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unreliable because of the long incubation period. So, maybe look at confirmed cases instead? Yes, human behaviour varies greatly, and there is obviously the difference between voluntary and forced segregation. And, look at us two, while I am doing my utmost to sit indoors, you are still running around Brussels and Frankfurt meeting stakeholders. What really makes it difficult to understand what is going on and where the trends lie in as simple as indications of the rate of spreading are the way statistics are manipulated. China’s numbers don’t add up, and it is especially obvious for the death figures. I did a simple regression analysis of the data. It reveals a formula that explains more than 99% of the death data. This is called the r-squared value, and in this case, it is far too high to be possibly real. Real life data is noisy and doesn’t fit any formula perfectly. In many disciplines, scientists are very happy when a regression analysis reveals a formula that explains 70% of the data points; more than 99% just never happens.
G. Cezanne: So, what do you think are the real figures? And, how can we then calculate the extent of the pandemic?
J. Marnitz: There have been phone calls to funeral homes in Wuhan where the callers pretended to be officials of the Chinese Communist Party. The call revealed that the real figures must be a lot higher, as some funeral homes stated that they had cremated more than a hundred bodies in one day. Yes, I believe it certainly is a pandemic and it is
here to stay. Calculating the extent and spreading rate is close to impossible at the moment, especially not with staccato data. But, in the next few weeks I think we will have a much better picture.
G. Cezanne: What about our work in the field of predictability in politics and what we have often discussed on the virus’ impact on the upcoming elections…Slovakia, Trump, and so on.
J. Marnitz: I don’t think the true effects on the world of politics have been felt just yet, but we are on the verge of it. Any country with a health care system below first world standards, like Iran, has a good chance of facing complete collapse, anarchy and civil war following in the aftermath of the pandemic. The Communist Party of China may very well lose their grip on power as a result of the pandemic; this event is very much like Chernobyl was for the Soviet Union, except on a much larger scale.
G. Cezanne: Well, no panic Joachim.
J. Marnitz: Even countries that navigate the pandemic relatively well, which first world countries likely will if they don’t mismanage the crisis, will have to live with a massive economic fallout. In the worst-case scenario, the global supply chain degradation and overspecialization will necessarily lead to a deep recession everywhere, bankrupting
countless companies and could possibly even cause a depression on the scale of 1929. The current global trade system is overoptimized. A prime example is just-in-time production, and we’re about to find out just how fragile it is. As far as politics go this event will by and
large strengthen the anti-globalist factions across the world. World leaders will have to shine as good crisis managers in 2020, or they will be discarded. Most of all this is the case for Trump, and he’s not off to a good start.
G. Cezanne: So, we might see him not get re-elected after all?
J. Marnitz: It’s more a 50/50 matter at the moment. The virus has obviously brought in a completely new dimension; and, let’s remember, Trump is very much reliant on a performing economy.
Greetings from Brussels.
MARCH 2020 33
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