Monthly Archives: April 2020

Microsoft (MSFT) founder and billionaire Bill Gates warns that America needs to get its coronavirus testing sorted quickly until then, were in big trouble.

Coronavirus in the U.S. is still completely mis-prioritized, Gates told CNBC on Thursday.

The natural thing would be to do like South Korea did, and create a unified system that we haven't gotten any interest from the federal level, Gates said. The thinking is to create a website that you go in and enter your situation and it would give you a priority number, and then hopefully all the people who control the capacity limit the priority level that they accept, so they're giving these very quick results and to the right people.

And until we have that, we're in big trouble, he stressed, because as a percentage of 330 million [Americans], we're not going to be able to test many people [and] we need to know that number because that deeply affects rebounds when opening up. And there is some data that suggests it's not a gigantic number but very, very important to pin that down.

Gates previously said that the Gates Foundation is spending billions which has not been independently verified on a vaccine for the coronavirus. He also called for an extreme shutdown and widespread testing before social distancing guidelines could relaxed and the economy restarts.

Once we get our act together countrywide and if the compliance is very high and that testing including some innovations like a self-swab that our foundation has driven and those get into place by early June, we'll be looking at some type of opening up.

Gates noted that the access to the backend capacity of what's called a PCR [or polymerase chain reaction] machine is completely unmanaged. You can have somebody without symptoms who gets tested every day in some wealthy community and you can have a healthcare worker waiting three or four days.

The PCR test is essentially what we know today as swab testing. The way it works is that the PCR method is a fast and inexpensive technique to amplify small segments of DNA which can then be used by labs to examine bacteria or viruses. In other words, if someone has the coronavirus, the PCR test amplifies their DNA such that scientists can study it and in just a few hours compute a result.

Story continues

The PCR test ... that is the key to tracing contacts and really getting people to go into serious quarantine, Gates said, adding that a serological test only goes positive after you've infected most everyone you're going to infect.

He continued: Any time the queue [for testing] is over 24 hours, that's complete mismanagement. Because the value of the result is far less worthwhile when you're not getting it very, very quickly. The best case is the PCR test goes positive before you're symptomatic or infectious and then you can act in such a way that you never infect anyone else.

Public health experts also say that serological tests are also critical in understanding how many asymptomatic people are out there.

We are able to test about 1,000 patients a day [but] what we would love to start doing and hopefully this will come online soon, is test peoples antibody levels against the virus, Dr. Brian Garibaldi, director of the Johns Hopkins Biocontainment Unit, told Yahoo Finances The Ticker (video above).

That way we can understand how much asymptomatic individuals are out there and be able to start making sure that were safe here, as the healthcare workforce, protecting ourselves our families our patients, he added.

Anjalee Khemlanicontributed to this post. Aarthi is a reporter for Yahoo Finance.

Read more:

Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,SmartNews,LinkedIn,YouTube, andreddit.

Go here to see the original:

Bill Gates: 'We're in big trouble' until the U.S. has better coronavirus testing - Yahoo News

From toilet paper shortages to computer chips, the novel coronavirus pandemic has exposed many weak links in the highly globalized supply chains that enable goods to move around the world.

Now, many companies are taking a long, hard look at their models to see if the status quo still works. If the coronavirus broke the supply chain, how do you fix it? What should be changed, and what should not be changed?

There are three parts of the supply chain that have been thrown into question: offshoring, just-in-time inventory, and diversification and every company reliant on manufacturing is likely examining these factors.

From clothing to electronics and much more, things in the United States usually come from really far away, often from China, where the new coronavirus originated. For many companies, this is often unavoidable, because many goods would be prohibitively expensive if made in regions where labor costs are high. Offshoring and outsourcing exploded after 1979, when China adopted its Open Door Policy, allowing foreign companies to access its vast and inexpensive labor market, enabling far cheaper goods than before.

Taiwan-based Foxconn is best known as the assembler of the iPhone, with many factories in China like this one in Shenzhen. But going forward, companies will have to diversify their supply chains to ensure that they can still function if one country goes offline. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

Anything that was labor intensive footwear, apparel, assembly of electronics moved to China, said Marshall Fisher, a professor of operations, information, and decisions at Wharton.In 1960, 5% of the worlds physical products crossed boundaries. Thats grown to about 50%.

The trade-off from offshoring is lead time. A widget produced in China takes a long time to sail to the West, unless you put it on a plane, which eats up much of the cost savings. For many companies, that means nailing predictions to make sure they dont make too much product or too little, which isnt easy.

