Author Archives: admin

Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine | By Bill Gates

Posted on by

The Insider Edition
April 30, 2020

Humankind has never had a more urgent task than creating broad immunity for coronavirus.

Realistically, if we’re going to return to normal, we need to develop a safe, effective vaccine—and we need to do it faster than we’ve ever developed a vaccine before. Creating a new vaccine usually takes a minimum of five years. But Bill Gates remains optimistic that we can safely condense that process into 18 months or even less.

How exactly are we going to do that? According to Bill Gates, the process is complicated but fascinating.

Bill Gates wrote an in-depth explainer that will hopefully answer some questions.

Read more about the race for a COVID-19 vaccine on Bill Gates’ blog:

https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/What-you-need-to-know-about-the-COVID-19-vaccine?WT.mc_id=20200430100000_COVID-19-vaccine_BG-EM_&WT.tsrc=BGEM

There are dozens of candidates in the pipeline.

As of April 9, there are 115 different COVID-19 vaccine candidates in the development pipeline. Bill Gates thinks that eight to ten of those look particularly promising.

Remdesivir Potential Coronavirus Treatment

Posted on by

Gilead’s remdesivir drug a potential coronavirus treatment.

Gilead Sciences reported positive results from two studies that showed its therapy remdesivir could be a viable treatment to combat Covid-19.

Remdesivir

The separate studies’ results of its therapy remdesivir led to symptom improvement in patients with severe cases of the coronavirus. Gilead said the study of 200 patients showed that symptom remedy can be achieved in some with a 5-day regimen.

“These study results complement data from the placebo-controlled study of remdesivir conducted by the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases and help to determine the optimal duration of treatment with remdesivir,” Merdad Parsey, Gilead’s chief medical officer, said in a statement. “The study demonstrates the potential for some patients to be treated with a 5-day regimen, which could significantly expand the number of patients who could be treated with our current supply of remdesivir.” 

Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said on CNBC that announcements from Gilead about trials of remdesivir against the coronavirus “would not be a “home run” or a cure, but that it could possibly be used in earlier stages of the infection to avoid worse outcomes, similar to how Tamiflu is used against the seasonal flu”.

“We use it in the emergency room when people come in with the flu and we have it right away for people who might be at risk for the worst outcome,” Gottlieb said. “I think remdesivir could be used in a similar fashion. And so far all the data that we’ve seen accrue does suggest that there’s a treatment effect here.”

Earlier this month,  the University of Chicago found that patients with Covid-19 had “rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms” and were discharged in less than a week, according to STAT News.

However, a draft document accidentally published by the World Health Organization (WHO), said the drug did not improve Covid-19 patients’ conditions or reduce the virus’ presence in the bloodstream in a clinical trial in China. WHO has been seen increasingly as a mouthpiece for Chinese Communist Party propaganda and the world should question the validity of “the accidental release”.

References:

  1. Stock market live updates: Stocks soar on Gilead treatment, Dow up 500 from CNBC.com
  2. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/29/gilead-reports-positive-data-on-remdesivir-coronavirus-drug-trial.html
  3. https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/commentary/the-world-health-organization-bows-china

Social Security Age: Claim at 62 or Wait until 70

Posted on by

“The age you claim Social Security affects your lifetime income.”

Social Security Administration (SSA) payments are based on a calculation of a 35-year average of your lifetime earnings. Each year’s wages are adjusted for inflation before being averaged. If you worked longer than 35 years, the highest 35 years will be used. If you worked fewer than 35 years, SSA will average in zeros for the missing years.

When to collect benefits

According to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, 48% of women and 42% of men who claimed Social Security retirement benefits in 2013 did so as soon as they were eligible at age 62.

Yet, according to many financial advisers, baby boomers would be better off waiting until their seventieth (70th) birthday to start claiming Social Security, than if they take benefits in their 60s.

The logic behind this advice is driven by the 8% government-guaranteed increase in lifetime payments for each year baby boomers delay benefits past age 62, up to age 70.

But, baby boomers need to ask themselves what is the likelihood they will live long enough to benefit from the increased payments that start later in life at seventy years old versus collecting benefits at sixty-two years old.

When you decide to delay starting Social Security benefits, you’re betting that you will out-live an actuarially based mortality estimate.

Discount Rate Specification and the Social Security Claiming Decision from the Social Security Administration (SSA) study evaluates Social Security benefits not only as a function of the age of death, but also the probability of reaching that age. It provides that analysis over a range of discount rates.

A general conclusion of the study is that you shouldn’t wait to reach the age of 70 to initiate your Social Security benefits.

