tough gig as an investor. If I had my time again I’d buy exploration rights and dig holes — can be very lucrative when the sector’s hot 😉

      As a wise man once said, gold mining stocks boil down to ‘some schmendrick standing next to a hole’.

      You really need to know your stuff and know your mining personalities otherwise it’s like buying Lotto tickets.

        • DominicMEMBER

          It’s not that easy – even geologists understand the gig. A rapidly rising share price is sometimes too difficult to resist.

          But yes, there are a few with principles.

    • working class hamMEMBER

      Got any info for someone looking for sml cap aussie gold/copper miners?
      You sound like you have a fair amount of experience.

      • NikoMEMBER

        all well priced already. If they fall ~20% then Oz Minerals and Sandfire for copper and SAR, SBM and NCM for gold and gold/copper.
        SAR also holds some nickel promising ground that many ignore but can be very price sensitive in few years.. if one has long term view.
        This is just my opinion and is not fin advice.

    • reusachtigeMEMBER

      Awww man, I wanna see that! Can you imagine him trying to articulate while being buzzed up?

    • [email protected]

      I changed over to watch it and instantly hated you. I wanted to see a disheveled, bearded man in paint stained clothes ranting about “dominate” theory and rattling off economic theorists and why they’re wrong, getting zapped and it was just a real life kangaroo. So underwhelming.

    • skippy

      Funny thing TTW you would not cut it with most the old OZ boys. I know, your soft hands and weakness for anything that rocks your boat would be like a red flag before a bull. Don’t think you would last long in say a night in Muswellbrook on a Friday night at the pub.

    • adelaide_economistMEMBER

      Another article that massively underplays how many foreign workers are in this country. The ~130,000 ‘skilled’ temp visa holders are a tiny fraction of the temp visa holders who can (and often do) work here. The same statistics from where they get the ~130,000 number show the other ~2,000,000 old temp visa holders – not least of which include ~570,000 ‘students’ and 670,000 New Zealanders. But yeah, they’re all doing jobs ‘Australians’ won’t, like working at the local Indian or Chinese restaurant that only hires students for 1/3 the award rate.

      • The Traveling Wilbur

        I heard a Kiwi describe Kiwi immigration in Australia once as the equivalent of putting the country on Prozac.

        Initially, you don’t notice any difference at all, for months. And then sometime later, you wake up one morning and it’s in control of everything.

    • DominicMEMBER

      High unemployment here means the game is up for that rort. No matter how much Harry and his ilk squeal.

      Ponzi.

  24. migtronixMEMBER

    Rereading Mark and, honestly, I’m not seeing it. If anything the dude is bit of a jerk always playing parlour tricks and telling people off.

    I mean, they’re all there on a boat because he convinces them to follow him and then end up in a massive storm – naturally the rest as sh!tting themselves while this guy is sleep-in. Then he grumpily gets up, tells wind and seas to chill out and grumbles “why don’t you have more faith, girls” as he goes back to snoozing.

    This. This is my lord and saviour? Just not seeing it.

    • skippy

      Lmmao at free styling the canons … you would be better off dropping some micro dot and watching the carpet move. Gezz there is about 20 reference points plus to each verse which then needs to be put into context from a historical comparison point over the entire period from the original lag time of events to the authors depiction and then its interpretation on a new event horizon in history.

      Then all that has to be referenced to plagiarism of older mythos to provide a base under the whole thing as it extenuates throughout shifts in geopolitics over the whole time line.

      I personally recommend Goodwin for a literal summary that is more honest than latter day prose …. still one would have to reconcile that with more than a few others just to establish a good base line.

  25. Hugh Pavletich

    UNITED KINGDOM … COVID 19 … POSSIBLE HERD IMMUNITY …

    UK may already have enough herd immunity to prevent second coronavirus wave, study says … Bill Gardner … UK Telegraph (behind paywall)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/16/uk-may-already-have-enough-herd-immunity-prevent-second-coronavirus/

    Scientists say many people may already be immune to Covid-19 without ever having caught it … (behind paywall) read more via hyperlink above …
    .
    .
    Coronavirus: Levels of herd immunity in UK may already be high enough to prevent second wave, study suggests … The Independent

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-herd-immunity-second-wave-oxford-study-boris-johnson-a9623791.html

    Levels of herd immunity within the UK may already be high enough to prevent a second wave of coronavirus, a new study by Oxford University scientists suggests.

    The researchers posit that some of the population may already have a high level of immunity to Covid-19 without ever having caught it. … read more via hyperlink above …

      • bzunicaMEMBER

        Many of the papers people on here share about the severity of covid-19 are not peer reviewed either. The peer-review process takes months and these papers are only days or weeks old. If you dismiss this paper based on its lack of peer review then it is entirely possible that most papers on covid can be dismissed too. Confirmation bias is strong.

    • SweeperMEMBER

      Lets assume, as all the evidence now confirms that there is no trade-off between suppression and GDP growth – eg. a herd immunity strategy would reduce GDP just as much – maybe more as the government wouldn’t be responsible & therefore less willing/pressured to inject stimulus..
      Why – not knowing the true fatality rate, or long-term effects of the virus, or the expected roll-out date of a vaccine – would any sane government pursue herd immunity.
      And at what point does the strategy not make sense.
      Say a vaccine could be rolled out in 18 months with 80% probability, fatality rate is 1%, 10% case long term lung damage, herd immunity threshold is >50% – should herd immunity be pursued?
      What about if vaccine is available in 3 years with 90% probability, fatality rate, .5%, 15% case long term lung damage, herd immunity threshold > 40%?
      And all for no extra GDP. Is this the optimal strategy. And if it is what are the magic numbers where it becomes the optimal strategy. ta.

    • SnappedUpSavvyMEMBER

      They are just hopeless at diplomacy

      May as well hack up a gooober and leave it on the page

    • DominicMEMBER

      Why do we build all this shyte when nuclear weapons (MAD) were supposed to have solved the problem once and for all?

      There are no hot wars anymore except between America and banana Republics. Or just between banana Republics

  27. Arthur Schopenhauer

    Some insider stats from Vic:
    – number of tests have been roughly consistent day to day
    – 2 weeks ago, 0.01% of day’s tests positive
    – today, around 1.7% of day’s tests positive

    Exponential gonna expontentiate.

    • Curious

      Yep, lots of community transmission now. As witnessed by hospital and aged care workers picking it up in the community and then bringing it to work, as opposed to the other way around. I do hope the authorities are proved right and that the Level 3 restrictions we have now will start working, but I think we might need to err on the side of caution and increase tightening.

  31. Arrow2MEMBER

    Big night for the shut ins!

    I just duck off to watch the first half of Hamilton and next thing Friday Macro Arvo hits 260 posts by 11pm…!