Category: Corona Virus

TEL AVIVAfter becoming one of the first countries to open up thanks to a widespread Covid-19 vaccination campaign, Israel is again on guard, this time against the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus.

Mask mandates are back, including requirements to mask up for large outdoor gatherings. Many venues require people to show proof of vaccination, a negative Covid-19 test or proof of recovery from the virus. People returning from most countries have to quarantine for at least a week, even if they are fully vaccinated. Over-60s are being offered a third, booster shot of Pfizer Inc.s vaccine, and the government is planning to offer it to younger recipients with the hopes it can suppress the rise of cases of severe illness.

Health officials are warning that Israel could face a fourth lockdown during the Jewish holiday season in September if the country doesnt deliver more booster shots and improve on its wider vaccination rate; 60% of the total population are fully vaccinated, making up around 80% of adults.

A little over a month ago, day-to-day life in Israel was quickly getting back to normal. People were dining indoors or attending concerts without needing the so-called green pass, a digital certificate stored on phones to show the holder is fully vaccinated. But the more contagious Delta variant is forcing a change in tack, in a test case for what could happen elsewhere, including countries with high vaccination rates.

That window when we werent concerned about things was so brief, said Rena Magun, 61 years old, who co-runs a tourism and Jewish events-planning business with her husband in Jerusalem.

Excerpt from:

Israel, Widely Vaccinated, Suffers Another Covid-19 Surge - The Wall Street Journal

Illinois health officials on Friday reported 21,334 new COVID-19 cases in the past week, along with 92 additional deaths and more than 215,000 new vaccine doses administered.

In all, 1,457,687 cases of coronavirus have been reported in the state since the pandemic began. The additional deaths reported this week bring the state to 23,594 confirmed COVID fatalities.

The state has administered 421,009 tests since last Friday, officials said, bringing the total to more than 27 million tests conducted during the pandemic.

The states seven-day positivity rate on all tests rose to 5.9% from 5.2% last week which was up from 4.7% the week before, officials said. The rolling average seven-day positivity rate for cases as a percentage of total tests was up to 5.1% from 4.6% the week before, 4% two weeks prior and 3.3% three weeks ago.

Over the past seven days, a total of 215,157 doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered to Illinois residents - up from around 176,000 the week prior and bringing the states average to 30,737 daily vaccination doses over the last week, per IDPH data.

More than 13.5 million vaccine doses have been administered in Illinois since vaccinations began in December. More than 59% of adult residents in the state are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with 76% receiving at least one dose.

As of midnight, 1,652 patients are currently hospitalized due to COVID in the state. Of those patients, 345 are in ICU beds, and 162 are on ventilators. All three metrics are a reported increase since last Friday.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker previously announced that all students and teachers in schools will be required to wear masks while indoors, as state officials take steps to try to slow the spread of the delta variant of COVID-19.

Pritzker says that the new requirement will take effect immediately, and will also apply to all students and coaches participating in indoor sports and other activities.

He also announced that employees at state-run congregant care facilities, including correctional facilities, veterans homes, and psychiatric hospitals, will be required to receive COVID vaccinations, effective Oct. 4.

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Coronavirus in Illinois: 21,334 New COVID Cases, 92 Deaths, 215K Vaccinations in the Past Week - NBC Chicago

A look at some of the top stories trending online today around the world including the Yankees and White Sox playing at the Field of Dreams movie site, murder hornet spotted in Washington, coronavirus updates and much more.

Kevin Costner, White Sox and Yankees put on a show at Field of Dreams game in Iowa (USA Today)

The intro to MLBs Field of Dreams Game was a masterclass in nostalgia (Yahoo Sports)

Washington state has first live murder hornet sighting of 2021 (NBC News)

Nearly 200 million Americans under heat wave advisories. Heres where its the hottest (CBS)

Taliban speeds up advance in Afghanistan, captures 2 more major cities (AP)

These 8 states make up half of US Covid-19 hospitalizations. And the surge among the unvaccinated is overwhelming healthcare workers (CNN)

In the wake of declining statewide mask mandates, cities and counties are picking up the slack (NBC)

Extra COVID vaccine OKd for those with weak immune systems (AP)

Short-staffed hospitals battling COVID surge after opting not to staff up (ABC News)