The key aspect with international trade, during the pandemic, is politics. It can be good and bad for business.

Rob Siegel, a Stanford professor who studies supply chains and has created them for businesses, recalled as a business school student in the fall 1993 when former Intel (INTC) CEO Andy Grove told his class that there will never be war with China because you will never invade the country that has the factories that make all your things.

Unfortunately, when it comes to pandemics, politics dont help. Taiwan, a manufacturing powerhouse, banned mask exports in late January as the coronavirus surged. (Taiwan later lifted the ban and donated many masks to other countries.) Dozens of countries including much of Europe, the U.S., and Brazil followed, either banning or restricting exports due to coronavirus.

This, perhaps greater than anything else, has prompted the question: Do you really want to rely on X country during an emergency?

However, this is more of a question for governments than businesses, which are more focused on making money than national security.

For many companies, making stuff abroad is the only viable option, but they do need to continue functioning if something bad happens. Thats why Fisher thinks the question companies will be asking isnt is our supply chain too long?, but rather should we be investing in resilience of the [complex, international] supply chain?

Companies dont just buy stuff from far away, but they have been buying the least amount of stuff possible running lean inventory and only buying when they need to.

Thats called the just-in-time inventory model, and like predicting months in advance when buying from afar, companies have gotten really good at creating models that allow them to run extremely efficiently. The downside of this model is its fragile: If something goes wrong, companies will be in a bind.

Story continues

So, when the coronavirus hit, some companies and consumers experienced supply issues.

But what should a company do if they operate under this model?

Largely speaking [just-in-time] isnt going to be redesigned for a 100-year crisis, said Siegel. Its almost impossible to plan for something that happens every 100 years.

This may sound like a gamble, but for many companies, changing the entire model just doesnt make sense. As Yossi Sheffi, director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, told Yahoo Finance, there are just too many advantages of just-in-time that go beyond cost. Theres more speed and agility, but also more quality.

When an auto production line experiences a problem with a part, for example, you have a pile of parts and swap a new one in. But with just-in-time, "you stop the line, find out what's wrong, and fix it," Sheffi said. "Low inventory helps people find out what's wrong."

For some stuff, however, we may see significant changes in inventory management. The pandemic has shown that the critical strategic reserves of products like ventilators and personal protective equipment are simply not adequate during a global emergency. The U.S., unable to import ventilators quickly due to other countries export laws, resorted to deputizing General Motors (GM) to make ventilators.

For many, that wasnt quick enough, and shifting the permanent production domestically may not be feasible either in the future. But what might be more practical is planning for more inventory.

If you have 100,000 ventilators that you could pull out at a moments notice, that'd be easier [than it would be] to nationalize GM via the Defense Protection Act, said Siegel.

Going forward, the government may choose to mandate that certain companies run with more inventory for critical items like ventilators, just in case, and keep their own warehouses better stocked.

For the most part, however, just-in-time inventory is here to stay, and low-cost offshoring isnt going anywhere. But what Yossi, Siegel, and Fisher agree will change is diversification.

"The first line of defense is to make your components in multiple places," said Fisher. "The idea is at least two companies making it in two geographic locations."

I expect companies to have at least a secondary supplier, said Sheffi. Not 50%, maybe 20-30%.

Rising wages in China have forced some companies to move their manufacturing away from the country, said Fisher, but many companies are still exposed.

Fisher noted that the 2011 Tsunami in Japan taught many companies, like Apple, the lesson to be more robust in the face of disruption, but that as the disaster faded into memory, so did the calls to diversify.

"Apple [has] foregone the few millions of costs to make the supply chain more robust and lost $100 billion in market cap, he said. The needle has tipped too much to efficiency from robustness."

Since then, the volleys of tariffs and uncertainty during the trade war with China caused companies to realize that relying solely on that country for manufacturing exposed them to big risks. Many companies, including Apple (AAPL), decided it would be a good idea to get more baskets to put their eggs in. Inadvertently, the U.S.-China trade war prepared some companies for the coronavirus pandemic. But few had made any big moves by the time the coronavirus hit.

This, Fisher said, is a wakeup call.

What companies will do is map their supply chain, look at everything that goes in, said Fisher. And those supply chains can be 10 layers deep. Foxconn gets things from other suppliers, which get them from another.

What you get from this is a figure called revenue at risk, which helps underscore the amount of money that is at stake should one link break in the chain. By adding other suppliers, that number can be brought down, avoiding a catastrophic stoppage for a business.

