Why we believe that you need to be a medium-term market timer, to do well in all markets. A lesson from history http://puzzlefinancialadvice.com.au/2021/Core/Static_Asset_Allocation_long_term_buy_and_hold_strategies_often_fail_Why_is_that_210202.pdf
Puzzle Financial Advice
Jeremy Grantham 27/2/2012 "Believe in history. History repeats. All bubbles break. Be patient and focus on the long-term. Wait for the good cards."
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COVID-19. A major risk to health, economies & markets. Australian perspective
This page seeks to summarise some of the issues as I see them. Anne de Gheest's clinical updates (see below), which discuss the very latest COVID research, have been extremely valuable in helping me to understand how dangerous COVID variants are and the massive implications of Long-COVID. COVID now seems likely to be with us for many years to come - and current research 20/Apr/21 indicates that it could become far more dangerous over the next year or two.
10/6/21 We have to win every battle in this war against COVID. That is, we must beat every new more dangerous variant (before the new variant causes massive loss of life or health) as they arise. The cost of losing any battle is too high to contemplate. We have a long way to go before this war is over.
27/Apr/21 The massive explosion of COVID in India https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/india-covid-cases-surge/ shows what can happen when you become too arrogant and complacent with COVID, like Australia has now become. Given these new dangerous COVID variants are now flying into Australia every day on planes, it is an now unacceptably high risk to continue to quarantine arrivals in hotels in the centre of our big cities - a disaster waiting to happen. The cost to Australia, if this current system fails would be huge. Australia urgently needs to create a national quarantine station in a far safer area.
8/May/21 Top epidemiologist says virus outbreak is ‘absolutely inevitable’ https://www.smh.com.au/national/top-epidemiologist-says-virus-outbreak-is-absolutely-inevitable-20210507-p57pth.html "The risk of a disastrous coronavirus outbreak in Australia is now at its highest level since the pandemic began and continued escapes from quarantine can be expected at least every month. James McCaw, an epidemiologist and mathematical biologist with the University of Melbourne who is leading a research team providing modelling on the pandemic to the federal government, said it was “absolutely inevitable” that the virus would spread within Australia.
4/Jun/21 COVID vaccine Australia: The outbreak Australia had to have (afr.com)
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The renewed risk of COVID-19 infections, from a dangerous and fast-spreading variant, is driving faster take-up of vaccines and helping shake complacency. ...... “The answer is that it is inevitable at some point there will be sustained outbreaks in our community – and not just in Victoria. It’s not a matter of if. It’s a matter of when.” (Paul Kelly Australia's Chief Medical Officer)
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https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1398298896850243584
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/opinion/covid-vaccine-variants.html
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“Covid’s Deadliest Phase May Be Here Soon” May 28, 2021
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By Zeynep Tufekci Dr. Tufekci is a contributing Opinion writer who has extensively examined the Covid-19 pandemic.
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“If world leaders don’t act now, the end of the Covid pandemic may come with a horrible form of herd immunity, as more transmissible variants that are taking hold around the world kill millions. There’s troubling new evidence that the B.1.617.2 variant, first identified in India, could be far more transmissible than even the B.1.1.7 variant, first identified in Britain, which contributed to some of the deadliest surges around the world. In countries with widespread vaccination, like the United States and Britain, we can expect that Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths will continue to decline or stay low, especially because lab tests and real world experience show that vaccines appear to defend recipients well against the severe effects of both variants. For much of the rest of the world, though, this even more transmissible new variant could be catastrophic.”
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BB comment: Given that at 30/May/21, Australia was ranked a lowly 77th in the world https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker/ from as far as % of population COVID vaccinated, Australia could become one of those countries where the Indian variant might be catastrophic over coming weeks or months - as a result of one of these CBD hotel quarantine "leaks".
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https://www.afr.com/politics/fox-s-avalon-in-box-seat-for-quarantine-contest-20210528-p57w07 28/5/21
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Victoria’s latest outbreak (26/5/21) stems from the leak of the virus from a hotel in South Australia. It represents the 17th such leak across Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth in the past six months, sparking criticism that a federal overhaul of the hotel quarantine system has been too slow.
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Related pages are here:-
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Long COVID - very serious long term complications even for people who have had asymptomatic or mild COVID.
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Aerosols are the primary cause of COVID transmission. Aerosols from human breath.
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Travelling information during COVID - travel exemptions, COVID passports etc
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COVID vaccines. Vaccination rates by country.
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Vaccine Boosters. Australia is way behind the 8-ball .... again.
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Mixing vaccines. eg AstraZeneca 1st dose, Pfizer second dose.
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Pfizer vaccine - 27/June/21 I have heard from a couple of sources (including from a politician during Federal Parliament debt about 14/June/21 saying that he had heard Pfizer say this) that Pfizer will deliver 40million vaccines to Australia before end of 2021. Moderna is to deliver 10million of Australia's 25million dose order, before end of 2021. That means that there should be delivered to Australia, 50million doses of mRNA vaccine during 2021, enough to vaccinate all Australians who want to be vaccinated.
