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Due To Lack Of Testing We Are Self Destructing [CHARTS]

Due To Lack Of Testing We Are Self Destructing [CHARTS]

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4 years ago

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Coronavirus

Whitney Tilsson’s email to investors discussing how we could solve the coronavirus crisis tomorrow; clinical consequences of covid-19; I’m buying stocks on Monday; Abbott Labs with a GAME CHANGER test; Vo; South Korea; New Rochelle; Positive trends in NYC and NYS; charts from the U.S. and around the world.

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Q4 2019 hedge fund letters, conferences and more

Solve The Coronavirus Crisis

1) I hope the provocative subject line got your attention. No, we can’t solve the coronavirus tomorrow – but I think we will soon. This makes me even more confident in the conclusion I made in my report last week, Why I'm Optimistic That We'll Soon Stop the Coronavirus (posted here):

I’m cautiously optimistic that the measures we’ve ramped up over the past couple of weeks are having their desired effect, sharply reducing the coronavirus’ replication rate.

If I’m right, the growth in the number of newly infected Americans is already slowing dramatically – and will soon plateau and then decline, which is exactly what happened in China’s Hubei province, as I discuss below.

This would translate into a range of 10,000 to 20,000 U.S. deaths this year. Every one them is heartbreaking, of course, but to put this in perspective, it would be a small fraction of the 37,000 from traffic fatalities or nearly 150,000 from lung cancer.

As it becomes clear that we’ve controlled the spread of the virus and know exactly where the outbreaks are – which could happen as soon as a couple of weeks from now – we can start bringing our economy back to life.

The combination of the things I outline in my report plus the new stuff below makes me more optimistic about our country and world – and also has important investment implications. Over the past month, I’ve shifted our total net worth (excluding the value of our only non-liquid asset, our apartment) from 15% stocks to 63%... and am going to take that higher on Monday.

Here’s why…

Imagine there was a widely available, cheap, quick, easy, at-home test, similar to a pregnancy test, that would instantly tell you if you’re infected.

In no time, every Americans would know. Then, the few percent who have it could immediately self-quarantine, and everyone else could go back to normal instantly – return to work, go shopping, out to restaurants, even concerts and sporting events.

Why not? There would be no risk to anyone (assuming those who tested positive did, in fact, self-quarantine – an easy problem to solve: if anyone who tested positive was caught somewhere they weren’t supposed to be, they’d be arrested, jailed, and fined half their net worth – we would not fu** around with these a**holes!).

And every week or two, anyone could test themselves to make sure they’re still negative.

Instead, however, because, through yesterday, the U.S. only had done a total of only 686,761 tests, one-sixth the rate of South Korea, we’re blind, thrashing about, and unable to mount an effective defense against this terrible scourge (the failure to ramp up testing sooner is one of the most catastrophic failures in our nation’s history (here’s an article about it: The Lost Month: How a Failure to Test Blinded the U.S. to Covid-19), but I’ll leave that discussion for another email…).

Because we don’t know how many people are infected, where they are, and how rapidly that number is growing, we have no choice but to assume everybody has the virus, so we all have to stay home, virtually all businesses have to shut down, etc.

If you think about it, it’s utter madness – due solely to a lack of testing, we’re self-destructing, crashing our economy. 3.3 million people lost their jobs last week – look at this chart to see how that compares to any period in the past, including the global financial crisis:

Coronavirus

I could link to an endless number of articles like these:

I struggle for words to describe what a total calamity this is – and every day it continues, the long-term damage to our economic, political, and social fabric grows. If it hasn’t already, this will soon make the global financial crisis look like child’s play…

So what do we need to do?

TEST EVERYONE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

This isn’t some pie-in-the sky idea. It’s exactly what they did in Vo, Italy, as I explained in my report:

Finally, let’s look at the little village of Vo, Italy. Amidst the calamity in that country, it’s a tiny bright spot with important lessons for us all.

