Coronavirus: North Korea COVID-19 Free?

A month ago I looked into the possibility that coronavirus had hit North Korea. The speculation was that the virus had hit North Korea via the trade that happens between North Korea and China along the Yalu River.

Al Jazeera has an article dated March 21st to look into the rumors coming out of North Korea. I'll call them rumors as a lot of the information appears to be coming from unknown sources in North Korea.

Nobody knows for sure if anyone in North Korea has already contracted coronavirus, but recent political moves seem to signal worry in Pyongyang.

Earlier this month, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un broke months of diplomatic silence by penning a personal letter to South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

. . . Robert Lauler, a former NGO worker and English editor at the Daily NK, an online publication that has contacts in North Korea, said its sources reported 82 people in quarantine and 23 dead from COVID-19 in the country.

. . . "Last week, we also ran a story about a military report that stated that around almost 200 soldiers had died from symptoms that appeared to be coronavirus . . . "

Pension Crisis: Simi Valley and Riverside County

Back in July 2019, I wrote about how Simi Valley was looking into issuing pension obligation bonds. They must have decided to put that idea on hold, because according to the Simi Valley Acorn that idea is back. One reason is that the unfunded accrued liability increased from what was $147.4 million in July 2019 to a current estimate of $158.8 million:

On Dec. 9, the City Council voted 4-1 to file for judicial validation with the Ventura County Superior Court, a first step that would allow the city to issue a pension obligation bond as a means to refinance the interest rate on debt payments to CalPERS. That rate is currently 7% and could be reduced to 3% or 4% with the bond, officials said.

. . . Councilmember Elaine Litster objected because she’s concerned about the impact a bond could have in the long-term. She pointed to cities in San Bernardino and Stockton that issued obligation bonds to deal with pension liability problems and then faced bankruptcy.

Coronavirus: Africa Update

It took awhile for COVID-19 cases to pop up in Africa. The first case occurred in Egypt in mid-February. Since then, I think one can say that the virus is likely gaining steam in various North African countries as well as South Africa.

One could argue that not until mid-March did the virus start getting detected in other African countries. Quartz Africa had a March 13th article on this:

Kenya, Ghana and Ethiopia all confirmed their first coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours as the global pandemic picks up pace around the world.

Coronavirus in Iran: How bad is it?

Back on March 9th, The Atlantic put together a range on potential Iranians infected with COVID-19. The estimate the author targeted was 2 million. Note that this was on March 9th so if his analysis is true, then the figures would be much higher now. Though the following quote is on the lower end of the ranges provided in the article, I prefer this method as it looks at those who travel to other countries and are found to have the virus -- I just find it to indicate how unlucky someone is to be visiting a country and end up catching the virus:

A paper by the University of Toronto’s Ashleigh Tuite and others noted that, by February 23, cases of Iranian origin had surfaced in Canada, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates. Given the volume of air travel between Iran and these countries, Tuite’s team estimated how many native COVID-19 cases must have occurred in Iran to produce one case each in these other countries. Their estimate for February 23: 18,300. Since the epidemic reached 100 cumulative cases, the official numbers have doubled roughly every three days. If that rate held, the estimate as of today would be 586,000.

Coronavirus: Various Statistics

Here's looking at some articles that looks at data points when it comes to coronavirus.

Slate has an opinion piece up by Dr. Jeremy Samuel Faust who is an ER doctor at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Honestly, reading his twitter feed, he comes across as a jerk, but here are his thoughts on why he believes the Case Fatality Rate of 1% - 2% is too high:

. . . In the early days of the crisis in Wuhan, China, the CFR was more than 4 percent. As the virus spread to other parts of Hubei, the number fell to 2 percent. As it spread through China, the reported CFR dropped further, to 0.2 to 0.4 percent. As testing begins to include more asymptomatic and mild cases, more realistic numbers are starting to surface.

. . . On the Diamond Princess, six deaths have occurred among the passengers, constituting a case fatality rate of 0.85 percent. Unlike the data from China and elsewhere, where sorting out why a patient died is extremely difficult, we can assume that these are excess fatalities—they wouldn’t have occurred but for SARS-CoV-2. The most important insight is that all six fatalities occurred in patients who are more than 70 years old. Not a single Diamond Princess patient under age 70 has died.

Latest Corporate and Public Pension Articles

A consulting firm called Willis Towers Watson released a report that estimated that corporate funding status of their pensions only improved slightly in 2019: improving from 86% to 87%. This is even though they estimate that investment returns hit 19.8%.

Institutional Investor reported on the reason why there was such limited improvement in funding status even though returns were so significant:

Interest rates experienced the largest one-year drop in two decades last year, said Joseph Gamzon, senior director of retirement at Willis Towers Watson. According to Lewis, this is important because interest rates affect how liabilities are calculated. When they fall, liabilities increase, which affects a pension’s funded status.