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Moderna vaccine - Moderna should be a bigger part of Australia vaccine mix. Much more effective than AstraZeneca particularly against South African and Brazilian variants.
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mRNA vaccine technology - including why it should be a priority - see WHO article below.
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Pfizer CEO says third COVID jab may be needed, plus annual booster SMH 16/Apr/21
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The Biden administration is preparing for the likelihood people will need a third dose of COVID-19 vaccine within a year of being inoculated, a requirement that would put even greater strain on the global supply of vaccines.
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Bourla (CEO Pfizer) told CNBC it was “likely” a booster shot will be necessary as soon as six months after the initial two-dose vaccine regimen. The US would need to secure hundreds of millions of extra doses for its own population if a third dose is required and eligibility is extended to younger children, which would make it even harder for nations such as Australia to acquire extra Pfizer doses from American factories. Bourla said it was possible people will eventually need an annual booster shot to ensure they remain protected against the virus.
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Other medical treatments for COVID
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COVID variants and mutations.
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Actions the Australian government needs to take to properly manage the COVID pandemic. <- IMPORTANT
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Mask wearing health requirement when you have been fully vaccinated. Some research and guidance.
Anne de Gheest updates:
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2/April/21 Clinical update - it was this update that helped me to understand that COVID was far more dangerous than I had realised. https://www.puzzlefinancialadvice.com/single-post/covid-research-update-anne-de-gheest-2nd-april-2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H_EYAMnGp8 The 2 big issues that Anne identified for me were:
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In a survey of 77 top epidemiologists in the world from 28 countries, two thirds of these experts believe that there will be so many mutations in the next 12 months, that current vaccines will be ineffective in the next 12 months. Also that it the South African variant already made current vaccines far less effect - probably the Brazilian P1 variant as well.
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The huge dangers that long-COVID presents even for the many people who have had asymptomatic or mild COVID infections.
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16/Apr/21 Clinical update
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16/Apr/21 Epidemiological update here.
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30/Apr/21 Clinical update http://puzzlefinancialadvice.com.au/2021/COVID/Anne_de_Gheest_Clinical_COVID_Update_210430.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg3K6yLQuPk&t=31s
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30/Apr/21 Epidemiology update http://puzzlefinancialadvice.com.au/2021/COVID/Anne_de_Gheest_Epidemiological_COVID_update_210430.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck7O8e20tQg&t=767s
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28/May/21 Clinical update http://puzzlefinancialadvice.com.au/2021/COVID/Anne_de_Gheest_210528_COVID_Clinical_update.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bI7V4lkKs4
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28/May/21 Epidemiology update http://puzzlefinancialadvice.com.au/2021/COVID/Anne_de_Gheest_210528_COVID_Epidemiology_update.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyuWivzWPZ0
Other important references:
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Normal Swan asks: “What are you predicting globally, about what will happen with this pandemic over the next 12 months?”
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Prof Michael Osterholm (epidemiologist) response:
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in early November did we start to understand that
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Some variants can cause much more severe disease.
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They are also much more infectious.
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They can actually evade the immune protection from vaccine or from natural immunity.
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And once we realised that, and we labelled these variants of concern, we began to understand that this was a whole new ballgame
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But now you are asking where we are going with this? I don't know
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We have to be very very leery of assuming that just because we have the vaccines that we do now, that we are done. We may not be at all.
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You might also note Eric Topol co-authored article in Nature Magazine ( https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6531/759/tab-pdf , https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1379159370471153666 6/Apr/21) where Eric explains that while the initial COVID virus was “evasion-light”, thus enabling vaccines to be developed very quickly, there is a very real risk that a COVID variant that is “evasion-strong” may emerge, so that COVID may develop what is known as “immune escape” – very serious. One of the real risks is “Laboratory studies suggest the potential for immune escape with at least one of these (UK, South African, Brazilian) variants”.
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Eric Topol interviews Prof Michael Osterholm (epidemiologist) 14/May/2021
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Dr Michael Osterholm, who is .... one of the leading lights in the pandemic.
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You have helped multiple administrations, both Republican and Democrat, in guiding the management of infectious diseases, most recently on the Biden COVID-19 advisory board.
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The more I learn about pandemics, the less I understand them. That's a point of honesty that would serve many of us well. We need a real dose of humility.
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One thing that has come up recently has been the idea of a pan-coronavirus vaccine, a betacoronavirus family vaccine that would knock them all out and basically protect us from future pandemics — no less this idea of a variant-by-variant approach, which is kind of a bivalent, put in the South African spike protein, mRNA, or whatever. Can you comment on that?
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First of all, the issue of vaccines and what they can do in terms of life- and economy-saving measures has not really been appreciated until this pandemic.
