COVID-19: What’s Wrong with This Picture?

Shah Gilani|December 4, 2020

This Total Wealth is about something different today.

It’s about you, me, and the country. It’s about the whole COVID-19 picture, at least the picture we think we see. It’s about the surge in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere, but not in one country.

It’s about what you think is going on, what you think we should do, or shouldn’t do.

Yes, I’m “isolating” but I’m not isolated. I’ve got a huge audience here and I’m calling on you to help us all understand how you feel.

So, please send me your comments, experiences, thoughts, and what you believe we should be doing.

Let’s dive in…

It’s a Scary Time for the World, Except For…

Where we are as a nation, with the virus, is nothing short of shockingly frightening.

On Thursday, December 3, 216,548 new coronavirus cases were reported across the U.S., according to daily tracking by Google. It was the highest daily number of new infections yet. There were 2,857 COVID-19 deaths yesterday. The previous two days saw a death tally of more than 5,000.

That’s more than 7,857 coronavirus-related deaths in three days, a frighteningly sad record.

So far, as of this morning’s Google tallies, 14,417,000 people in America have been infected. And 278,857 people have died of virus-related causes… that we know of. Imagine what we don’t know.

New York hospitalizations yesterday topped 4,000 for the first time since May, according to Bloomberg. Texas logged its fourth straight day of 10,000-plus cases, the longest streak since the worst of the outbreak in Texas in July.

Delaware just issued a stay-at-home advisory.

Los Angeles’s new lockdown bans most walking, driving, and use of public transport. With intensive-care beds in the state filling up, California Governor Gavin Newsom is ordering the strictest “regional stay-at-home orders” in the country. “Indoor dining will be shuttered, playgrounds roped off, and hair salons closed within days if the available intensive-care capacity in their areas dip below a 15 percent threshold,” said the New York Times today. The new restrictions will last for three weeks, and the governor also says people should temporarily call off all nonessential travel.

The list of other state restrictions across the country is mind-blowing.

Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert said, “We have not yet seen the post-Thanksgiving peak,” on NBC’s “Today” show.

The CDC, Centers for Disease Control, is now forecasting “as many as 19,500” people could die of the virus during the week of Christmas.

European countries are extending lockdowns.

Germany’s shutdown was planned for four weeks beginning November 2. It’s being extended through December 20 and maybe beyond, the government says. Greece is extending its lockdown, so is Spain, which is considering limiting Christmas celebrations to six people. Lithuania just extended its lockdown until December 17.

All over the world, the pandemic seems to be spreading, especially in Northern Hemisphere countries.

But, not in China.

What’s It All Mean?

As of this morning at 10:41 a.m. (CET), according to the World Health Organization’s WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard, China has reported a total of 93,905 confirmed COVID cases and 4,752 deaths.

On Oct 4, 2020, China had confirmed 4,739 deaths, while the U.S. had registered 209,382 deaths.

That means, from October 4 to December 4, the U.S. with a population of 330,669,955 (U.S. Census Bureau) saw 69,475 more people die of COVID-19, while China, with a population of 1,394,015,977, had 13 people die of COVID-19.

The U.K., for further comparison purposes, has a population 20 times smaller than China, yet it’s seen five times as many cases of COVID-19 and almost ten times as many deaths.

All of which raises the question: How has China managed to control the pandemic?

Here’s the answer, according to the Lancet.

“Despite being the first place to be hit by COVID-19, China was well-placed to tackle the disease. It has a centralised epidemic response system. Most Chinese adults remember SARS-CoV and the high mortality rate that was associated with it. Ageing parents tend to live with their children, or alone but nearby. Only 3% of China’s elderly population live in care homes, whereas in several western countries, such facilities have been major sources of infection.”

“The speed of China’s response was the crucial factor,” explains Gregory Poland, director of the Vaccine Research Group at the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota, U.S.A.). “They moved very quickly to stop transmission. Other countries, even though they had much longer to prepare for the arrival of the virus, delayed their response and that meant they lost control.”

The Lancet reports, “Wuhan was placed under a strict lockdown that lasted 76 days. Public transport was suspended. Soon afterwards, similar measures were implemented in every city in Hubei province. Across the country, 14,000 health checkpoints were established at public transport hubs. School re-openings after the winter vacation were delayed and population movements were severely curtailed. Dozens of cities implemented family outdoor restrictions, which typically meant that only one member of each household was permitted to leave the home every couple of days to collect necessary supplies. Within weeks, China had managed to test 9 million people for SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan. It set up an effective national system of contact tracing.”

Maybe it comes down to China’s communist government restraining individual freedoms. Something considered unacceptable in most Western countries.

Or maybe the Chinese are lying.

I’m lost here.

What do you think is really happening and what should we do about the pandemic?

Next week, I’ll be back to explain what this all means for the market, and your money, going forward.

Meantime, I’m already prepping for 2021. You should be, too.

If this year’s shown us anything, it’s that what we’ve always done doesn’t work anymore, and sometimes, most times, we have to look to different corners of the market to make money.

Case in point, in my 2021 Investors Address, which you can view here, I had to make a rather controversial recommendation.

Because according to my research, this stock is going to be such a massive moneymaker, it would frankly be irresponsible of me to pass it over.

It’s got so much potential that I made it one of the five core stocks I cover in the 2021 Investors Address. The strategy I use is 100% free, too. You won’t have to sign up or pay anything to get it.

But be warned, you might be shocked by what I say. Stocks you love might actually be total losers. Stocks you’ve never heard of could make you a small fortune over the next year.

But I promise you one thing – everything I say has one goal: to show you how to make as much money as you possibly can.

Click here to view my 2021 Investors Address.

Sincerely,

Shah

P.S. – I cover more than 50 stocks in this presentation, so be sure to download your free notes sheet here.