Comments
Transcript
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STThank you Mr Pozzi and Raoul, great interview, I disagree on gold but agree pretty much with everything that you mentionned
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MSI guess this is better than a CNN/Fox News interview, just trying to fill 24 hours.
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WMGood discussion. On the US, I think Trump's press conference today finally began to start telling the truth and messaging the facts without panicking. this was the first US administration press conference I have seen that had me not glaring at the screen. I think the US is now out of first gear at last.
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BPAwesome, thanks
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SFAnother great video! Thanks Raoul!
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TAHate to spoil the summer narrative, its spreading pretty wildly here in Australia now
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CSAs a European I am more concerned about the U.S. than about our countries. With no preparation even until today, a highly incompetent government in charge, people who can't afford a hospital, no trust in government mixed with millions of guns this can become REALLY ugly
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TZOFF : Where is Grant Willams?
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ighttps://dailyhodl.com/2020/03/16/us-treasury-secretary-steven-mnuchin-appoints-coinbase-chief-legal-officer-to-oversee-banking-system/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
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JGThanks to Raoul and Giovanni! Sobering and straight to the point. I watched this very interesting analysis of how the Covid-19 epidemic develops in a population. Look it up at: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca One of the main takeaways is that the mortality rate greatly depends on how early authorities start the quarantine/social distancing policy, and how efficient it is. Early start and efficient implementation caps mortality at 0,5-1%, but late start and/or inefficient implementation gives a mortality rate of 3-5%! The main factor in this difference seems to be the capacity of the health care system compared to the total number of people needing hospital/intensive care. When capacity is exceeded, mortality rate shoots up! I doubt that demographics will help the US measurably. Good luck to all, I am quarantined but still in good health, and our country(Norway) is going into lock down this weekend. I hope we did in time....
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WMRaoul, in the video you mention the need for people to get infected, but slowly, to establish herd immunity. That's an interesting assumption. I don't know much about this, but from what I've been reading, there are documented cases of re-infection, and there is no acquired immunity for some other, similar corona viruses. That there would be herd immunity with this virus seems to be an open question that is yet to be answered. Can anyone point to data on this question?
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SSWe don't *need* herd immunity from actual SARS-CoV-2 infection (although it appears as though this will occur). We simply need an effective vaccine. We don't currently have herd immunity from tetanus infection, we have widespread immunity due to vaccination. I don't think there's any evidence of fluctuations in transmission rates with weather. There's one paper that I'm aware of that calculates a maximum transmission rate at roughly 9 C. But, we have no idea how the summer will impact the situation.
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BMI completely disagree with the comments that America has responded too slowly to the coronavirus for the following reasons...America is the financial engine that drives the world. America has been that engine for many decades...that's the fact, not wishful thinking. The thought that we (Americans) just stop and quarantine our nation is a huge siren going off...and I would say met with disbelief initially. At first when you hear the siren you don't give it the urgency that it may require. Remember that we are hearing that the virus primarily impacts the elderly and those with immune deficiencies. So there is a lag in most people's thinking...the thinking is that we are going to move forward and get through this. Then it comes to the door step and reality sets in. Our response was virtually no different from any other nation. The school systems have shut down across America now. Proper action is being taken. Remember non of this comes easy as decisions go. Be careful who you blame. My question is China...why do these diseases continue to come from communist China. Why do the Chinese officials act like thugs towards their people...over and over and over again?! What were the Chinese up to in Wuhan in this bio-chemical lab...the only one in their nation? And our Italian friend's view on gold is much more a Millennial thinking...us Baby Boomers know gold will be that last currency standing.