But given that this is somewhat of a 100-year storm literally, the last major pandemic was in 1918 the question remains: how many companies will simply roll the dice instead?

--

Ethan Wolff-Mannis a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumer issues, personal finance, retail, airlines, and more. Follow him on Twitter@ewolffmann.

Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,LinkedIn, andYouTube.

See the original post here:

Coronavirus will change how stuff gets to you - Yahoo Money

Add Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Zack Wheeler to the growing list of players who seemingly want no part of any proposed isolated Major League Baseball season. And his reasoning might be the strongest weve heard yet.

Speaking to NBC Sports Philadelphia on Friday, the soon-to-be father made it clear that he will not sacrifice being with his wife for the birth of their first child this summer, regardless of the circumstances.

"I am not going to miss the birth of my first child. I don't care. I'm going to be there for her and the birth of my child. That's a fact. I think anybody would do the same thing. Any dad. Whether I have to come back here (Atlanta) and be with her and miss two more weeks because I have to quarantine to play again, so be it."

MLB suspended its season during spring training due to the COVID-19 outbreak. At this point, there is no clear indication of when, or even if, the season will resume. With MLB and the players union determined to play as many games as possible in 2020, multiple possibilities are being discussed in case the green light is given.

The latest proposals have centered around either isolating all 30 teams in Arizona or isolating in Arizona and Florida. The latter scenario would force a one-year realignment of leagues and divisions.

Neither scenario has much appeal to Wheeler. Thats because MLB wants to limit the number of people in and around the operation in order to best protect the players. That means leaving their loved ones behind for up to five or six months.

"I want to be here with her during that time," he said. "It's something special. You'll never get to experience that again, the birth of your first child. They are saying your significant other would not be allowed to be with you. That makes no sense to me. If we're gonna be stuck in quarantine, then why can't they be stuck with us in quarantine?"

Wheelers wife,Dominique, is due to give birth in July. Lets say the season starts on July 1, which at this point might be a best-case scenario. That would put Wheeler in the awkward position of first leaving the team almost right away, and then leaving his wife for several months to complete the season. Its a lot to ask. The whole scenario would certainly be weighing on his mind more than baseball.

Wheeler, who signed a five-year, $118 million contract with Philadelphia in December, is now a key part of the Phillies rotation. Any time he could potentially miss would hurt the team, especially in a short and compact season. But no one could possibly blame him for putting family first.

Phillies' pitcher Zack Wheeler has a good reason for not liking a proposed isolated MLB season. (Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

More from Yahoo Sports:

Excerpt from:

Phillies' Zack Wheeler has best possible reason to dislike proposed isolated MLB season - Yahoo Sports

The economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic has hit working-class Americans much harder than their wealthier peers, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.

Twenty percent of Americans who were employed two months ago now say they have lost their jobs because of the coronavirus a number that has doubled over the past two weeks. But those earning less than $50,000 a year were three times more likely to be out of work than those making six-figure salaries. Thirty-seven percent of the under-$50,000 group say their wages have been cut, compared with 24 percent of those earning more than $100,000. And members of the less affluent group were twice as likely to say they might lose their jobs in the next month.

These income disparities also affect where people are working and by extension, their risk of contracting the coronavirus while on the job. The survey found that 66 percent of Americans earning more than $100,000 are now working from home, compared with just 18 percent of those with incomes under $50,000. Of those working on-site, a full 58 percent say they are either very or somewhat worried about getting infected. Only 43 percent of employed workers and 31 percent of those earning less than $50,000 say they have paid sick leave.

Despite such inequities, the economic impact of the pandemic has been widespread. One month ago, only 37 percent of Americans said the economy was getting worse. Today, that number is 63 percent. The employment situation is equally bleak. Of those who are still employed, 31 percent believe its either very or somewhat likely they will lose their jobs in the next month. The same number (31 percent) say their pay or hours have already been reduced.

The consequences of continuing economic upheaval could be profound. Thirteen percent of Americans one in eight say they will not be able to pay their rent or mortgage next month. Thirty-four percent say they are using their savings to pay for living expenses. And without employment, 49 percent predict they would exhaust their savings either this month or next.

Story continues

The Yahoo! News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,566 U.S. adult residents interviewed online between April 6-7, 2020. This sample was weighted according to gender, age, race and education. Respondents were selected from YouGovs opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S residents. The margin of error is approximately 3.4 percent.

_____

Click here for the latest coronavirus news and updates. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please refer to the CDCs and WHOs resource guides.