Social Security Benefit Breakeven

Before you start drawing on Social Security at age 62, it is recommended that you determine if it maximizes your total payments by calculating the breakeven. Additionally, it’s important that you balance the timing of those benefits with the rest of your retirement income plans. This choice of starting benefits isn’t reversible after 12 months.

Social Security breakeven age occurs when the total value of higher benefits (from postponing retirement) starts to exceed the total value of lower benefits (from choosing early retirement).

  • Example: If you are eligible to collect a reduced $900 benefit at age 62 plus 1 month, and your benefit would increase to $1,251 at age 65 and 10 months, your estimated break-even age is 75 years and 5 months.

https://youtu.be/9e3M3kM9LFk

Early Benefits

Collecting early benefits may pay off despite the reduced monthly check. Since it is impossible to predict how long a baby boomer will live. If you’re facing a potentially significant reduction in life expectancy and are short of income, taking Social Security early may be appropriate.

Just be aware that you will receive a reduced benefit. If your full retirement age is 67 and you begin collecting Social Security at age 62, for example, your benefits are reduced by about 30 percent.

The rational advisors often hear from baby boomers who want to apply for Social Security early benefits at age 62 is that you’ve paid into the system for decades, and want to get something out of it before it goes bankrupt. It might feel like the best decision at the time, but down the road, it may prove the worst decision you ever made in your life.

The legitimate fear for planning purposes is not that you might die early and miss out on some money you could have had from social security, but rather that you will outlive your money.   Think about waiting to collect Social Security as a form of longevity insurance—for you for sure, but also for your surviving spouse if you are the higher earner.  In fact, a higher Social Security benefit is the best deal on longevity insurance you can get.

Benefits reduced if you’re work while receiving benefits

Working after you start receiving retirement benefits may affect your monthly benefit amount, depending on your age and how much you earn. If you are younger than your full retirement age, and your earnings exceed certain dollar amounts, some of your monthly benefit may be withheld.

Social Security will increase your monthly benefit after you reach full retirement age to account for the months of withheld benefits. When you reach your full retirement age, you can work and earn as much as you want and your benefit will not be affected.

Full Retirement Age

Optimum strategy for most baby boomers may or may not be to postpone Social Security benefits at least until you reach full retirement age, which is determined by the Social Security Administration.

Your full retirement age (FRA) is determined by the year you were born. The retirement age used to be 65 for everyone, but is gradually increasing to 67. As the full retirement age goes up, benefits claimed at earlier ages go down.

FRA is 67 for those born in 1960 or later. If you were born in 1937 or earlier, your full retirement age is 65. The FRA rises two months every year after that until it caps out at age 67.

However, collecting Social Security early will cost you. If your full retirement age is 67, your Social Security benefit is reduced by:

  • About 30 percent if you start collecting at 62.
  • About 25 percent if you start collecting at 63.
  • About 20 percent if you start collecting at 64.
  • About 13.3 percent if you start collecting at 65.
  • About 6.7 percent if you start collecting at 66.

If you expect to live beyond the breakeven age, it would be financially worth your while to delay drawing benefits. Yet, there’s not an age that’s appropriate for everyone. Baby boomers must consider their own financial need, health and post-retirement plans before deciding when to begin social security benefits.

There are many ways to collect Social Security benefits. You can collect benefits starting at age 62 or anytime up until you’re 70. Collecting early benefits at age 62 means smaller monthly payouts than waiting until full retirement age or waiting until seventy (70). It’s generally advisable to wait until full retirement age to start collecting Social Security benefits because the monthly benefit is higher than starting early benefits at age 62.

References:

  1. https://crr.bc.edu
  2. https://www.thestreet.com/retirement/social-security-claim-now-or-wait
  3. https://www.bankrate.com/retirement/when-to-take-social-security/
  4. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jlange/2018/10/01/what-is-the-best-age-to-apply-for-social-security/#97e7e9a56d2b
  5. https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/

Coronavirus Relief Often Pays Workers More Than Work | Wall Street Journal

Posted on by

When combined with state benefits, weekly government payouts create incentives that employers say complicate efforts to reopen businesses

Roughly half of all U.S. workers stand to earn more in unemployment benefits than they did at their jobs before the coronavirus pandemic shut down wide swaths of the U.S. economy, and employers say the government relief is complicating plans to reopen businesses.

The package of coronavirus stimulus laws Congress passed and President Trump signed in March included a $600 boost to weekly unemployment benefits through July 31. As that support is added to state benefits over the coming weeks, the average weekly payment to a laid-off worker should rise to about $978 from the $377.97 the Labor Department said was paid on average late last year.