Sony Delays Venom 2 Due To Covid Surges (Forbes)

China rejects need for further WHO coronavirus origins probe (AFP)

Britney Spears father agrees to step down as conservator (CNBC)

IHOP Adds Mimosas and More Alcoholic Options at Participating Locations Nationwide (People)

Amazon moves Lord of the Rings production from New Zealand to UK (The Verge)

Jennifer Aniston And David Schwimmer Confirmed To Be Just Friends (Forbes)

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Field of Dreams game, murder hornets, coronavirus & more: Whats trending today - cleveland.com

Serious coronavirus infections among vaccinated people have been relatively rare since the start of the vaccination campaign, a New York Times analysis of data from 40 states and Washington, D.C., shows. Fully vaccinated people have made up as few as 0.1 percent of and as many as 5 percent of those hospitalized with the virus in those states, and as few as 0.2 percent and as many as 6 percent of those who have died.

There is still a lot we do not know about so-called breakthrough infections when fully inoculated people contract the virus. And there is some evidence that these cases are becoming more common as the more transmissible Delta variant surges. While vaccines have done a remarkable job at protecting a vast majority of people from serious illness, the data in the Times analysis generally spanned the period from the start of the vaccination campaign until mid-June or July, before the Delta variant became predominant in the United States.

Note: Arkansas did not provide counts of breakthrough hospitalizations or deaths, and West Virginia did not provide a count of breakthrough hospitalizations.

Data on less serious breakthrough infections is not widely available, though it is possible those cases are rising. Data was not available for several states in which the virus has been surging, including Florida and Missouri.

Until recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that fully vaccinated people accounted for less than 3 percent of coronavirus hospitalizations nationwide and less than 1 percent of virus deaths. But last week, the agency noted that those figures did not reflect new data involving the Delta variant and said it was actively working to update them. Only about 50 percent of people in the United States are fully vaccinated.

Looking at how many hospitalizations and deaths have involved fully vaccinated people is a common but crude measure of how well the vaccines are working.

As more people get shots, the percentage of hospitalizations and deaths among fully vaccinated people should rise. This may seem counterintuitive, so its important to understand why.

In a state with a high vaccination rate, a higher percentage of breakthroughs may simply reflect that fully vaccinated people are a bigger chunk of the population, or that there are few hospitalizations and deaths overall. Imagine a state where just two people are hospitalized but both are vaccinated breakthroughs would account for 100 percent of the hospitalizations in that state, even though these cases were very rare.

Some epidemiologists and state health officials instead recommend comparing how likely a vaccinated person was to be hospitalized or to die, compared with an unvaccinated person.

To do this, the Times used the number of breakthroughs and the vaccination rate over time to estimate rates of hospitalizations and deaths for each group in every state for which data was available.

In those states, people who were not fully vaccinated were hospitalized with Covid-19 at least five times more often than fully vaccinated people, according to the analysis, and they died at least eight times more often.

Note: Table shows rates for the entire reporting period for each state calculated with the average vaccination rate for the total population over that period. Rates per 100,000 are rounded. Rates used to calculate comparisons were unrounded. Data for unvaccinated individuals includes partially vaccinated people, unvaccinated people, and people with unknown vaccination status.

In an ideal world, you would be able to calculate the rates based on the number of people who were actually exposed, said Kristen Panthagani, a geneticist at Baylor College of Medicine who runs a blog explaining complicated scientific concepts, including breakthrough infections. But that number is really hard to figure out.

In interviews, epidemiologists said that the United States is likely to see more breakthroughs, especially in areas where cases are surging. Essentially the more that the virus circulates, the more exposures you can expect, and the more breakthroughs you can expect.

The more infection rates go up in the background, the more youre going to see disease among people who were immunized, said Dr. Paul McKinney, associate dean at the University of Louisvilles school of public health in Kentucky. People need to be aware that, to the extent that we can keep the incidence down, the better off everyones going to be.

It does not help that, in recent weeks, new research has shown that vaccinated people, if they become infected, can carry high levels of the coronavirus.

Although at least 80 percent of people 65 and older are vaccinated in the United States, surging cases could still present an elevated risk for them. It is possible, epidemiologists said, that seniors and people with compromised immune systems could be particularly vulnerable in a surge, even if they were fully vaccinated, because their bodies might not produce a strong immune response from the vaccine. The Food and Drug Administration is speeding efforts to authorize booster shots for people with weakened immune systems.