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WCRV, thanks for the interview, I enjoy hearing 1st hand experience from people on the ground. I think it would have been as insightful if you have done similar with on ground interviews from China (Shanghai or Beijing, even from ground zero in Wuhan) or Hong Kong (GaveKal?). I echo Petros C comment below re: China, I think most people don't understand how this crisis has brought the country together, and the selfless actions that's going on (understandable given the mainstream anti-China mentality exemplified by Beth M's comment below). What China has mobilized in the fight against coronavirus is impressive and innovative, Dr. Bruce Aylward (WHO team leader to visit China in Feb) article in the NY Times is a good read https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/health/coronavirus-china-aylward.html In particular, thousands of volunteers (serious, not forced) going into Wuhan to help, The community spirit is strong, here's one video showing people's supporting each other (they are saying "add oil" which is a chinese expression of keep going, don't give up... https://youtu.be/t_PSSTP8ROg like this video of Italians singing together, https://youtu.be/nNxhSe4TiOQ or nurses cutting their long hair (personal sacrifices), https://youtu.be/Lzk7-Kw-K4w or how quick China is using technology, like temperature scanning police helmets, https://youtu.be/WXULTL91Qwg all videos from SCMP (HK) website news. Here in Hong Kong, we've managed to avoid an outbreak (Singapore has more cases than HK :-) probably because we went through SARS years ago, and activated all those protocols (like where we live, plastic films over the elevator buttons, wipe downs of doors, lifts every hour or even more frequent). Besides the toilet paper and rice runs (btw, all back in stock 7 days after the craziness), all good. Unfortunately, this time we were not as helpful to our fellow people in China as they helped us during SARS, although there were a few HK'ers who went to Wuhan to help.
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SGI would agree that not just the US and UK but many countries took this too lightly and lost the early window to get ahead of the pandemic. When China locked down entire cities/provinces, that should have been the warning that something different is going on this time and efforts should have been made by other countries to work with the Chinese to gain their knowledge and experience. Instead it seemed to be treated as a Chinese problem, then perhaps as Asia problem. Then when the disease hit South Korea, Iran and Italy - that was the second warning but even then precious weeks were lost. The US detected the first case over 7 weeks ago. I cannot understand how they could have been complacent after that. No country is isolated for long any more.
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MHObesity is a critical factor in mortality. The USA is younger but? They have a BIG problem.
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gkA Home Run ... Keep comin' up to bat with folks like Giovanni ... and bring him back regularly for updates ... Journey On ... Raoul & Company ... Journey On ... regards, gk
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CTGive it time. Bitcoin (BTC) will rise once all this trash is burned. At least toilet paper is no longer needed after the latest Fed announcement.
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raWhat is up with Raouls background??
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XPHi Raoul. Please do Spain next! Government refusing to lock Madrid down even after emergency declaration. They’d rather have the whole country go under before locking Madrid. Utter irresponsibility! Catalonia and other regions / municipalities self confining. Massive percentage of gdp related to tourism just gone in a flash and they’ve just banned short selling. A real shitshow...
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JOBest call was Raoul for the continuation and indeed parabolic spike of the Bonds. ZROZ, TLT calls, /GE calls. Is that over now, following its parabolic blow-off? Gold was doing ok, in the early part of this chaos, although there was some warning when silver totally failed to join the party. But when equities started liquidating bigtime, rather than just "correcting", gold went south. The Robert Prechter view has always been that gold is just another asset that will lose value in the deflationary phase when people are selling everything. In that second accclerating leg of equities down, we saw gold went south while USD beat all other currencies. Under this framework, gold will have its day when all currencies fail and it's hyper-inflation time. On the other hand, I'm getting emails from BullionStar telling me that physical metal supply is strained and the physical and paper prices may come unstuck.
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agOn the subject of temperature, keep an eye on my country ..India. We get 35C in most of the country by next week and I'm crossing my fingers that the temperature wish comes true. Most of the people in mumbai including members of my family are not self isolating and i can't begin to explain the cultural behaviour that comes into play. If the oldest member of the family ( the most vunerable) pushes back, its like banging your head on the wall to try to explain the severity of this virus and the importance of the fact that being "paranoid " can actually help. Stay safe everyone and open your hearts and mind. Thanks Raoul to you and all your guest speakers.