Read more:

View original post here:

New Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows coronavirus hitting the working class much harder than the wealthy - Yahoo News

NEW YORK, NY Yahoo Sports and the Womens Sports Foundation today announced #WeKeepPlaying, a first of its kind live event bringing together some of the most iconic women in professional sports to inspire young athletes during the COVID-19 crisis. The elite athletes will share their own stories of personal resilience to engage and inspire young athletes across the globe during this unprecedented time. The event will stream live on Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 4:00 pm ET exclusively on the Yahoo Sports mobile app and YahooSports.com.

The event, which will be moderated by journalist Cari Champion, will include some of the most renowned athletes across basketball, soccer, swimming, football, hockey and track & field who will speak to young athletes about the importance of staying healthy mentally, physically and emotionally. #WeKeepPlaying will also include a conversation with sports icon, international activist and Womens Sports Foundation founder, Billie Jean King, and former U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice who was also the first woman to be admitted to the Augusta National Golf Club.

Sports play a vital role in the mental and physical health of young athletes, so, as the global athletic community pauses its activity, it is more important than ever to have a candid conversation about the wellbeing of our youth, said Guru Gowrappan, Chief Executive Officer, Verizon Media. Yahoo Sports is committed to connecting people to their passions, and providing fans with comprehensive access to sports content and commerce that they crave. We are proud to bring our audience content that addresses the needs of our young athletes during these unprecedented times.

During this challenging time of COVID-19, we know that young girls all across the country cannot participate in sports or live out their passions on the field, court, ice, pool or anywhere they play sports, said Billie Jean King, founder of the Womens Sports Foundation. Our Foundation is the ally and advocate for all girls and women: we know her, we cheer for her, we believe in her, and we are here for her. That is why we are bringing together our community of prominent women athletes and leaders to empower, support and inspire young girls and each other during this unprecedented time.

Participating in the discussion will be:

Viewers will be able to submit questions in the lead up to the live event via @YahooSports on Twitter and Facebook by using #WeKeepPlaying. Content from this conversation will be featured on Yahoo Sports, which has been offering its audience the latest information, content and conversation -- especially around mental health -- during the crisis.

See the original post:

Yahoo Sports and the Women's Sports Foundation launch #WeKeepPlaying - Verizon Communications

Berlin (AFP) - With the coronavirus pandemic wiping clean much of the calendar of public events in Germany, the memorial at the Buchenwald former concentration camp marked the 75th anniversary of its liberation on Saturday in a new way.

It published online a "Declaration of Thuringia" (www.thueringer-erklaerung.de) -- in German, English and French -- warning that "human rights, democracy and freedom can by no means be taken for granted" as "right-wing radicalism and authoritarianism are on the rise".

Signed by figures from politics and civil society, including Thuringia state premier Bodo Ramelow and Auschwitz and Buchenwald survivor Ivan Ivanji, the text described as a grave threat "a form of populism emboldened by a racially motivated superiority complex, nationalism and the undermining of European unity".

"Racism and anti-Semitism are openly propagated and have led to acts of violence in Germany that would have been inconceivable even several years ago," it stated.

"Yesterday's destructive poisons are once again being touted as a universal remedy for society's ills."

- "It can happen to you, too" -

The website also published brief statements from people who survived Buchenwald, where around 56,000 people perished in the main camp and 20,000 in the satellite installation Dora between 1937 and a prisoners' uprising in April 1945.

"Not everybody can be a hero, a politician, a philosopher, a helper. But each and every one of us can respect the dignity of every other individual and give someone in need a helping hand," wrote Jack Unikoski, a 93-year-old Polish former inmate who today lives in Australia.

"Be friendly and tolerant of other people. Hatred for one group can easily spread to the others. We learned the hard way -- 'It can happen to you, too'," wrote Chava Ginsburg, a 90-year-old Hungarian woman who survived Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and women's camp Markkleeberg, another satellite camp of Buchenwald.

Along with 40 more people from 14 countries who lived through the concentration camps, the two were among those invited to the commemoration originally slated for April 5 and 7 in Buchenwald and Dora.

Story continues

Public events planned over several days to mark the liberation have all been cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But memorial director Volkhard Knigge said they would all be rescheduled for next year.

Meanwhile, he asked members of the public to place flowers at the entrances to both camps Saturday -- "while respecting social distancing rules".

- Rise in far-right violence -

Other memorials around Germany, including Ravensbrueck, Sachsenhausen and Bergen-Belsen, plan similar online events in the coming days.