In Mississippi where only about 35 percent of the population is fully vaccinated and where infections and hospitalizations have been surging vaccinated older people and people with weaker immune systems have been overrepresented among those hospitalized and dying, according to the state health department.

Were seeing a pretty dramatic spillover effect from the transmission in the community to our more vulnerable parts of our population, Thomas Dobbs, Mississippis state health officer, said last week, though he emphasized that a higher proportion of breakthroughs did not mean the vaccine had become less effective.

A lack of comprehensive data, paired with growing concern over the Delta variant, may be helping to drive fears about breakthrough infections.The C.D.C. does not provide data for breakthrough instances at the state or local level, nor does it provide the data over time, which makes it difficult to see if fully vaccinated people may be becoming more vulnerable to the virus in certain areas.

The agency, along with some states, stopped tracking mild breakthrough cases in May, focusing instead on breakthrough infections that result in hospitalization or death. The decision has recently garnered criticism from several lawmakers, who have argued that having detailed information on the infections is critical to understanding how the virus is behaving.

Several epidemiologists told The Times that collecting comprehensive data on mild cases is nearly impossible because those infected may have such mild symptoms that they do not bother getting tested (or they may have no symptoms at all).

Most of the breakthrough cases will not be diagnosed because they tend to be mild or more like a cold, said Dr. Chighaf Bakour, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida, explaining that the cases that are diagnosed would be more likely to be moderate to severe because those people would seek out testing or treatment.

But epidemiologists said that having better data at the local level could help public health experts identify problems including more dangerous or transmissible variants, and also flaws in vaccine storage or manufacturing.

Beyond that, they said it is critical to understand how breakthrough cases might be affecting different demographic populations including different age groups and racial groups, groups that received different vaccines, and groups that received their vaccines earlier in the year versus later in the year. That, they said, is important to keeping the virus at bay.

The data is our access; we have to collect the data, said Debra Furr-Holden, a Michigan State epidemiologist and associate dean for public health integration. At this point, we are not trying to eradicate Covid. We are now trying to figure out how to mitigate its impact.

Methodology

The Times asked all 50 states and Washington, D.C., to provide data on breakthrough infections, hospitalizations and deaths of fully vaccinated people, roughly spanning back to the first months of the vaccination campaign at the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021. Many of the states provided data through June or July, which may not account for the recent surge in Delta variant infections. In every state providing information, hospitalizations and deaths among fully vaccinated people accounted for a small minority of the totals.

Forty-four states, plus Washington, D.C., shared some breakthrough hospitalization or death information with The Times, though some provided only two months or less of records. Those states Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland and Wyoming were excluded from the analysis. Three additional states Iowa, Missouri and Pennsylvania said they were unable to provide data on breakthroughs because their own systems did not effectively track them. Florida, Kansas and New York did not provide any data on breakthrough hospitalizations or deaths.

The states define breakthrough cases in different ways and provided data for different periods, so exercise caution when making comparisons. Some count fully vaccinated people who tested positive for the virus, even if they had no symptoms, while others do not. Some considered a case a breakthrough only if the person had been fully vaccinated for 14 days or more. Some states said that they did not know the hospitalization status of all of their breakthrough infections or that they only received data from a subset of hospitals. Some states said their breakthrough data was preliminary and subject to change.

Some hospitalizations and death records lacked vaccine status altogether. Data for individuals who were not fully vaccinated includes partially vaccinated people, unvaccinated people, and people with unknown vaccination status.

The Times used data reported by hospitals to the Department of Health and Human Services for new Covid-19 hospital admissions to calculate total hospitalizations in each state across the same time period, as well as to calculate the number of hospitalized people in each state who were not fully vaccinated. The data can overestimate the amount of people hospitalized if the same person is admitted to a hospital multiple times, and the data can lag. The Times counted confirmed and probable virus hospitalizations in adults and children. For Rhode Island, the Times used total hospitalization data provided by the state instead of federal data because it was more complete.

The analysis used state data for total Covid-19 deaths when it was possible to do so. If it was not available, The analysis used death data from The New York Times coronavirus database.

