COVID is just common cold, but sadly we are ALL pre-Columbian native Americans.
disclaimer: everything below is entirely theoretical (i.e. speculative). no medical advice.
2/13, "It's just another cold"
Given what I know now, SARS-COV2 appears to be NOT much worse than common cold coronavirus, e.g. HCoV-NL63.
For young kids, SARS-CoV2 is not that worse than HCoV-NL63: most of them are asymptomatic, except for a few mildly symptomatic ones
3/ Esp. for infants, their immune systems have never encountered any coronaviruses. And SARS-CoV2 are handled just like the other common-cold coronavirus, without much fuss.
But this training of immune system does protect them from severe disease when they becomes adult.
4/ That said, against SARS-CoV2, we ADULTS are basically pre-Columbian Native Americans upon European contact, who were killed in millions by chickenpox, measles etc in several sweeping pandemics.
Sadly, being 30+ yo is a pre-existing condition or comorbidity to novel viruses
5/ And this applies to many viruses, not just COVID.
E.g. people who contract chickenpox for the first time as an adult are far more likely (orders of magnitude) to develop hepatitis & encephalitis: complications that are very rare in kids
6/ What does this mean?
New variants: yes, they will pop up at a constant rate. and they will escape a little bit from the infection-/vaccine-induced immunity.
But so will the other common cold coronavirus, and we get cold every now and then. big deal.
7/ For kids today, when they grow up, SARS-CoV2 probably will be known as the 5th common cold coronavirus. nothing more...
a vaccine probably is probably not necessary
8/ For adults vaccinated, you now have the antibody + T-cells to deal with the original COVID19.
After 1-2 infections, you will have antibodies and T-cells to recognize nucleocapsid proteins too
And now you are a modern human, and any new COVID variant is just common cold.
9/ For adult anti-vaxxers, you continue to be the pre-Colombian Native American, as far as COVID19 is concerned.
And herd immunity worked really "well" for them last time, right?
10/ Plus a natural infection of COVID at the advanced age of 30+ often messes up ones immune system, causing long term inflammation, and very likely prepping your body to have long-COVID symptoms when you encounter some new novel viruses a few years later
11/ What vaccine to take?
For me, I would take any vaccine with an efficacy > 50% for now.
One can always get a complete course (2 dose of MRNA vaccines) later as the booster shots. new preprints are emerging suggesting taking two different vaccines offer better protection.
12/ Plus the US has already ordered 600MM doses of mRNA vaccine for every adult. So you can always get those mRNA vaccines later.
13/13 Worries about Bill Gate's chip:
Congrats. You already have the Alex Jone's mind-controlling chip installed and running. Maybe consider buying batteries (or stonks) from Bill Gates instead, which seems to be tiny & capable of powering chips for decades without charging. /s
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1/ Short interest # is not what you think when there is a massive option interest for ITM calls
2/ How do you exit your deep ITM GME calls, when bid-ask spread is crazy and GME is highly volatile itself (call prices not catching up as quickly as it should)?
You short sell GME to flatten your delta to 0. much better liquidity.
Also you can keep scalping gamma.
3/ retail folks may or may not do this, but whales are sophisticated.
they could also sell an OTM put and short-sell more GME to get out completely.
Got a phone call from a friend in Shanghai last night, urgently needing advice from me on how to get acquired by a US SPAC for his struggling startups.
Why is a sudden surge in interest in SPACs?
Many Chinese VC put in a repurchase agreement in the term-sheet, that founders have to repay 100% at the end of the term. (more like a convertible bond to me)
And PBoC has made liquidity quite tight in the past 6 months.
Now, entering US SPACs seeking startups in fashionable areas (battery etc) regardless of their business viability, to squeeze a quick buck out of speculators...
A perfect "marriage" is emerging.... via shell companies in Hongkong.
The real reason that very few folks talk about is all about the hedgies and whales looking for suckers.
2/ In every transaction, there is a seller and a buyer. so a squeeze is always associated with forced buying. for $GME, that was short-sellers (some hedgies) suffering margin calls from their short positions, and option dealers covering the exploding delta of their short calls.
3/ So to profit from a short squeeze, one builds up position before the squeeze and trim position as price skyrockets to sell to poor forced buyers. OTM calls are great, because their delta explodes as well in a squeeze.
My sources say that PCR-confirmed positive covid cases in the city of shijiazhuang has surged from 1 case to 40 cases to 180 cases over the past 3 days.
The city is under a soft lockdown, until 11million PCR tests (the entire city) are completed for the next 3 days.
Expect to see reports from official channels in 2-3 days.
It appears that every Chinese province has a covid PCR testing capacity of 4 million tests per day (6-8hr turnaround time)
US has a capacity 2.2 million tests per day (24-48 hr turnaround) for the entire country.
Chinese New Year travel is probably going to be canceled for the 2nd year in China.
Private gathering limited to 10 people and fewer.
Intracity travel now discouraged
Quarantine for international arrivals has been increased to 14 days (in dedicated hotels) + 14 days (at home)
The restrictions are likely to last until early March.
They have started mass inoculation, but interestingly they prioritize high-risk working population for now. No news yet on when 65+yo would start to receive their vaccine.
Vaccine hesitance is pretty high at the moment in China, because of a couple of high-profile counterfeit vaccine scandals in the past two years (nothing to do with the covid vaccine makers though)