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At CIDRAP we have been heading up an international effort with support from the Wellcome Trust, the WHO, and a number of different partners, including the Gates Foundation, to look at and develop a comprehensive roadmap for influenza vaccines that would be more of a universal or game-changing flu vaccine that would deal with both seasonal and pandemic influenza, and also address the issue of the timeliness of the availability of these vaccines for a pandemic. We are publishing our roadmap in the next month;
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It serves as a model for the coronaviruses. We now realize the importance of these viruses and what they might do — and God knows what the next coronavirus might be that might emerge. We no longer can count on it being a SARS- or MERS-like model where, when it emerges, it can sure do damage
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This is a very important topic area. And having talked to many economists, including Nobel Prize–winning laureates, they have all said that if it takes us billions of dollars to make and deliver these vaccines, they're worth every penny because they will save lives and trillions of dollars. .... It's our job to capitalize on that and do whatever we can to move big-picture vaccines forward, and not just take it one antigen at a time.
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The mRNA vaccine technology, and how it was brought forward, was nothing short of a modern public health Manhattan Project success. Now what we need, however, is a second Manhattan Project with a Marshall Plan attached to it. The second Manhattan Project is, how are we going to manufacture enough vaccine for the world?
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what's the next variant to come down the pike? We need to stop transmission globally — not just for humanitarian reasons, but to protect the integrity and the functionality of these current vaccines.
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Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
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"Current COVID vaccines could be ineffective by next year: epidemiologists"
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https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/current-covid-vaccines-could-be-ineffective-by-nex 31March2021
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"Two-thirds of epidemiologists who took part in a recent global survey have predicted it will be less than a year before SARS-CoV-2 mutates to such an extent that the majority of first generation COVID vaccines are rendered ineffective and new or modified candidates are required."
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"Variants of concern have already emerged in South Africa, the US, India and Brazil, and Yale University’s Associate Professor Gregg Gonsalves said the fact that millions of people around the world are still contracting the disease means new mutations will arise every day."
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‘There is some concern that the AstraZeneca vaccine shows much less protection against the South African strain [B.1.351], but it was quite a small study that did not examine whether there was still protection against severe disease.'
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Establishment of a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub to scale up global manufacturing
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"WHO and its partners are seeking to expand the capacity of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to produce COVID-19 vaccines and scale up manufacturing to increase global access to these critical tools to bring the pandemic under control. WHO will facilitate the establishment of one (or more, as appropriate) technology transfer1 hub(s) that will use a hub and spoke model (REF) to transfer a comprehensive technology package and provide appropriate training to interested manufacturers in LMICs. This initiative will initially prioritize the mRNA-vaccine technology but could expand to other technologies in the future."
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The reasons why WHO decided to advance immediately on mRNA vaccines are as follows:
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They have proven extremely efficacious in protecting against COVID-19, and protection is maintained to a large degree against variants;
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This technology is very flexible and allows relatively rapid adaptation of the vaccine to variants, if needed;
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They can be produced by manufacturers of medicines and medical active substances in addition to vaccines;
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Many technical features are free of Intellectual Property Rights in many countries of the world.
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https://twitter.com/normanswan/status/1383599744136609798
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"We could have started something like this here last year. Too rigid in our thinking. Establishment of a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub to scale up global manufacturing"
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New COVID variants can quickly overwhelm a country.
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"India’s devastating outbreak is driving the global coronavirus surge" 19/Apr/21
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/india-covid-cases-surge/?tid=ss_tw
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"But experts say that changes in behavior and the influence of new variants have combined to produce a tidal wave of new cases."
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Asia is losing vaccine race, as West streaks ahead 20/May/21
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https://www.afr.com/world/asia/asia-is-losing-vaccine-race-as-west-streaks-ahead-20210520-p57tkl
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What worked last year in keeping infections at bay is not working now and while the United States and Europe are opening up, much of Asia is locking down. Economists haven’t given up on the Asian-led recovery yet but say vaccination rates need to increase.
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“Without vaccines, and with new variants coming in, there’s a greater risk of us going in and out of restrictions. That will hit business and consumer confidence and have a longer term impact as well,” said Oxford Economics’ lead Asia economist Sian Fenner in Singapore.
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Some older Australians are holding off on getting a COVID-19 vaccine 21/May/21
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The federal government has ordered 33 million more doses than it needs to vaccinate Australia's entire adult population — although many of the shots aren't arriving until later this year.
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Initially, the AstraZeneca vaccine was supposed to be the backbone of Australia's strategy as it was the only one that could be manufactured locally, but after last week's federal budget, Health Minister Greg Hunt confirmed plans to fund an mRNA facility, which could produce the Moderna vaccine, in Adelaide, for late 2022.
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1399059271644450818 31/May/21
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A simplified summary table of the key features for the major variants. One and the most important common feature: vaccines work

28/May/21 Anne de Gheest COVID Clinical update https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bI7V4lkKs4


Electronic nose inches closer to sniffing out COVID-19 (afr.com) 4/June/21
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If Israeli researchers are correct, testing for COVID-19 could be radically changed. Rather than rolling down their windows to confront a nurse with a swab, drivers at testing stations could come face-to-face with a plastic electronic nose. Just as dogs sniff each other, so the e-nose would sniff their nose. Unlike the swab test, this would be non-invasive and the result would be instant.