The rates for fully vaccinated and not fully vaccinated groups were calculated from the average number of people in each group across all days within the period for which data was provided. Because only a total number of breakthrough hospitalizations or deaths for the entire period was available, rates cover different periods for each state. Rate calculations are based on the entire fully vaccinated and not fully vaccinated population, not any measure of who has been exposed to Covid-19.

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See Covid Breakthrough Hospitalization and Death Rates by State - The New York Times

A child watches as a nurse administers a COVID-19 vaccine during a pop-up vaccination event in April at Lynn Family Stadium in Louisville, Ky. Jon Cherry/Getty Images hide caption

A child watches as a nurse administers a COVID-19 vaccine during a pop-up vaccination event in April at Lynn Family Stadium in Louisville, Ky.

Coronavirus cases among children are rising at a time when the highly infectious delta variant is advancing across the United States at a rapid clip.

New state-level data analyzed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association shows that children accounted for roughly 15% of all newly reported COVID-19 cases across the nation for the week ending on Aug. 5.

Nearly 94,000 child cases of COVID-19 were recorded during that period, a 31% increase over the roughly 72,000 cases reported a week earlier. In the week before then, there were 39,000 new child cases.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association said that new coronavirus cases in children have been increasing since July after a period of decline in the early summer.

"This virus is really tracking the unvaccinated," said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, a professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases at Stanford University. "Because children under 12 are not able to be vaccinated, we're just seeing the same increase in infections in that group because [the delta variant] is so infectious."

One big question for parents whether delta is making kids sicker than previous strains still has no clear answer.

But the numbers appear to show that severe illness, hospitalization and death are rare in children infected with the coronavirus.

In states where data was available, less than 2% of all child COVID-19 cases required hospitalization and 0.00% to 0.03% were fatal.

"I'm not seeing any patterns that suggest the virus is more virulent or more serious or more severe in children than it was before this variant appeared," Maldonado added.

Still, the growing number of children hospitalized with COVID-19 could further strain an already overburdened pediatric health care system.

Many children's hospitals are not only dealing with patients who've contracted the coronavirus but also kids with issues indirectly related to the pandemic. Many children have developed mental health problems stemming from social isolation, and others deferred medical care during the peak of the outbreak last year.

"These kind of indirect impacts of COVID have actually been a much bigger volume impact on pediatric intensive care capacity than the direct count of COVID kids," said Mark Wietecha, CEO of the Children's Hospital Association.

Despite no sharp rise in the number of hospitalizations, Wietecha said many children hospitalized with COVID-19 now, likely driven by the delta variant, are sicker than those who had contracted previous strains. While the overall picture remains unclear, he said pediatric hospitals are nonetheless now in need of specially trained medical staff who understand the unique requirements of treating young patients.

Cases are spiking in children as many of them prepare for the start of a new school year, which is now tinged with uncertainty. Some states are attempting to block school districts from requiring students to wear masks.

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More Children Are Catching COVID-19, But It's Unclear If They're Getting Sicker : Coronavirus Updates - NPR

Deer and dog make the most adorable playmates

A pit bull named Zola formed an unlikely friendship with a deer. The pair meet daily outside a home in Cambridge, Minnesota to spend time together.

Animalkind, USA TODAY

As researchers continue to observe the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on humans,the U.S. Department ofAgriculture is studying itseffect on wildlife.

A recent study from the USDA'sAnimal and Plant Health Inspection Servicediscovered that white-tailed deer populations in Illinois, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania had been exposed to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

White-tailed deer are found in every county in Michigan, according to theDepartment of Natural Resources.

Researchers discovered antibodies for the virus in33% of the 481 bloodsamples they collectedfromJanuary 2020 through March2021.

Ofthe 33% of samples withantibodies present,only threewere collected in 2020. All the others were collectedin 2021, said Thomas DeLiberto, assistant director at the USDANational Wildlife Research Center and a contributing author of thestudy.

When compared with 143 samples collected before January 2020, only onesampleshowed signs of exposure. Researchers determined this sample was afalse positive, DeLiberto said.

Researchers do not currently know how the deer were exposed, but it's possible they were exposed through humans, the environment, other deer or another species entirely, according to a USDA summary of the study's findings.