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agReduce the size of your positions cause the price movements are large enough to make money . Thats a great point . And reminds of of the earlier guests on RV that mention position size as such an important factor to making sure that if your trading/investment thesis is wrong, you still stay solvent and don't get wiped out in times like this
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HSWell, Australia is blowing up, and seems to be community spread. I guess that really does not validate the virus going away in warm weather (Egypt also is not in the "yellow" belt).
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NLThank you for this true insight.. It will be interesting to see how each country copes.
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PCMr. Giovanni Pozzi, I wish Italian people a swift recovery from the pandemic. I pray for a miracle, as several of my friends and family members live in Europe and may face hard times ahead. To be honest, I have been watching in disbelief how European & north America governments handled the pandemic crisis during the last 6 weeks compared to the isolation measures taken by the Chinese government, which so far have been proven to be highly effective! For those who haven’t visited Asia before, please note that infrared cameras measuring body temperature are permanent fixtures at Hong Kong & Shanghai Pudong airport arrivals. In early January, I landed in Sanya, a sun-kissed city in the tropical island of Hainan (P.R.China), which is touted as the oriental Hawaii. After the quarantine was announced, I was obliged to live in lock-down inside a 40-acre gated development. My second option would have been to contact a European Consular and request evacuation to my domicile country. Under the latter scenario, I would had to spend 2 weeks in isolation inside a hospital ward with negative pressure. I am not a big fan of public hospital food, so I opted to ride the storm, like Raoul does, under palm trees while dining in tropical fish & fruits. I can talk about my experience for hours & days, if that may help my fellow Europeans learn something from the Chinese experiment. Here are some brief notes: [1] I had to wear a mask outside my flat. During the early days of the quarantine (when masks were out of stock and more precious than bitcoins), Chinese police came to our development and provided one free mask per person. I declined the offer, as I always carry a box of 3M FFP3 respirators during my trips to Hong Kong & mainland China. [2] Exit from the development was strongly not recommended, but it was allowed once per 2 days. Streets that were supposed to have bumper to bumper traffic during the Chinese New Year were deserted like a scene from a Steven King movie. [3] I had to comply with contactless body temperature measurement while entering our development, during package collection and while entering shops e.g. supermarkets, pharmacies. [4] I went for food shopping only once in late January. After that, fresh vegetables, fruits, fish and various other supermarket items were delivered to the development entrance. We did not have contact with the delivery personnel. At the peak of the epidemic, when little was known about virus’ transmissibility, cartoon boxes were sprayed with disinfectant before collection. [5] These strict measures were gradually relaxed after a week without new cases in Hainan island. Don’t hold your breath about the effectiveness of heat & humidity: just a handful of elderly tourists traced directly to Wuhan brought the virus in tropical Hainan (80-90% humidity) and it spread like a wildfire, before the quarantine. The pandemic has brought a major disruption to the tourist industry. All hotels, including the stunning Sanya Atlantis, are closed pending further notice. The 2020 Sanya E-Prix has been postponed etc Food for thought: A brand new isolation hospital is being built in Sanya (population 700K) and I guess every other metropolitan city in China will get at least one. Are Chinese bracing for a prolonged fight with the virus? I think today was the first day that there were more new cases from abroad than domestic. I am not a day trader and in any case I cannot trade intra-day from Asia due to latency issues and platform disruptions during periods of extreme volatility. My personal view is that there would be NO V-shape recovery, so I recommend extreme caution for anyone buying and holding the dips. I have placed small bets on the doom-loop scenario Raoul has been advocating for months, I hold some physical gold and lots of cash in EUR & USD. I am entirely lost when it comes to predicting USD vs major currencies, so any future help from RV will be appreciated. Stay healthy! Anything else comes second.
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PVGreat to hear from Italy. But as an investor he seems quite naive..
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LKI think one of the biggest mistakes has been to not inform people earlier of the actions. The better way to deal with this would have been to declare & announce the measures way beforehand. For example: If cases reach a certain threshold, all events over 500 people will be cancelled. Now, this very late reaction and sudden drastic measures has let the virus spread and caused unnecessary panic.
