Category Archives: #BrownleeGlobal

Recommendation to wear eye protection against coronavirus

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“If you have goggles or an eye shield, you should use it. It’s not universally recommended, but if you really want to be complete, you should probably use it if you can.”  Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Updated: August 13, 2020 at 4:59 p.m. ET.

Based on what doctors know about how Covid-19 spreads, it’s possible to get infected through your eyes, but not common.  However, it makes sense to use eye protection and a mask anywhere you can’t effectively maintain social distance from others for an extended period such as on board a plane or in a classroom.

Wearing eye protection in public to fend off COVID-19, according to Dr. Fauci, “…is not universally recommended, but if you really want to be complete, you should probably use it if you can.” But one reason that this hasn’t been pushed for the general public yet, he suggested, is because, “it’s so easy for people to just make a cloth mask.”

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Glasses or sunglasses can provide some protection, but due to the openings on the top, bottom and sides,  aerosols could still get in.

Face shields and protective goggles are advised by medical experts.  Protective eye goggles should “fit snugly around the corners of the eye and across the brow.  Face shields work because they protect the crown and chin from exposure, as well as the eyes.  But, you still must wear a mask when wearing a face shield in order to cover your nose and mouth.

“If you have goggles or an eye shield, you should use it.” — Dr. Anthony Fauci

Fauci explained that the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 infects mucosal surfaces — or parts of the body including the eyes, nose and mouth that secrete mucus to stop pathogens and dirt from getting into your body. So “perfect protection” of your mucosal surfaces would include covering every one of them up, he said.

“Theoretically you should protect all of the mucosal surfaces, so if you have goggles or an eye shield, you should use it,” he said.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests protective eyewear for health care professionals, noting that “use of eye protection is recommended in areas with moderate to substantial community transmission.” As a result, doctors and nurses do wear goggles or face shields in areas where they are coming into close contact with COVID-19 patients.

  1. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dr-fauci-recommends-wearing-goggles-to-prevent-catching-the-coronavirus-2020-07-29?mod=nicole-lyn-pesce&link=sfmw_fb
  2. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/31/dr-anthony-fauci-goggles-and-eye-shields-can-prevent-covid-19-spread.html

Cotton cloth masks are effective preventing spread of virus

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“Cloth face coverings are one of the most powerful weapons we have to slow and stop the spread of the virus – particularly when used universally within a community setting.”  Robert R. Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

A group of researchers from Duke University are providing answers to the continuing questions about the efficacy of masks.  The researchers analyzed forteen different facial coverings ranging from hospital-grade N95 respirators to bandanas. Of the 14 masks and other coverings tested, the study found that some easily accessible cotton cloth masks are about as effective as standard surgical masks, while popular alternatives such as neck gaiters made of thin, stretchy material may be worse than not wearing a mask at all.

A fitted N95 mask proved was the most effective from the tests noting that the mask allowed “no droplets at all” to come out, according to researchers. Meanwhile, a breathable neck gaiter ranked worse than the no-mask control group.

Neck gaiters are extremely convenient since which they don’t restrict air and droplets which is the reason why they’re not doing much of a job helping people stopping the spread of the virus.

Several studies find that wearing masks will curb the transmission and reduce the risk of coronavirus infection.  Masks do work and they do cut down transmission of the virus.  And, some masks are better than others.

References:

  1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/mask-test-duke-covid/2020/08/10/4f2bb888-db18-11ea-b205-ff838e15a9a6_story.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wp_main
  2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/06/13/spate-new-research-supports-wearing-masks-control-coronavirus-spread/

Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousand | Bloomberg

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“Small Businesses Are Dying by the Thousands — And No One Is Tracking the Carnage”

By Madeleine Ngo, August 11, 2020, 9:08 AM EDT

  • They simply close down and never show up in bankruptcy tallies
  • More than half of owners are worried their firm won’t survive

“Big companies are going bankrupt at a record pace, but that’s only part of the carnage. ”

“By some accounts, small businesses are disappearing by the thousands amid the Covid-19 pandemic, and the drag on the economy from these failures could be huge.”

“This wave of silent failures goes uncounted in part because real-time data on small business is notoriously scarce, and because owners of small firms often have no debt, and thus no need for bankruptcy court.”