There are about 30 million white-tailed deer across the United States which often come into close contact with people, according to the USDA. While this sounds concerning, DeLiberto said the risk of transmission from animals to people is very low.

"This is a human-adapted pathogen. In its current form, it likes to be in people and the greatest risk to people is transmission from other infected people," hesaid.

Hunters concerned with eating meat from infected deerhave no need to fear. According to the USDA, there is no evidence people can get COVID-19 by eating or preparing meat from infected animals.

Samples were collected from deer in 32 counties across the four states. Samples for the study were obtainedopportunistically as part of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service'swildlife damage management activities, according to the USDA.

Of the 113 samples collected in Michigan, 76showed signs of exposure. All 113 of thesesamples were collected between January and March of 2021, DeLiberto said.

In Illinois, 7% of the 101 samples collected contained antibodies. In New York, 19% of 68 samples indicated exposure. In Pennsylvania, antibodies were detected in 31% of its 199 samples.

On Aug.21, 2020, the National Academy of Sciences published a study which found some animals are atgreater risk of being infectedwith SARS-CoV-2. In October 2020, multiple mink at a Michigan farmshowed signs of illnesswith two testing"presumptive positive" for the virus during an autopsy.

After the department's Agricultural Research Service discovered it could experimentally infect white-tailed deer with SARS-CoV-2 in captivity, the next step was to see whether deer could be infected in the wild, DeLibertosaid.

"The CDC estimates that over 114 million Americans have been infected by SARS-CoV-2," DeLiberto said. "With a lot of us in the science community, itraised some concern as to whether we're starting to see spillover of that virus from people to animals."

While the study was intendedto see whether white-tailed deer had been exposed to SARS-CoV-2, it opened a number of questions about what this exposure means.

One of the things DeLiberto wants to further explore is the extentwhite-tailed deer have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2, and how they are exposed to the virus.

"Is the virus circulating in white-tailed deer? We don't know that from this study because we only looked at exposure," DeLiberto said. "If it is circulating, are they transmitting it to other wildlife or domestic animals?"

While the USDA has not observed signs of illness in the wild deer surveyedand the infected deer in captivity, it noted this was not the focus of this study.

More: COVID-19 vaccine clinics to be in Dollar General stores in 9 Michigan counties

More: No porridge or bears, but Biden's clean car goals get Goldilocks comparison

In terms of Michigan's deer population, DeLiberto said the sample is too small to tell how many deer could have been exposed in the state.

"We only tested 113 samples. In Michigan there are so many, manymore deer, right? In order to get a real good handle on how many have been infected in Michigan, you would have to get a much bigger sample size than that, than 113, and you'd have to get them from all over the state," DeLiberto said.

The samples in Michigan were taken from deer in Alpena, Alcona,Emmett, Gratiot, Ingham, Isabella, Jackson,Lenawee, Mecosta,Montmorency and Presque Isle counties.

The USDA is currently working with federal and state organizations, including theU.S. Department of the Interior, the Centers for Disease Control and Preventionand the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agenciesto determine its next steps.

Contact Breaking News InternKyle Davidson: kdavidson@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@jrndavidson.

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Michigan's white-tailed deer exposed to COVID-19: What it means - Detroit Free Press

The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, appealed for out-of-state help to fight the third wave of Covid-19 in his state amid dire warnings while two more of the states largest school districts announced mask mandates in defiance of the increasingly hardline Republican.

Abbotts request came on Monday as a county-owned hospital in Houston raised tents to accommodate their coronavirus patient overflow.

Private hospitals in the county already were requiring their staff to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, the Dallas and Austin school districts announced Monday that they would require students and staff to wear face masks. The Houston school district had announced it would implement a mask mandate for its students and staff later this week if its board approves.

The highly contagious Delta variant is causing a majority of new infections.

The Republican governor has directed the Texas department of state health services to use staffing agencies to find additional medical staff from beyond the states borders as the Delta wave began to overwhelm its present staffing resources.

He also has sent a letter to the Texas Hospital Association to request that hospitals postpone all elective medical procedures voluntarily.

Hospital officials in Houston said last week that area hospitals with beds had insufficient numbers of nurses to serve them.

Abbott also directed the state health department and the Texas division of emergency management to open additional Covid-19 antibody infusion centers to treat patients not needing hospital care and to expand vaccine availability to the states underserved communities.