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GSCan't cast to my Chromecast anymore :(
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SSCurrent thinking in the medical community (note that there are many uncertainties and these points may change): 1) perhaps 20-60% will be infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the US, 2) disease activity until at least May in the US, 3) US mortality rate estimated to be between 1-3%, and 4) healthcare infrastructure poorly prepared from testing all the way to ventilation/ICU care.
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JShomeboy on the intro needs to turn it down a notch lol
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AKReally well balanced interview - thank you Raoul, In fact, i will sleep better tonight having listened to Giovanni. Well done Real Vision.
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JDRP looks like he's Matthew Mcconaughey behind the bookshelf in Interstellar.
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jrBravo Givoanni, thanks for putting this in perspective that it's NOT war, its great to see that you are handling it the way everyone should, great update. Thank you
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FBOutstanding....a pragmatic and realistic view on a variety of subjects. This was a bit of a contrast to many less optimistic views including Raoul's. This interview gave us a further sense of what to watch for and a few possible ways to position ourselves both personally and financially . Well done.
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swGiovanni stay safe and best wishes to you and your loved ones. Thank you. I must say however that I think you're being incredibly conciliatory and forgiving to your political leaders. Wouldn't pandemic risk be a top 3 or 4 risk that your Minister of Health should be prepared for? This person was presumably appointed by your Prime Minister? Where was the health minister for the last 3 months? I don't mean to be picking specifically on Italy here... other than Taiwan and Singapore I can't of any politicians that are showing leadership and preparedeness for this. But astonishing how the specific leaders that should have had this on this radar seem to have been absent-mindedly staring into the sky in December, January and February.
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SWTimely and vital information. Thank you RV! I would like to see more interviews like this.
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CPI couldn't think of a better guest to have on just now. And the Skype-styling made is seem like a sincere chat with a friend. So valuable for the Real Vision members. Thanks Raoul & team.
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MLThe US population is at more risk than people realize due to the general health of the population rather than age. Example: 30 million Americans are diabetic. A further 120 million are prediabetic. That's just one segment of the population at risk. Add to that, that there are only about 1 million hospital beds in the USA, and even less ICU beds. Hopefully I'm wrong but it looks like a dire situation.
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NNGreat content and guest. One suggestion on the videos (I’m sure it’s been mentioned) - allowing a feature to speed them up by 1.25x, 1.5x or so. It would be helpful for slower pace speakers such as Giovanni.
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JOIs the assertion true that there is an army of Chinese workers in northern Italy producing Made In Italy garments and accessories, some of whom would have visited China at Chinese New Year? Mortality percentage in Italy somewhat explained by aged population but trying to understand the magnitude of initial infection compared to other European countries.
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KAThanks for putting the content indicators in the progress bar...really a great time saver.
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RYThank you ... We're rooting for you, Giovanni ... Wishing you a speedy return to 'normality'... All the best ... Viva Italia!
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HCThoughtful and informative. Great work, RV! This should be released publicly. Giovanni's experience from within a crisis area may be of use to those in areas where cases are now starting to climb quickly.
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HSWhy would money go back to the stock market with earnins obviously falling? Why would America be better off with opiate addicts and obese population? Where is the evidence of warm weather even slowing this thing down, let alone stop it? Australia being in deep shit, much of the conclusions here are on shaky grounds...
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NRThoroughly engrossing. Thanks to both of you for taking time to address the granular experience and then rolling the piece out in a timely and professional manner. RV is so very unique and valuable and a this segment is the proof.
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PZOne of the least intererting video in a long time....
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BDGreat to see that RV is able to prioritize the quality of the information and the timely delivery of that information over having a formal structured interview when needed. (I'm sorry Raul, I laughed a bit when I first saw you in this interview). Having these interviews along with the whole REPO series of interviews about a month ago is in my opinion just as good as a regular interview when done correctly. An important takeaway from the virus is just how badly people understand statistics and events (large and deceivingly small) as a .2% fatality rate will not randomly kill 2 people out of 1000 but will leave the 2 weakest immune systems/health systems out of the 1000 at the highest risk at a disproportionate rate. Human physiology just isnt a good quantifier of risk and probabilities. If Real Vision or others sees this, I would be interested to know what the thoughts are on a deflationary impact overall. Especially to the highly indebted.