Qualified workers will receive the government payout every week through July, and in most cases, the combined $978 weekly payout amounts to better pay than what many workers received before the crisis hit. Labor Department statistics show half of full-time workers earned $957 or less a week in the first quarter of 2020.

Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-relief-often-pays-workers-more-than-work-11588066200

Additional information:

  1. https://www.usa.gov/unemployment#item-214601
  2. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-secret-group-of-scientists-and-billionaires-pushing-trump-on-a-covid-19-plan-11587998993?mod=trending_now_1

3 tips to avoid locking in losses | Mass Mutual

Posted on by

By Allen Wastler
Allen Wastler is a former financial journalist with over 30-years of experience, including time at CNBC, CNN, and Knight-Ridder Newspapers.
Posted on Apr 13, 2020

After a huge market downturn and a major loss of value in your investment portfolio, the temptation to do something — anything — may be hard to resist.

But in many ways, the best action may be to take no action. Why? An investment plan is a long-term project and making changes to it based on short-term considerations is often ill-advised. That’s why financial professionals encourage people to stay calm during market sell-offs and think about long-term objectives.

“It is a tough and scary time, and not locking in losses by panic selling is critical,” said J. Todd Gentry, a financial professional with Synergy Wealth Solutions in Chesterfield, Missouri.

But even if you did resist the initial impulse to flee during a market retreat, you still need to keep some discipline about your portfolio as you wait for a market recovery. Here are some traps to avoid….Read more: Avoid Locking in Losses

Markets, as a whole, have historically bounced back from downturns with time, as the following chart illustrates.

Source: Bloomberg. The S&P 500 is an equity index that consists of the stocks of 500 large U.S. companies measured by market capitalization. The results here include the effect of reinvested dividends. You cannot invest directly in an index.

Dr. David Katz | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

Posted on by

Dr. Katz believes the fight against coronavirus is worse than the disease

Preventive medicine and public health specialist Dr. David Katz joins Bill Maher to discuss whether the fight against coronavirus is worse than the disease.

Dr. Katz wrote a New York Times op-ed on March 20 titled “Is Our Fight Against Coronavirus Worse Than the Disease?”

In the op-ed, Katz argues against the self-isolation policies put in place by most of the U.S. He advises that instead locking down the country; we should isolate the elderly and most at risk, which would thus “allow most of society to return to life as usual and perhaps prevent vast segments of the economy from collapsing”.

Finger Pulse Oximeters by Patients with COVID-19

Posted on by

In a recent New York Times opinion piece, New York City’s Richard Levitan, MD, after working at Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital Center in early April at the height of the COVID-19 surge, stated that everyone needs a pulse oximeter in their pandemic supply kit.

Levitan says that use of home finger pulse oximeters by patients with COVID-19 could preempt the precipitous oxygen desaturation that leads to a crisis that needs intensive care.

In a NY Times’ Opinion piece, Dr. Levitan said, “If we could detect it earlier, we could initiate treatment earlier. We need to change messaging to the public, to physicians, to get earlier recognition of the disease.”

There is a way the medical community could identify more patients who have Covid pneumonia sooner and treat them more effectively by detecting silent hypoxia early through a common medical device called a pulse oximeter.

Pulse oximetry is no more complicated than using a thermometer. These small devices turn on with one button and are placed on a fingertip. In a few seconds, two numbers are displayed: oxygen saturation and pulse rate. Pulse oximeters are extremely reliable in detecting oxygenation problems and elevated heart rates.

Pulse oximeters can help save the lives by alerting individuals early to the need for treatment. When people notice their oxygen levels declining, they can go to the hospital earlier and have a higher chance to recover. Detection of hypoxia, early treatment and close monitoring apparently also worked for Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister.

Widespread pulse oximetry screening for Covid pneumonia — whether people check themselves on home devices or go to clinics or doctors’ offices — could provide an early warning system for the kinds of breathing problems associated with Covid pneumonia.

References:

  1. https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200424/covid-19-home-pulse-oximetry-could-be-game-changer-says-er-doc?src=RSS_PUBLIC#1
  2. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html?referringSource=articleShare

Nearly All NYC COVID-19 Patients Hospitalized had Chronic Health Issues

Posted on by

Study finds Nearly All Patients Hospitalized With Covid-19 Had Chronic Health Issues

A new Journal of American Medical Assoication study of thousands of hospitalized coronavirus patients in the New York City area has found that nearly all of them had at least one major chronic health condition, and most — 88 percent — had at least two.