“Yelp Inc., the online reviewer, has data showing more than 80,000 small businesses permanently shuttered from March 1 to July 25. About 60,000 were local businesses, or firms with fewer than five locations.”

“While the businesses are small individually, the collective impact of their failures could be substantial. Firms with fewer than 500 employees account for about 44% of U.S. economic activity, according to a U.S. Small Business Administration report, and they employ almost half of all American workers.”

“Small business attrition is high even in normal times. Only about half of all establishments survive for at least five years, according to the SBA. But the swiftness of the pandemic and the huge drop in economic activity is hitting hard among typically upbeat entrepreneurs. About 58% of small business owners say they’re worried about permanently closing, according to a July U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey.”

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-11/small-firms-die-quietly-leaving-thousands-of-failures-uncounted?utm_campaign=news&utm_medium=bd&utm_source=applenews

References:

  1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-11/small-firms-die-quietly-leaving-thousands-of-failures-uncounted?utm_campaign=news&utm_medium=bd&utm_source=applenews

55% of coronavirus patients still have neurological problems three months later | MarketWatch

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Published: Aug. 9, 2020 at 9:11 a.m. ET By Nicole Lyn Pesce

Mounting evidence suggests COVID-19 could cause brain damage in adults and kids

“While lung scarring, heart and kidney damage may result from COVID-19, doctors and researchers are starting to clock the potential long-term impact of the virus on the brain.”

“Many COVID-19 patients have continued showing symptoms for months after the initial infection passed, reported neurological problems such as confusion and had difficulty concentrating (or brain fog), as well as headaches, extreme fatigue, mood changes, insomnia and loss of taste and/or smell.”

“The CDC recently warned that it takes longer to recover from COVID-19 than the 10- to 14-day quarantine window that has been touted throughout the pandemic. In fact, one in five young adults under 34 was not back to their usual health up to three weeks after testing positive. And 35% of surveyed U.S. adults overall had not returned to their normal state of health when interviewed two to three weeks after testing.”

“Now a study of 60 COVID-19 patients published in Lancet this week finds that 55% of them were still displaying such neurological symptoms during follow-up visits three months later. And when doctors compared brain scans of these 60 COVID patients with those of a control group who had not been infected, they found that the brains of the COVID patients showed structural changes that correlated with memory loss and smell loss.”

“The most severe illness and complications of COVID-19 appear to stem from the body’s immune response to the viral invader, as opposed to the virus itself causing damage.”

Read more: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/55-of-coronavirus-patients-still-have-neurological-problems-three-months-later-study-2020-08-07?mod=mw_latestnews&link=sfmw_fb

Income tax rates have increased relative to estate tax rates

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Changes in the federal tax law make it increasingly important to focus on the income tax consequences of estate planning in addition to the estate tax consequences. For estates still subject to federal estate tax, the federal estate tax rate is 40%. These rates must be compared with the top federal income tax rates of 37% on ordinary income and 20% on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends, plus a 3.8% Medicare net investment income tax.

Furthermore, trust income tax rates must be taken into consideration. Trusts are taxed at the highest federal income tax bracket starting at $12,950 in annual trust income. Therefore, when transferring assets to a trust for estate planning purposes, consideration should be given to the potentially negative consequences of higher income taxes. Outdated estate plans may not provide the flexibility required to shift the income tax burden from the trust to individuals in potentially lower tax brackets.

Revisit your estate planning documents and gifting strategies with your attorney and tax professional to determine whether they are still appropriate, considering the Medicare net investment income tax, the current federal estate tax rate, and the increased applicable exclusion amount.

First-Time Investors should Stop Chasing Hot Stocks | TheStreet

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“Your savings rate is…the biggest determinant of how you do financially over time.” Christine Benz, the director of personal finance for investment research firm Morningstar

As the stock markets plunged across the globe in March, a wave of Americans saw an opportunity to start investing. But chasing hot stocks like Apple, Tesla or Amazon, according to financial experts, is akin to making the same old ‘tried and true’ investment mistakes as our forefathers and foremothers.

“Individual stocks are terrible investments for people just starting out,” according to Christine Benz, the director of personal finance for investment research firm Morningstar.

Active investing strategies, such as buying and selling individual stocks on trading platforms like Robinhood, often underperforms over the long-term versus more passive investment strategies, such as investing in low cost index funds that simply follow a stock market index like the S&P 500.