It’s in the hardest-hit northern part of the country, and had Italy’s first confirmed coronavirus-related death, a 78-year-old man, on February 23. Its response was to test every one of the town’s 3,300 residents, even those with no symptoms. This was critical because most of the 89 residents (2.7%) who tested positive “were completely asymptomatic.”

Rather then sending them to the hospital, where they could spread the disease, they were home-quarantined, told not to go outside or interact with anyone.

Within a mere two weeks, the virus had been virtually eradicated. When every villager was retested, the infection rate had dropped to only 0.41%.

“Ah, but there’s no such test,” you might say. While it’s easy to quickly test (and retest) 3,300 people in Vo, how are we supposed to test 331 million Americans?

In fact, I think it’ll happen sooner than you think. The FDA just approved two tests by Abbott Labs that, while not at-home, will be rapidly deployed across the country in the next week, with the capacity of 50,000 tests per day (1.5 million per month). And the company says that it will soon produce five million tests per month across its two platforms… Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb tweeted that this is a “GAME CHANGER.” I agree.

And that’s just one company. Here’s an article about Abbott, which also mentions other companies that are developing other tests: 'A game changer': FDA authorizes Abbott Labs' portable, 5-minute coronavirus test the size of a toaster. And it’s not just in the U.S. – companies and governments all over the world are working 24/7 on treatments, tests, and vaccines – here are examples:

I think it’s likely that there will soon be the kind of test I mentioned earlier: a widely available, cheap, quick, easy, at-home one, similar to a pregnancy test.

OK, let’s say you’re skeptical that every American will get tested anytime soon. As South Korea has shown, this isn’t necessary. You just have to do fairly widespread testing, focused on the areas with outbreaks. Look at South Korea’s cases and deaths per day (in a country of 51 million people). These are the kind of numbers we want to see: new cases and deaths declining to a minimal number:

consequences of covid-19

But maybe you’re thinking to yourself, “The South Koreans and other Asians, perhaps in large part because they were hit by SARS, MERS, etc., are much more compliant. We rouge Americans will never behave ourselves. Look at all of the people I saw out in Central Park today!”

Well, as this article in today’s NYT notes, one of the places that was hit the first, New Rochelle, NY, already has the virus under control, only two weeks after locking down (exactly the amount of time I’ve predicted it will take for the daily cases to peak nationwide – roughly April 7th I’d estimate): New Rochelle, Once a Coronavirus Hot Spot, May Now Offer Hope. Excerpt:

Two weeks ago, an unexpected cluster of coronavirus cases in New Rochelle, N.Y., seemed an unnerving sign that an outbreak that had devastated China and Italy was taking hold in the New York region and could spread rapidly.

The state took drastic measures that stirred a backlash, including creating a containment zone. But now, the latest data indicates that the measures may be starting to work.

The outbreak, which Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo once said was advancing “unabated” in New Rochelle, has appeared to slow: Over the last four days, only 38 new cases were reported to the county.

“Everybody talks about flattening the curve, and I think that’s exactly what we were able to do in New Rochelle,” said Dr. Sherlita Amler, the Westchester County health commissioner. “We know we can’t stop every single case, but our goal was to reduce the number of cases, and I do think the measures were successful in doing that.”

State and local health officials cautioned that it was too early to declare victory, but the results seemed to show how tough social distancing measures, first adopted here and then imposed around the country, combined with an aggressive testing philosophy, can have an impact on curbing the coronavirus.

Here’s a chart from the article:

consequences of covid-19

In summary, I have more confidence than ever than ever that we will soon get the spread of the coronavirus under control. My best guess is 2-3 million cases in the U.S. this year, leading to 10,000-20,000 deaths – less than a typical year of the flu.

2) Keep in mind, however, that even if I’m right the headlines are will almost certainly be universally bad in the U.S. and Europe for the next week or two. That’s because there’s a lag effect – like a pig in a python.