He also announced about $267m in emergency Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program food benefits for August. That was on top of the $3.9bn in benefits previously allocated since April 2020.

The governor is taking action short of lifting his emergency order banning county and local government entities from requiring the wearing of masks and social distancing to lower the Covid-19 risk.

Abbott has said repeatedly that Texans have the information and intelligence to make their own decisions on what steps to take to protect their health and the health of those around them. Dallas county judge Clay Jenkins filed a lawsuit asking a judge to strike down Abbotts mask mandate ban.

One of Houstons two county-owned hospitals, Harris Health System and Lyndon B Johnson hospital in north-eastern Houston, added nearly 2,000 sq ft of medical tents in the hope of taking control of the anticipated increase in patient volume and keep staff and non-Covid patients safe.

Last week, Houston area officials said the wave of Delta variant infections so strained the areas hospitals that some patients had to be transferred out of the city, with one being sent to North Dakota.

The rolling two-week daily average of new Covid-19 cases in Texas has increased by 165% to 8,533, according to Johns Hopkins University research data.

About 45% of the states population has been vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Texas governor appeals for out-of-state help to fight latest Covid wave - The Guardian

Verdad Advisers invested over $100 million during the Coronavirus crisis and doubled his money.

Investor Daniel Rasmussen of Verdad Advisers is never short on ideas, or conviction. The pandemic-induced market plunge of 2020 turned a gut punch for the 34-year old investor into a giant opportunity.

Rasmussen, a former analyst at Bain Capital and hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, set out in 2015 to dispel a big myth on Wall Street. After studying thousands of buyout deals, he concluded that the bulk of private equity returns came from buyout artists acquiring small, cheap companies, which they then leveraged to the hilt through the LBO process. Rasmussen created Verdad Advisers with the idea of building portfolios of small cap value stocks, and deploying leverage, to mimic private equity portfolios at a fraction of the cost.

When Coronavirus hit in early 2020, Rasmussens flagship Leveraged Capital Fund, with well over $100 million in assets, was hammered. The plunge put its once impressive returns from a 2015 inception into the red. In May 2020, Rasmussen penned a note to investors titled, An Apology for Small-Cap Value, which lamented the worst quarter ever in the performance of small and cheap stocks. But it was not a capitulation. Instead, Rasmussen stuck to his guns.

We feel that small value deserves such an apology because, though the past few years have been painful for small-value investors, this is perhaps a once-in-a-century buying opportunity in this deeply out-of-favor asset class, he wrote.

In fact, Verdads analysts had just finished a 76-page report titled, Crisis Investing: How To Maximize Return During Market Panics, which showed that the best time to deploy money into the market was when high yield spreads were above 600 basis points, a gauge of extreme fear. Based off of the research, Verdad was raising a new fund called the Verdad Opportunity Fund, which would draw investors capital when junk bond spreads blew out to such levels, and invest in small, undervalued companies. Because of his flagship funds woeful performance at the time, Rasmussen decided to raise his fund with no management fees and a 15%-to-20% promote.

By the time the fund closed, in May of 2020, plunging markets were a flashing green light to deploy money. Rasmussen and his team of quants screened for the cheapest, most undervalued small public companies in North America and Canada, but excluded companies they thought had a risk of going bankrupt.

Verdad built a portfolio of fifty unloved companies, like teenage clothing store American Eagle Outfitters, automotive seat manufacturer Commercial Vehicle Group, Canada-based materials company Intertape Polymer, powerboat maker MasterCraft Boat Holdings, homebuilders KB Homes and Meritage, and outsourcing firm FirstSource. Rasmussens team studied the fundamentals of the companies popping up on their screens to add a margin of safety in the uncertain economic backdrop. For instance, they chose movie theater chain The Marcus Corporation instead of future meme stock AMC Entertainment, due to its asset rich balance sheet.

By June, Verdad had invested over $150 million from its Opportunity Fund, which limped along, until the approval of Covid vaccines caused value stocks to soar in the fall of 2020. By year-end, the fund was up over 50% net of fees and value stocks continued to rise in 2021.

In July, Rasmussen decided hed seen enough. The crisis investing opportunity had passed, junk bond spreads were near record lows and investor Animal Spirits were back. Verdad fully liquidated its Opportunity Fund with a 84.7% net gain, according to a memo seen by Forbes, which was ahead of the S&P 500, Russell 2000 and Russell Value Index over the same time period.