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MAThank you.
JACK FARLEY: As the coronavirus sends the globe into lockdown, we hear at Real Vision are making an effort to get our members the best information as quickly as possible. And to accomplish this goal, we're speaking with our experts remotely. Kicking things off, we have Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal interviewing Giovanni Pozzi, managing director at a family office in Italy, which has more COVID-19 cases than any other country in the world besides China.
Giovanni is witnessing firsthand the impact of the coronavirus in Italy. He is currently under self-quarantine, and he shares with Raoul what he's experiencing on the ground from the epicenter of a global pandemic. Giovanni sheds light on COVID-19's economic impact and the Italian government's response, which has been to basically shut down the entire economy. Giovanni and Raoul then break down the global knock-on effects of the virus and what we can expect in the coming months.
With this global pandemic, the news is changing rapidly. And as we bring you the information that matters most when it matters most, please bear with us as we adjust our coverage and tweak the process. Enjoy.
RAOUL PAL: Giovanni, good to speak to you. You're in isolation in Italy. I'm in isolation in Little Cayman. So, tell people a little bit about yourself, and then we'll dig into what the hell's going on.
GIOVANNI POZZI: Myself generally, not in isolation, you mean, I guess.
RAOUL PAL: Not in isolation. You, the normal.
GIOVANNI POZZI: The normal Giovanni. I run a family office here in Italy, so constantly on the financial markets. I'm home. Family's well. My colleagues and I have been smart working since the 20th of February now. It's not so disruptive for our type of job. Right? We're used to Bloomberg and all the information providers and the video conference calls, so not such a big deal.
I cannot take your advice of going running into the woods because I live in the city, although it's not a megacity. But we don't have close woods. But it's OK. Staying at home feels good, feels safe.
RAOUL PAL: So, talk me through how this unfolded in Italy and the national psyche. Just talk us through that, because it's a story that we don't get to hear firsthand, and you've been living it firsthand. So, when you first saw it in China, what did you think?
GIOVANNI POZZI: Well, I think it's pretty natural for the human being. When we first heard from China, we were quite relaxed. You don't think this is going to come to you. Right? And it did come.
Where are now in Italy, just to update the numbers? Roughly 15,000 official recognized cases, about 1,000 deaths, about 1,300 healed. And the exponential growth continues, both in terms of new cases, of critical cases, of deaths, and of healings, luckily.
We haven't really had the chance to learn from the Chinese experience. You might have seen the picture, the chart that's been going around that shows how the curves of the Hubei province in China and of Italy overlap precisely with, I think, a 38 days delay. And by the way, Hubei and Italy have about the same population-- 55 million Hubei, 60 million Italy. Now there's another chart going around these days that shows the beginning of the same overlap between Italy and the rest of Europe, which is 10 days behind.
So, I was saying we didn't have a chance to really learn from the Chinese experience. It was certainly a mistake on us as people and on the government. But it wasn't easy, because despite the strong trade and business relationship between China and Italy, there's the distance, both geographically and culturally. And we were the first ones in the Western world, so it wasn't that easy.
Now, I'm only today hearing France, Germany, the rest of Europe taking serious action. The last few days from here, the sentiment was, why are these guys waiting? They're just repeating our mistakes. But this mistake is not acceptable, in my opinion. So, I'm glad that they are moving, and I urge-- if I could speak to them, I would urge them to move again.
There is a great chart by a guy called Tomas Pueyo on "Medium" that shows how much impact one day of delay in implementing what they call social distancing policies or measures can make in the number of cases, and it's amazing. So, that alone should convince everybody to take a more prudent approach.
RAOUL PAL: So, what is the situation now in Italy in terms of what's shut down, what businesses are open? What's going on economically and socially now?