The virus follows a fairly predictable pattern that can last for more than a month. First, a certain number of people get infected. Then, over many days, some of them begin to show symptoms. Then, more days later, some need to be hospitalized. Finally, often weeks later, the patient either recovers or dies (though a handful suffer long-term issues like lung damage).

Because of this long process, even if the measures we’ve taken in the past couple weeks are working wonderfully, bringing the virus’s replication rate well below 1, we won’t know it initially because we’re not doing widespread testing. In fact, because of those who were infected weeks ago, the number of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths will almost certainty continue to go up for at least a couple of weeks.

Clinical Consequences Of Covid-19

3) I was glad to see that Dr. Fauci and two of his colleagues think “the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS.” Here’s the article they just published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine: Covid-19 — Navigating the Uncharted. Excerpt:

On the basis of a case definition requiring a diagnosis of pneumonia, the currently reported case fatality rate is approximately 2%.4 In another article in the Journal, Guan et al.5 report mortality of 1.4% among 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19; these patients had a wide spectrum of disease severity. If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.

Positive Trends In NYC And NYS

4) It’s hard to know if this is just short-term statistical noise, but the recent data from New York City and state are very promising. As these four charts show:

a) In NYC, new cases per day are down and deaths per day are flat:

consequences of covid-19

b) NYC hospitalizations per day are way down:

Coronavirus

c) NY state tests per day have doubled in the last two days (though tests are down nationally – odd; may be due to bad reporting from WA the last couple of days – see below):

consequences of covid-19

d) The percent of people testing positive in the state declining (though still very high). All GREAT trends!

consequences of covid-19

5) Here’s the weird data the state of Washington is reporting for the past few days in terms of number of tests per day:

Coronavirus

6) The latest charts from the states with the most cases…

consequences of covid-19

Coronavirus

consequences of covid-19

7) The latest charts from around the world…

Italy’s cases peaked a week ago – great news – but not declining as fast as I’d hope. Deaths hit an all-time high yesterday, but this is (sadly) to be expected (as I explained above, it’s a lagging indicator):

Coronavirus

The U.S. doesn’t look good – it needs to start flattening:

consequences of covid-19

Coronavirus

The latest “case fatality rates”:

Coronavirus

In Germany, cases and deaths are rising rapidly, but from a very low base:

consequences of covid-19

Iran’s cases are rising rapidly (perhaps due to more testing and/or more honest reporting?), but deaths per day have been roughly flat for the last 10 days:

consequences of covid-19

Spain is hurting, but cases per day growth seems to no longer be exponential:

consequences of covid-19

I think Switzerland has clearly flattened the curve:

consequences of covid-19

The UK delayed its lockdown, so it’s still in the early, exponential part of the curve:

consequences of covid-19

Best regards,

Whitney

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Sylvester researchers, collaborators call for greater investment in bereavement care

MIAMI, FLORIDA (March 15, 2024) – The public health toll from bereavement is well-documented in the medical literature, with bereaved persons at greater…

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March 15, 2024

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MIAMI, FLORIDA (March 15, 2024) – The public health toll from bereavement is well-documented in the medical literature, with bereaved persons at greater risk for many adverse outcomes, including mental health challenges, decreased quality of life, health care neglect, cancer, heart disease, suicide, and death. Now, in a paper published in The Lancet Public Health, researchers sound a clarion call for greater investment, at both the community and institutional level, in establishing support for grief-related suffering.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Memorial Sloan Kettering Comprehensive Cancer Center

MIAMI, FLORIDA (March 15, 2024) – The public health toll from bereavement is well-documented in the medical literature, with bereaved persons at greater risk for many adverse outcomes, including mental health challenges, decreased quality of life, health care neglect, cancer, heart disease, suicide, and death. Now, in a paper published in The Lancet Public Health, researchers sound a clarion call for greater investment, at both the community and institutional level, in establishing support for grief-related suffering.