We achieved our mission. We bought in a time of crisis and the crisis looked like it was over to us, Rasmussen tells Forbes. We felt that no investor was going to object to getting their profits back early.

Like a traditional private equity fund, Verdads investment vehicle was a drawdown fund, meaning it only called investors capital when it had identified investments. During the second quarter of 2020, when Verdad deployed its money, private equity deal volumes dropped precipitously. Now that stock markets and valuations are again at record highs, buyout activity is surging anew.

Rasmussen beams at having done the exact opposite. A lot of our investors were allocating as a substitute for private equity because they couldn't put capital to work in the crisis, he says.

Like most funds, Verdads flagship Leveraged Company Fund recovered from the March 2020 market plunge, surging 98% over a 12-month stretch. However, the funds inception-to-date returns are meager sitting at just 3.7% net as of the first quarter of 2021, about half of its benchmark the MSCI ACWI Small Value Index. When compared to the S&P 500 Index, or even the reported returns of large buyout giants, Rasmussens grand theory on private equity returns still leaves a lot to prove.

His Coronavirus haulForbes estimates Verdad generated over $25 million in performance feesonce again shows the merit of investing at times of peak uncertainty.

Buying value really works in a crisis because it is about mean reversion. The stocks that are cheap going into a crisis tend to be cyclical and they tend to be companies driven by gross domestic product, he says. Not only are you buying the cheapest companies, you're actually buying the companies that grow the fastest when the economy recovers.

See the article here:

Inside The Coronavirus Haul Of A Wall Street Whiz Kid - Forbes

When the head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) declared the Tokyo Summer Games closed on Sunday, he called this years competition one of hope, solidarity and peace.

For the first time since the pandemic began, the entire world came together, Thomas Bach said at the largely empty National Stadium in Tokyo. Billions of people around the globe were united by emotion, sharing moments of joy and inspiration. This gives us hope.

Indeed, for those who followed the Games on television, bereft of spectators the dazzling displays of sportsmanship did offer diversion from the tragedies of the COVID-19 pandemic including from the accounts of panic in the host citys hospitals as a resurgence in infections resulted in bed shortages.

Now with the Olympic flame doused, the cameras turned off and the last remaining athletes headed home, it is the Japanese public that is left weighing the costs and the benefits of the IOCs decision to push ahead with the Summer Games during the pandemic.

Analysts say there is little reason to celebrate. They say the Olympics has only worsened Japans COVID-19 outbreak and left its taxpayers saddled with a $15bn bill, even as the IOC raked in billions from broadcasting rights.

There have been no benefits whatsoever for everyday working people in Japan, said Jules Boykoff, a former Olympic-level athlete and a professor of political science at the Pacific University in the United States. The IOC decided to gamble with their health in order to stage an Olympics that would financially benefit the IOC.

Since the Olympics began on July 23, some 170,000 people in Japan have contracted COVID-19, according to official figures. At least 178 have died. Tokyo which is under a state of emergency until the end of August is logging record numbers of cases, with new infections reaching a pandemic high of 5,042 on Thursday.

Japans total caseload has now crossed one million, while a total of 15,309 people have died. These figures are low compared with those seen in most countries around the world but with Japanese hospitals on the brink and only a quarter of the Japanese public vaccinated, experts fear the number of infections and deaths could rise dramatically. Calls are also growing for a nationwide state of emergency as well as constitutional changes to allow authorities to implement the kind of hard lockdowns seen elsewhere in the world.

The IOC denies any link between the Olympics and Japans coronavirus surge.

The group said on Saturday that its regimen of daily tests for athletes as well as a bubble system that separated those accredited to the Olympics from the wider Japanese public had prevented transmission between the two groups. It said it has logged a total of 430 positive cases since July 1, having carried out more than 630,000 screening tests.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has agreed with the IOCs assessment.

I dont think that the Tokyo Olympics are the cause of the surge, he told reporters on Friday.

Analysts dispute that assessment, however, with some saying it is too early to draw any conclusions on whether the bubble has indeed held up.