Coronavirus: Latin America

It was slightly over two weeks ago that the first case of COVID-19 popped up in Latin America. The first case was confirmed in Brazil on Thursday, February 27th.

Per Worldometer the cases as of March 13th (Friday) have continued to grow across the region though at admittedly low numbers:

Brazil: 151
Chile: 43
Peru: 38
Argentina: 34
Panama: 27
Ecuador: 23
Costa Rica: 23
Colombia: 16
Bolivia: 10
French Guiana: 6
Paraguay: 6
Uruguay: 4
Honduras: 2
Venezuela: 2
Guyana: 1
Guatemala: 1
Suriname: 1

Coronavirus: Indonesia

The Jakarta Post reported back on February 11th that a Harvard study stated that there had to be a coronavirus outbreak in Indonesia based on travel between Wuhan and Indonesia.

Fast forward to March and according to South China Morning Post, the first cases of the virus were finally announced in the country. Interestingly, the cases are related to contact to a Japanese citizen who appears to live in Malaysia versus a Chinese citizen:

Indonesian authorities have swung into action to track down dozens of close contacts of the country’s first two coronavirus patients, a mother and daughter from a city south of Jakarta who contracted the disease from a Japanese citizen visiting from Malaysia.

Los Angeles: First Homeless Project Opens

From the Los Angeles Times, we learn that the first homeless apartment complex opened at what is called 88th and Vermont. It is located in the South Los Angeles neighborhood. It is a 62 unit complex that is opening slightly delayed (it was supposed to open in October of 2019).

The mayor lauded the change the 88th and Vermont project had made for a family of seven, who were among the first dozen tenants. After losing their home, they had couch-surfed, lived in shelters and motels, and “spent way too many nights in their car,” he said.

. . . Even that goal of 10,000 units is now too small, as it was based on past homeless counts when the population was smaller. With the number of people living in tents and makeshift shelters on the city’s streets ballooning to 27,000 out of 36,000 overall, and the number of chronically homeless Angelenos increasing, the current pace of construction is not keeping up.

. . . The 88th and Vermont project cost $34 million and received just under $9.7 million from Proposition HHH. At $549,500 per unit, it reflects the upward trend in the cost of housing. The most expensive HHH projects have run more than $600,000 per unit.

Coronavirus: Egypt

For awhile, all cases of coronavirus in Egypt were related to foreigners. Two to be exact. One was a Chinese from mid-February while another was just announced on Sunday, March 1st. I don't believe the nationality of the individual was announced.

The Egypt Independent had the following about the March 1st case:

According to the head of the Preventive Medicine Sector Alaa Eid, the foreigner had been working under an Egyptian company and arrived in Egypt since February.

. . . The company w[h]ere the patient worked at was ordered not to allow anyone to leave or enter their headquarters, and to provide detailed information regarding employees or visitors within the last ten days. The 1,500 quarantined cases have had samples taken for testing, Eid said. 

Coronavirus: Hawaii

Above is a video I noticed showing panic buying in Hawaii. As of now, there are no reported cases of the coronavirus in Hawaii, but that is perhaps due to the inability to test anyone.

Hawaii News Now reported February 20th:

The botched coronavirus test kits that were sent to Hawaii now have to be re-manufactured. U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz says he’s been told by CDC that the new test kits won’t be ready until mid-March. “The fact that it’s going to take a month for them to re-manufacture totally unacceptable,” he said.

That date has shifted a couple weeks. Hawaii Public Radio reported on February 28th:

A Northern California health worker who had cared for a patient with coronavirus hopped a plane to visit Hawaii, arriving yesterday. Today, after alerted by federal officials, state health officials tested the woman and found she does not have coronavirus.

The case represents the first time Hawaii officials have discussed results of local testing for the rapidly spreading COVID-19 virus. Health officials were able to use components of kits sent earlier this month from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to carry out the tests on the visitor, although some kit parts were deemed defective. 

Coronavirus: Italy Spreads It Across the Globe and First Community Spread in Northern California

Coronavirus popped up big in Italy. As I'm writing this on Friday (2/28), Worldmeters has the number of cases at 889. When this post goes online, the number will be much higher. I really wouldn't be surprised if the actual number is closer to 50,000. Why? People who are Italian or visited Italy have spread it across the globe. To me, this feels like a Diamond Princess situation where every country has a case just because of one country.

Countries in Africa picked up the virus due to Italy. .Africa for the longest time just had one case in Egypt that was associated directly with China. I've posted a couple times on Africa. I figured if the virus found a foothold on the continent it would be due to China. That is still a distinct possibility, but Italy might also be a reason now.