The authors emphasized that increased mortality worldwide caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, suicide, drug overdose, homicide, armed conflict, and terrorism have accelerated the urgency for national- and global-level frameworks to strengthen the provision of sustainable and accessible bereavement care. Unfortunately, current national and global investment in bereavement support services is woefully inadequate to address this growing public health crisis, said researchers with Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and collaborating organizations.  

They proposed a model for transitional care that involves firmly establishing bereavement support services within healthcare organizations to ensure continuity of family-centered care while bolstering community-based support through development of “compassionate communities” and a grief-informed workforce. The model highlights the responsibility of the health system to build bridges to the community that can help grievers feel held as they transition.   

The Center for the Advancement of Bereavement Care at Sylvester is advocating for precisely this model of transitional care. Wendy G. Lichtenthal, PhD, FT, FAPOS, who is Founding Director of the new Center and associate professor of public health sciences at the Miller School, noted, “We need a paradigm shift in how healthcare professionals, institutions, and systems view bereavement care. Sylvester is leading the way by investing in the establishment of this Center, which is the first to focus on bringing the transitional bereavement care model to life.”

What further distinguishes the Center is its roots in bereavement science, advancing care approaches that are both grounded in research and community-engaged.  

The authors focused on palliative care, which strives to provide a holistic approach to minimize suffering for seriously ill patients and their families, as one area where improvements are critically needed. They referenced groundbreaking reports of the Lancet Commissions on the value of global access to palliative care and pain relief that highlighted the “undeniable need for improved bereavement care delivery infrastructure.” One of those reports acknowledged that bereavement has been overlooked and called for reprioritizing social determinants of death, dying, and grief.

“Palliative care should culminate with bereavement care, both in theory and in practice,” explained Lichtenthal, who is the article’s corresponding author. “Yet, bereavement care often is under-resourced and beset with access inequities.”

Transitional bereavement care model

So, how do health systems and communities prioritize bereavement services to ensure that no bereaved individual goes without needed support? The transitional bereavement care model offers a roadmap.

“We must reposition bereavement care from an afterthought to a public health priority. Transitional bereavement care is necessary to bridge the gap in offerings between healthcare organizations and community-based bereavement services,” Lichtenthal said. “Our model calls for health systems to shore up the quality and availability of their offerings, but also recognizes that resources for bereavement care within a given healthcare institution are finite, emphasizing the need to help build communities’ capacity to support grievers.”

Key to the model, she added, is the bolstering of community-based support through development of “compassionate communities” and “upskilling” of professional services to assist those with more substantial bereavement-support needs.

The model contains these pillars:

  • Preventive bereavement care –healthcare teams engage in bereavement-conscious practices, and compassionate communities are mindful of the emotional and practical needs of dying patients’ families.
  • Ownership of bereavement care – institutions provide bereavement education for staff, risk screenings for families, outreach and counseling or grief support. Communities establish bereavement centers and “champions” to provide bereavement care at workplaces, schools, places of worship or care facilities.
  • Resource allocation for bereavement care – dedicated personnel offer universal outreach, and bereaved stakeholders provide input to identify community barriers and needed resources.
  • Upskilling of support providers – Bereavement education is integrated into training programs for health professionals, and institutions offer dedicated grief specialists. Communities have trained, accessible bereavement specialists who provide support and are educated in how to best support bereaved individuals, increasing their grief literacy.
  • Evidence-based care – bereavement care is evidence-based and features effective grief assessments, interventions, and training programs. Compassionate communities remain mindful of bereavement care needs.

Lichtenthal said the new Center will strive to materialize these pillars and aims to serve as a global model for other health organizations. She hopes the paper’s recommendations “will cultivate a bereavement-conscious and grief-informed workforce as well as grief-literate, compassionate communities and health systems that prioritize bereavement as a vital part of ethical healthcare.”

“This paper is calling for healthcare institutions to respond to their duty to care for the family beyond patients’ deaths. By investing in the creation of the Center for the Advancement of Bereavement Care, Sylvester is answering this call,” Lichtenthal said.

