April 8, 2020
Again, in my view, this was big news. It was the first indicator we’ve had (aside from anecdotal) that New York hospitals may have found an effective treatment option. If patients are being treated successfully, they don’t require ICU – they don’t require a ventilator. If that’s true, the bottom is in for this health crisis.
So, who has this data? Apparently, only the New York Governor’s office. And yet it is no where to be found on their website. Yesterday, I included these two important charts (daily ICU admissions and daily Intubations) in my daily note, only because I captured a screenshot during the Governor’s daily press conference.
So today, we should all want to see what this latest update on these two important charts look like.
Ready? The Governor made no mention of them. Zero. In fact, they were the only two data points he omitted from yesterday.
Is it politically motivated? Is it a matter of managing the public’s perception on the status of the crisis, as to convince everyone to continue adherence to the lockdown? Probably a bit of both.
But probably no coincidence that the discussions of opening up the economy again have started over the past couple of days.
I suspect other investors are putting the pieces of this puzzle together in a similar way, and that’s why we’re seeing markets react with a “risk-on” tone over the past two days.