Though earlier research has shown chronic conditions like obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes are common risk factors for severe Covid-19, the ubiquity of serious medical conditions in these patients was striking: Only 6 percent of them had no underlying health conditions.

The researchers reported that when patients first came to the hospital and were triaged, 17 percent had an abnormal respiratory rate of more than 24 breaths per minute, and 28 percent received supplemental oxygen.

But fewer than one third of the patients had a fever, even though they were sick enough to be hospitalized, a similar observation to one noted by a large Chinese study.

This indicates that taking people’s temperatures in order to screen them for the coronavirus is likely to miss many people who are not only asymptomatic but also acutely ill.

Nearly 60 percent of those hospitalized at the Northwell facilities had high blood pressure, 40 percent were obese, and about one-third had diabetes. Smaller numbers of patients suffered from other chronic illnesses, such as heart disease, kidney disease and chronic respiratory illnesses.

The study included 5,700 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in the New York City area, the most common comorbidities [simultaneous presence of two chronic diseases or conditions in a patient] were hypertension, obesity, and diabetes. Among patients who were discharged or died (sample size (n) = 2,634 patients), 14.2% were treated in the intensive care unit, 12.2% received invasive mechanical ventilation, 3.2% were treated with kidney replacement therapy, and 21% died.

References:

  1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/health/coronavirus-patients-risk.html?referringSource=articleShare
  2. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2765184

Auto Insurance Companies are giving Refunds due to Coronavirus

Posted on by

Some auto insurance companies start giving refunds and credits to commuters stuck at home during the coronavirus outbreak.

Atlanta traffic

USAA, the country’s fifth largest property-casualty insurer, will return $520 million to its members. This payment is a result of data showing members are driving less due to stay-at-home and shelter-in-place guidance across the country.

Car traffic has plummeted as states impose “shelter in place” orders and scores of companies have told employees to work from home. Personal travel has been declining for three straight weeks, according to Inrix, a traffic data analytics company. From late March to early April, personal travel traffic in the U.S. dropped 47% compared to traffic in late February, the data showed.

Consumers are driving much less. That makes the driver less risky to insure and justifies a lower premium.

The nation’s biggest car insurer, State Farm, is slashing $2 billion of premiums owed on 40 million vehicles, making it the latest carrier to offer a financial-relief program for consumers as auto claims have plunged under shelter-at-home restrictions.

References:

  1. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/some-auto-insurers-are-giving-refunds-because-of-the-coronavirus-outbeak-heres-how-you-can-get-a-break-too-2020-04-09?mod=mw_more_headlines
  2. https://communities.usaa.com/t5/Press-Releases/USAA-to-Return-520-Million-to-Members/ba-p/228150?_ga=2.74504658.1537537724.1587742333-1534249610.1587742333
  3. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/state-farm-to-slash-2-billion-in-car-insurance-premiums-amid-pandemic-2020-04-09?mod=article_inline

The Power of Compounding

Posted on by

“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.” Albert Einstein

When money is invested, it produces earnings that can then be reinvested, so that you receive earnings on your earnings in addition to the earnings on your original investment.

This added boost is the power of compounding, and the longer the money is invested, the more powerful are its effects. Over long periods of time—20, 30, or 40 years—the effects of compounding at different rates can be substantial. For instance, if you invested $10,000 today and it earned 8% annually, you would have $100,626 at the end of 30 years; if it earned 9% you would have $132,676 after 30 years. That’s a $32,000 difference with only a 1% difference in return annually.

In retirement planning, there are advantages of earning higher returns over long time periods. But, keep in mind that small differences in investment return assumptions can turn into large differences in accumulation.

Start early and reap the rewards

 “Letting your money work for you is a key component of saving for retirement. Compound interest, dollar cost averaging, tax-deferred savings, and diversification help lower your risk and boost your return on investment over time. Compound interest is the interest on your principal plus interest on the interest you earned previously.

For example, a single investment of $10,000 at 5% compounded annually earns $10,789 in interest over 15 years for a net amount of $20,789. Straight interest would accrue at the rate of $500 per year, $7,500 in total interest, for a net amount of $17,500. When interest is reinvested and compounds at 5%, it adds another $3,298 to the value. That is the magic of compound interest.” Taylor Larimore et al, The Bogleheads’ Guide to Retirement Planning

Compounding gives invested money the ability to grow over time.  The Rule of 72 is the number of years needed to double invested money at a given interest rate. Divide 72 by the interest rate…money invested at 10% will double in 7.2 years

Be conservative in your estimates.