Two quick items to flag for you:

• First is an email from a friend and former colleague, David Doyle. David is the senior economist and strategist responsible for North America at Macquarie Securities. David does an excellent job of putting the relative rates of infection and testing in Canada into perspective. Ontario and Quebec remain concerns while the west has benefited from being significantly more aggressive in testings. David is still cautiously optimistic about Canada’s path, which looks much ‘flatter’ than Italy or the US. I’ve included some of David’s charts and commentary below.
• Second is an article highlighting that the University of Minnesota and Mayo Clinic were close to developing a test for COVID-19 antibodies. This type of diagnostic should help us understand the true scope of the infection and identify individuals that may have immunities that allow them to help others and our economy. We remain buyers of human ingenuity!

Charts from David Doyle:

Chart 1  - Canada tracking closer to AUS and Korea than US and Italy

 
Chart 2  - Per capita cases by far the highest in Quebec (testing, March break timing factors here)
 
 
 
Chart 3  - Confirmed case growth rate higher in Ontario and Quebec…much lower in the West
 
 
 
Chart 4  - Low testing in Ontario still a concern … strong in West, particularly in Alberta
 
Canada’s cumulative per capita testing double the US, but also 30% less than Australia’s
 
 
 
Chart 5 – Recent daily per capita testing for Canada has been ~50% more than the US

 
Chart 6 – Canada’s positive test rate has edged a bit higher driven by Ontario and Quebec

Notes:

• This is still well below the US (~18%).   
• For comparison purposes, there are 44 US states with a higher positive test rate than Ontario (and 35 with higher rates than Quebec).
• A lower positive test rate is desirable in our view – as it suggests a lower threshold of symptoms/etc. to test.