The positivity in the bubble seems to be much lower than that in Tokyo downtown, suggesting that the bubble has worked to some extent for now, said Kei Sato, an associate professor at the Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo. But it may be too early to tell.

Others, however, say the fact 430 people most of them Japanese officials and contractors tested positive shows that the bubble was a lot more porous than organisers claimed.

New cases were reported every single day. Unless all of them are brought directly from overseas, one cannot claim that the bubble held up, said Satoko Itani, associate professor at Kansai University in Japan.

While it may be challenging to prove a direct causal relationship between the positive cases among those accredited to the Olympics and the coronavirus surge in Tokyo, Itani said it was obvious that the hosting of the Olympics had an effect on peoples behaviour, giving them a false sense of normalcy and a de facto green light to travel.

Television coverage during the past two weeks also focused on counting medals Japan hauled in a record 27 gold medals this time rather than covering the rapidly deteriorating situation on the ground, they added.

All of this ultimately resulted in the flouting of coronavirus safety measures.

Indeed, local media reported of a party-like atmosphere in some Tokyo neighbourhoods as people crowded into bars to watch Olympic events in defiance of fines for breaching the citys emergency rules.

The hosting of the Olympics and the world gathering in Tokyo has given the wrong signal to the population, said Barbara Holthus, a sociologist and deputy director at the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo. Why keep to the government desired self-restraint, if the Olympics are going on at the same time? Why should they not travel throughout the country, when the world travels to them?

Sugas desire to hold a successful Olympics has prevented the government from throwing all they can into fighting the pandemic, she said. Attention and money were diverted from the fight against COVID.

This lack of care is evident in the difference in measures at the Olympic venues and outside.

The infection within the village was kept relatively low due to mass testing and high coverage of vaccination, which is quite a contrast to the situation outside the village low testing and vaccine coverage, with rapidly increasing case numbers and overwhelmed hospital care, noted Kenji Shibuya, a prominent Japanese public health expert.

It clearly shows that unless the pandemic is tackled both within and outside the Olympic venues, holding a safe and secure Olympics is extremely challenging.

Noting the IOC decision to push ahead with the Olympics disregarded the wishes of the Japanese public, Shibuya said Tokyo 2020 has left a scar on Japanese society and increased division and distrust.

One politician who stands to lose most from the discontent is Suga, who is facing a party leadership race ahead of a general election later this year. A survey by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper on Monday showed support for Suga slid to a record low of 28 percent for the first time since he took office.

The test for Suga, according to Donna Weeks, a professor of political science at Musashino University in Tokyo, will be how he responds to the deteriorating pandemic conditions.

He and his allies will also need to convince his electorate that the rising numbers are not their fault, but also not as a result of the Olympics.

It is a fine line they will be treading, she said, adding: There is also the question of whether or not they can more effectively improve the vaccination rate, the rollout for which remains rather slow.

Only time will make clear the true cost of Japans hosting of the Olympics, with the Paralympics are due to get underway on August 24.

While some of the damage can be calculated and recovered, as Itani at Kansai University notes the lives that are being lost right now and from now cannot be.

The biggest winner of all then appears to be the IOC, which will walk away from the Tokyo Games with its billions of dollars in broadcasting revenue comfortably intact.

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Did the Tokyo Olympics drive Japans COVID-19 surge? - Al Jazeera English

HELENA Montana Health officials reported 493 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, the highest number of cases tallied in a single day since January.

Hospitalizations are also on the rise, with more than 150 people hospitalized with the respiratory virus on Tuesday, nearly triple the average of 54 COVID-19 hospitalizations recorded per day in June.

Hospitalizations remain below the peak of over 400 recorded last November.

Less than half of Montana residents eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine are fully vaccinated. Of those hospitalized with the virus in June and July, nearly 90% were unvaccinated.

In Helena, wastewater testing indicated the prevalence of COVID-19 in the community has skyrocketed in recent weeks.

The results of tests conducted by Carroll College released Monday show Helenas wastewater contained approximately 193,000 genomic copies of SARS-CoV-2 per liter, an increase of about 1,100% from the results released the previous week.

Lewis and Clark County public health officials said the results indicate that COVID-19 is on the rise, and case numbers are likely to increase in the coming weeks.

See more here:

Coronavirus on the Rise in Montana as Vaccinations Lag - Flathead Beacon