GIOVANNI POZZI: So, the only open businesses for commercial activity on the streets are pharmacies and food. All the rest is closed. But offices and companies can be open and operate as far as they respect policies and implement policies that allow people to stay distant on one from the other. And it's pretty personal. Every manager had to choose their own way to implement this. So, it's not a total business shutdown.
RAOUL PAL: And what about the--
GIOVANNI POZZI: Before going--
RAOUL PAL: What about--
GIOVANNI POZZI: Before going into-- yeah. Sorry, go ahead.
RAOUL PAL: What about factories? The industrial heartland of Europe is north Italy, right? How does that affect the industrial output of the country?
GIOVANNI POZZI: It will be affected, but factories are not shut down. They are continuing to run.
RAOUL PAL: Wow.
GIOVANNI POZZI: Of course, they've slowed down, because if you need to have, for example, the simpler thing is half of the workforce home and half at the office or at the factory and in and out, alternating 50/50. So, that clearly reduces your workforce. But on the other hand, consumption is clearly reduced much, much more than that. So, it should stay quite in balance. The economical impact is certainly there.
Well, let me-- before going into the economical impact, a few words on one thing. It doesn't matter how late you come to it, but this thing really gets into people's minds. So, it's a priority to be calm, to take care of yourselves, to eat well, and to be strong. It's the first time, in a way, that our generation is faced with such a chance to prove our resilience. I don't want to compare it with war. We're under a roof, we're healthy, we're warm, we've got food, we've got internet.
We've even got applications that allow us to do video calls socially. A couple of days ago, we celebrated my daddy's birthday-- 85-- with a video called app. So, come on. This is not a war. We're not being bombed, building and the houses. But in our generation, which is probably weaker than that of our grandparents and great grandparents, it's the first time off such a proof. So, it's important to understand is and be very, and stay very strong.
The other thing, it's clear that the health care system is heavily stressed. There is a picture that became very famous in Italy of Francesca, this nurse, falling asleep on her desk after-- I don't know-- 10, 12 hours uninterrupted work. And around Francesca and the nurses and the doctors, there's an amazing number of people doing an excellent job, and the resources are pretty stretched.
This morning, the first call I had was with my friend Diego, who runs the logistics for a big hospital in Bologna. He takes 45 minutes to work typically. But because they've stopped, suspended most of the high speed trains to avoid people going around and gathering together and because of the extended hours they need to work, He takes them now-- well, he's left with very few hours of sleep and of rest. And his first task this morning was to find a forklift to move one of those huge emergency tents to accommodate more beds.
And my second call this morning was when another friend, Paolo, that runs a hospitality business. He was calling all of the landlords he manages the short-term rent of the apartments for to convince them to give out for free the apartments to the doctors and the people working in the hospitals that-- like, Diego cannot commute every day, because it's too far. Otherwise, he'll sleep one hour instead of three.
One evidence I had-- the doctors were the first ones at two, three, four weeks ago to take this thing seriously, while everybody else was pretty relaxed. It's quite clear that they know how to do their job. And a positive signal, if you want, these days-- yesterday for the first time, I heard a doctor publicly-- the general manager of a big hospital here in Lombardy-- saying we have the resources. They've come. We've been provided with what we need. So, you guys just do your job. Stay home, and we'll fix this.
Your question was on the economy.
RAOUL PAL: No, it's all right. Let's go back a little bit to this. So, the health care system overloading-- and we're hearing stories in Italy that's in some places, it's basically a choice of who lives and who dies when you're under a stretched resources situation. What stories are you hearing on this stretch of resources that's going on? Because this is a lot of things that people don't understand. They say the death rate is not that high. Well actually, in Italy, it's been quite high because of the aging population. And also, not everything's being measured.
But it's the impact on the medical system that people don't really understand. So, any more light you've got on that would be really enlightening for people.
GIOVANNI POZZI: It was very difficult, and it is very difficult, to understand what is the reality and to reply to this question. We went through those days when on WhatsApp there was a number of recordings going around from people working within the hospitals and telling people-- alarming people-- and telling them, look, the beds are over, the ventilation systems are over. From tomorrow, we need