While chasing hot stocks may seem thrilling in the short-term while you’re winning, the keys to financial success and security are incredibly mundane. They include:

  • Creating and following a financial plan;
  • Disciplined and deliberate savings;
  • Investing for the long-term;
  • Time in the market beats timing the market;
  • Investing in market index mutual funds and ETFs; and
  • Diversification and asset allocation.

Read more: https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/first-time-investors-stop-chasing-hot-stocks-do-this-instead-nw

Why would anyone own bonds now? There are at least five reasons | MarketWatch

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Published on www.MarketWatch.com: Aug. 4, 2020 at 12:52 p.m. ET

By Ben Carlson

Bonds play a role in an investment portfolio, even amid historically low interest rates

What’s the better performer 2020 year to date — the red-hot Nasdaq 100 index of tech behemoths (Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet, etc.) or boring, old long-term bonds?

The Nasdaq 100 ETF QQQ is up an astonishing 25.5%. But the long-term treasury ETF TLT is up 27.3%. Surprisingly, long-term bonds are outperforming tech stocks.

Yet, according to Deutsche Bank, we’re now experiencing the lowest government bond yields in well over 200 years:

Fixed income assets, such as bonds, typically provides regular cash and lower volatility when markets hit turbulence.  And, bond prices often are uncorrelated to equities. Stocks typically do well in periods of economic growth, whereas bonds typically do well in periods of declining economic activity and recessions.  Additionally,  bonds offer downside protection and moderate upside potential as investors tend to seek out the safety of U.S. government and investment-grade corporate bonds amid stock market uncertainty.

Many investors have been saying for years that bond coupon rates and yields can only go up from here, and yet, they’ve done nothing but fall more. And maybe they’ll fall even further and possibly go negative like in Europe and Japan (something we should not rule out in the U.S. if the pandemic worsens).

But eventually short-term movements in rates will wash out and the long-term returns will be based more on the current bond yields. When you consider how paltry those yields are, investors in fixed-income are guaranteed to see minuscule returns from here over the long haul.

So why own bonds at historically low yields? Some reasons:

  1. Bonds hedge stock-market volatility
  2. Bonds can be used to rebalance
  3. Bonds can be used for spending purposes
  4. Bonds protect against deflation
  5. There are other asset class options, but there aren’t many

Although bonds and bond funds have done extremely well in 2020, the bottom-line regarding bonds and bond funds…you can either earn less income from low yielding bonds to better protect your capital or earn more income from dividend paying stocks to accept more risk in your portfolio.

Read the entire opinion article at: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-would-anyone-own-bonds-now-there-are-at-least-five-reasons-2020-08-04

References:

  1. https://www.fidelity.com/insights/investing-ideas/bond-funds-portfolio-protection

Wearing a Facial Mask in Public

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Updated:  August 5, 2020, 10:45 p.m.

Masks are important tools in slowing or stopping the spread of COVID-19.

Wearing masks in public has become a politically charged subject. Even with the rise of COVID-19 infections and deaths across the South and West, Americans continue to debate the need to wear facial coverings in public despite the plethora of scientific evidence showing mask effectiveness in preventing the virus spread.

Despite the universal recommendation to wear masks while out in public from government officials, epidemiologists and medical experts, there stills appears to be a reluctance by the American public to adhere to the guidelines.

Everyday while out in public, even in locations and inside establishments where facial coverings are mandatory, you can observe people out in public refusing to wear masks or wearing them incorrectly and ineffectually.

Periodically, you can observe people with their noses, a critical pathway of the respiratory system, exposed from beneath their masks or their masks worn on their chins.

Whether donning masks incorrectly was being done out of ignorance or political sensibilities, it accomplishes the same end, it does not help reduce the public spread of the coronavirus.

Cloth masks

Cloth masks are at their best when preventing the wearer of the mask from spreading the virus to other people, either when they are already sick, asymptomatic, or even pre-symptomatic.

N95 masks or surgical masks work

According to the CDC, N95 masks and surgical masks are best used in a medical setting, when the amount of virus in the environment is quite a bit higher. The intention of these masks is to reduce the transmission of the virus to the person wearing the mask.

