Energy Prospectus

At 11:50 AM CT I posted the updated spreadsheet to the EPG Home Page. Note that each time we post anything to the Home Page it pushes other reports over one slot. There are actually 16 spreadsheets, forecast models, profiles, etc. available from the Home Page, but you have to use the arrows on each side to see them all.

I've now been looking at the raw numbers from the Johns Hopkins website for 22 straight days. Below this morning's stats are a few things that jump out at me.
JH website: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps ... 7b48e9ecf6

At 7:15 AM ET
203,529 Confirmed cases
-82,071 People who have fully recovered
- 8,205 Deaths (See note below)
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113,253 Active Cases with 94% listed as "Mild" and expected to fully recover
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1. China, South Korea and Japan now seem to have COVID-19 under control as all three are showing the number of "Active Cases" declining.
> In 22 days, China's active cases has declined from over 42,000 to 8,106. During the same time, the number of China's deaths has only increased by ~200.
> 69,755 of their 81,102 confirmed cases have fully recovered (virus free).

2. 83.8% of the deaths are in three countries: China with 3,241, Italy with 2,503 and Iran with 1,135

3. Italy has the highest death rate, but the number of people fully recovered (2,941) just in the last few days went past the number of deaths.

In my opinion, the fact that the number of new confirmed cases in China, South Korea and Japan has slowed way down and the number of people recovering has accelerated is significant.
These countries were first at reporting outbreaks of the virus AND they have very high population density.
South Korea has 1,339 and Japan has 862 people per square mile, which compares to the USA at 87 people per square mile.
China has lower density than I expected: 377 people per sq mile, but they have large cities. Wuhan, were the virus started, has 11 million people.

Some conclusions that I've made from looking at the death rate by age from here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... ographics/
Conclusions based on the assumption that number of "Confirmed Cases" is 100% of the cases.
> If you get the virus, you have a ~91% of recovering
> If you are less than 80 years old, your chance of recovering is ~97% <<< It should be noted that the death rate of people over 80 is very high to begin with.
> If you are under 80 and in good health, chance of recovering is ~99%
> If you are under 50 and in good health, chance of recovering is ~99.8% <<< for healthy females under age 40 it is ~99.9%

My guess is that a lot more people had the virus and recovered on their own without ever being listed as a "Confirmed Case". If so, the recovery rates are much better.

So this begs the question:
If more than 99% of the people who get the virus will recover after a few weeks, is it worth destroying the economy to try and control it?
Keep in mind that the mortality rate for poor people is much higher.
I'm not saying we should give up on good health habits and I'm definitely not saying we should stop trying to find a cure. However, shutting down schools, churches, gatherings of more than ten people and crushing the travel industry cannot continue much longer.
The "Gloom & Doom" being pumped out by the media 24/7 must get under control. We are social beings and isolation will turn some people crazy.
Last night on one of the Houston local news reports, they said that local gun stores are running out of ammo. < What does that tell you?

From Social Security morality tables:

For a man age 65;

90% chance to live to 70
62% chance to live to 80
22% chance to live to 90

MY guess: The chance of living to 100 is less than 1 in 10,000.

My father died shortly after he turned 90, but his last five years were not what I would call "good living".

"Eighty-six percent of people infected with coronavirus are walking around undetected, according to a study released Monday in the journal Science."

“The majority of these infections are mild, with few symptoms at all,” Shaman said, Mercury News reported. “People may not recognize it. Or they think they have a cold.”

“It will continue to present a major challenge to the containment of this outbreak going forward,” Shaman added.

BAD NEWS: All of our "Social Distancing" won't do much to slow the spread.

GOOD NEWS: The mortality rate is MUCH LOWER than my original post.

The situation gets crazier each day.

Trump Invokes Act to Marshal Private Sector against Virus

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he will invoke a federal provision that allows the government to marshal the private sector in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump, now describing himself as a “wartime president,” said he would sign the Defense Production Act “in case we need it" as the government bolsters resources for an expected surge in cases of the virus.

Trump also said he will expand the nation's testing capacity and deploy a Navy hospital ship to New York City, which is rapidly becoming the epicenter of a pandemic that has rattled the U.S. economy and rewritten the rules of American society. A second ship will be deployed to the West Coast.

The president also said the Housing and Urban Development Department will suspend foreclosures and evictions through April as a growing number of Americans face losing jobs and missing rent and mortgage payments.

The announcements came on a fast-moving day of developments. The Senate was taking up a financial aid package while the administration pushed forward its economic relief plan, which proposes $500 billion in checks to millions of Americans, with the first checks to come April 6 if Congress approves the plan.

Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau jointly announced that the U.S.-Canada border would be closed, except for essential personnel and for trade, as the nations try to reduce the spread of a virus afflicting people in both countries.

Trump dismissed talk from his own treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, who suggested that the nation could face 20% unemployment at least in the short term.

That's an "absolute total worst case scenario," Trump said. “We're no way near it."