"The good thing to be found amidst every evil is that we humans rediscover ourselves," wrote Hungarian philosopher Eva Fahidi-Pusztai, 94, another Buchenwald and Auschwitz survivor.

"We can once again do things for ourselves; we can help each other, have fun with each other," Fahidi-Pusztai said.

"We can more easily get through even crises with humour and good cheer. Believe me. I know only all too well."

The 75th anniversaries of the liberation of the camps falls in a year when Germany has seen a string of far-right and anti-Semitic attacks.

In February, a far-right extremist conspiracy theorist shot nine people dead, in a rare mass shooting that shocked the nation.

Last autumn, another shooter killed two in an attempted attack on a synagogue in Halle, a city in Germany's former communist East.

And in June 2019, a pro-refugee local politician from Angela Merkel's conservative party was shot at his home.

Germany's VS domestic intelligence service has warned that far-right terrorism and violence represent "the greatest danger to democracy" in the country.

Excerpt from:

Buchenwald concentration camp marks 75th anniversary of its liberation - Yahoo News

Testing for the coronavirus at Abbott Laboratories in Michigan. (AP Foto/Carlos Osorio)

On Friday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading public health expert and adviser to President Trump, announced on CNN that within a week or so, we are going to have a relatively large number of tests to determine if recovered COVID-19 patients, including those who never showed symptoms, have evidence of immunity. Among policymakers, there is discussion about whether results of this testing could be used to issue certificates of immunity that would allow individuals to return to normal life. Here are some of the key scientific considerations that will play into their conversations.

At this time, there is promising preliminary evidence that antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 disease, will prevent reinfection. A recent study reported that five critically ill patients improved after receiving antibody-rich plasma from donors who had recovered from COVID-19. This potential treatment for COVID-19 is being further investigated with FDA guidance. Another study found that a subset of antibodies in 16 patients who had recovered from COVID-19 were able to neutralize, or prevent reinfection, with SARS-CoV-2. Given the small size of each of these studies, it is difficult to know if the findings will hold true at a population level. We do not yet know if all COVID-19 patients are able to mount effective immunity and prevent reinfection.

The important underlying concept is that not all antibodies can prevent infections. When we have an infection, our immune system will create many different antibodies. Some antibodies, called non-neutralizing antibodies, will attach to parts of the infectious agent, in this case SARS-CoV-2, that are not involved in how it invades our cells to cause disease. Think of non-neutralizing antibodies like an oven mitt on the wrong hand when youre taking a tray out of the oven useless for preventing a burn. At this time, it is not clear if every COVID-19 patient will develop neutralizing antibodies, or if only a subset will develop immunity that can prevent reinfection.

Story continues

In China, Japan and South Korea, there are reports of COVID-19 patients who recovered completely, then developed new symptoms and tested positive for the virus a second time. It is not clear if these patients were reinfected or, more optimistically, if they had an unexplained increase in the virus, also called a reactivation, and symptom relapse. Its also possible that some cases were false positives the test was positive, but the patient did not have COVID-19. In South Korea, 51 patients from Daegu and the surrounding North Gyeongsang Province, the epicenters of the countrys COVID-19 outbreak, showed this pattern of recovery and then renewed symptoms. Jeong Eun-kyeong, director-general of the Korean Centers for Disease Control, publicly stated that it is likely due to reactivation, not reinfection. Additional data to put the matter to rest is not yet available, but a number of researchers are working to find answers.

Another open question with COVID-19 immunity is how long it will last. Other coronavirus strains that cause seasonal infections like the common cold, show declining immunity a few weeks after infection, and reinfection within a year. But SARS-CoV, the cause of the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome pandemic, has more genetic similarity to SARS-CoV-2 and more reassuring immunity data. SARS patients had two to three years of protection from reinfection. If that is also true of COVID-19, it could buy the world enough time to develop and distribute a vaccine, which is probably at least 18 months off.

Immune testing for COVID-19 is inherently valuable. Widespread use will help us understand the extent of the viruss spread in the population and can help identify individuals who are still vulnerable to infection.

The economic implications of certificates of immunity are highly appealing. Expedited research will help enable our leaders to make smart safe decisions for the well-being of all.

Ashita S. Batavia, MD, MSc, is a board-certified infectious disease specialist and public health expert with extensive experience in treating epidemics. She works at Lawrence Hospital NYP-Columbia. (Instagram: @ashita_batavia)

_____

Click here for the latest coronavirus news and updates. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please refer to the CDCs and WHOs resource guides.

Read more:

See the original post here:

The promise of COVID-19 antibody testing - Yahoo News