Wearing a mask

Wearing a mask in your neighborhood, in your workplace, or around your community is a way to show you care about those around you. You are essentially saying, “I care about you. I am member of this community. And my intention is to not give this infection to you, even if I don’t know if I’ve got it.”

Washing cloth masks

Cloth masks should be washed every day. It’s helpful to have multiple cloth masks available so you can rotate through your supply while others are washing or drying.

N95 masks or surgical masks are intended to be worn through the course of one day and discarded.

Your Weight, BMI and Health Risk

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Over the past several months, our daily lives have radically changed in ways both large and small. From how we go about our weekly errands, to how we seek healthcare, to how we socialize with our wider communities. Social physical distancing has quickly brought to the forefront just how intrinsic human interaction is to our physical, mental and emotional well-being.

As is always the case in times of crises, we can find hope in the examples of mindfulness, resilience and adaptability shown by people across the country. Regarding our physical health, times of crises reveal the importance of healthy living and habits that promote health and well-being.  Subsequently, it is equally important to conduct a self-assessment of weight and health risk using three key measures:

  • Body mass index (BMI)
  • Waist circumference
  • Risk factors for diseases and conditions associated with obesity

Body Mass Index (BMI)

BMI is a useful measure of overweight and obesity. It is calculated from your height and weight. BMI is an estimate of body fat and a good gauge of your risk for diseases that can occur with more body fat. The higher your BMI, the higher your risk for certain diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, gallstones, breathing problems, and certain cancers.

Although BMI can be used for most men and women, it does have some limits:

  • It may overestimate body fat in athletes and others who have a muscular build.
  • It may underestimate body fat in older persons and others who have lost muscle.

Use the BMI Calculator or BMI Tables to estimate your body fat. The BMI score means the following:

BMI

  • Underweight — Below 18.5
  • Normal — 18.5–24.9
  • Overweight — 25.0–29.9
  • Obesity — 30.0 and Above

Waist Circumference

Measuring waist circumference helps screen for possible health risks that come with overweight and obesity. If most of your fat is around your waist rather than at your hips, you’re at a higher risk for heart disease and type 2 diabetes. This risk goes up with a waist size that is greater than 35 inches for women or greater than 40 inches for men. To correctly measure your waist, stand and place a tape measure around your middle, just above your hipbones. Measure your waist just after you breathe out.

Along with being overweight or obese, the following conditions will put you at greater risk for heart disease and other conditions:

Risk Factors

  • High blood pressure (hypertension)
  • High LDL cholesterol (“bad” cholesterol)
  • Low HDL cholesterol (“good” cholesterol)
  • High triglycerides
  • High blood glucose (sugar)
  • Family history of premature heart disease
  • Physical inactivity
  • Cigarette smoking

For people who are considered obese (BMI greater than or equal to 30) or those who are overweight (BMI of 25 to 29.9) and have two or more risk factors, it is recommended that you lose weight. Even a small weight loss (between 5 and 10 percent of your current weight) will help lower your risk of developing diseases associated with obesity. People who are overweight, do not have a high waist measurement, and have fewer than two risk factors may need to prevent further weight gain rather than lose weight.

Talk to your doctor to see whether you are at an increased risk and whether you should lose weight. Your doctor will evaluate your BMI, waist measurement, and other risk factors for heart disease.

The good news is even a small weight loss (between 5 and 10 percent of your current weight) will help lower your risk of developing those diseases.

References:

  1. https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/risk.htm#limitations

COVID-19 vs. 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic | The Daily Social Distancing Show with Trevor Noah

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One of the lessons experts learned from the 1918 flu pandemic is how quickly the pandemic was forgotten and how fast it disappeared from the political discourse.

The one lesson learned from a pandemic should be to never forget because forgetting doesn’t lead to positive public health outcomes.

There has been several global public health emergencies since 1918 such as SARS in 2003 and the 2009 H1N1pandemic influenza. Yet, these events have caught authorities and the general public by surprise, but not the epidemiologist who have been studying pandemics were not surprised.

Another lesson to remember is that governments have the responsibility to prepare for a pandemic; they have the obligation to invest in public-health systems to protect their citizens from both the threat and the reality of the next pandemic.

References:

  1. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/harvard-expert-compares-1918-flu-covid-19/