Follow @SylvesterCancer on X for the latest news on Sylvester’s research and care.

# # #

Article Title: Investing in bereavement care as a public health priority

DOI: 10.1016/S2468-2667(24)00030-6

Authors: The complete list of authors is included in the paper.

Funding: The authors received funding from the National Cancer Institute (P30 CA240139 Nimer) and P30 CA008748 Vickers).

Disclosures: The authors declared no competing interests.

# # #

Journal

The Lancet Public Health

DOI

10.1016/S2468-2667(24)00030-6

Article Title

Investing in bereavement care as a public health priority

Article Publication Date

13-Mar-2024

COI Statement

The authors declared no competing interests.

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International

Copper Soars, Iron Ore Tumbles As Goldman Says “Copper’s Time Is Now”

Copper Soars, Iron Ore Tumbles As Goldman Says "Copper’s Time Is Now"

After languishing for the past two years in a tight range despite recurring…

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March 15, 2024

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Copper Soars, Iron Ore Tumbles As Goldman Says "Copper's Time Is Now"

After languishing for the past two years in a tight range despite recurring speculation about declining global supply, copper has finally broken out, surging to the highest price in the past year, just shy of $9,000 a ton as supply cuts hit the market; At the same time the price of the world's "other" most important mined commodity has diverged, as iron ore has tumbled amid growing demand headwinds out of China's comatose housing sector where not even ghost cities are being built any more.

Copper surged almost 5% this week, ending a months-long spell of inertia, as investors focused on risks to supply at various global mines and smelters. As Bloomberg adds, traders also warmed to the idea that the worst of a global downturn is in the past, particularly for metals like copper that are increasingly used in electric vehicles and renewables.

Yet the commodity crash of recent years is hardly over, as signs of the headwinds in traditional industrial sectors are still all too obvious in the iron ore market, where futures fell below $100 a ton for the first time in seven months on Friday as investors bet that China’s years-long property crisis will run through 2024, keeping a lid on demand.

Indeed, while the mood surrounding copper has turned almost euphoric, sentiment on iron ore has soured since the conclusion of the latest National People’s Congress in Beijing, where the CCP set a 5% goal for economic growth, but offered few new measures that would boost infrastructure or other construction-intensive sectors.

As a result, the main steelmaking ingredient has shed more than 30% since early January as hopes of a meaningful revival in construction activity faded. Loss-making steel mills are buying less ore, and stockpiles are piling up at Chinese ports. The latest drop will embolden those who believe that the effects of President Xi Jinping’s property crackdown still have significant room to run, and that last year’s rally in iron ore may have been a false dawn.

Meanwhile, as Bloomberg notes, on Friday there were fresh signs that weakness in China’s industrial economy is hitting the copper market too, with stockpiles tracked by the Shanghai Futures Exchange surging to the highest level since the early days of the pandemic. The hope is that headwinds in traditional industrial areas will be offset by an ongoing surge in usage in electric vehicles and renewables.

And while industrial conditions in Europe and the US also look soft, there’s growing optimism about copper usage in India, where rising investment has helped fuel blowout growth rates of more than 8% — making it the fastest-growing major economy.

In any case, with the demand side of the equation still questionable, the main catalyst behind copper’s powerful rally is an unexpected tightening in global mine supplies, driven mainly by last year’s closure of a giant mine in Panama (discussed here), but there are also growing worries about output in Zambia, which is facing an El Niño-induced power crisis.

On Wednesday, copper prices jumped on huge volumes after smelters in China held a crisis meeting on how to cope with a sharp drop in processing fees following disruptions to supplies of mined ore. The group stopped short of coordinated production cuts, but pledged to re-arrange maintenance work, reduce runs and delay the startup of new projects. In the coming weeks investors will be watching Shanghai exchange inventories closely to gauge both the strength of demand and the extent of any capacity curtailments.

“The increase in SHFE stockpiles has been bigger than we’d anticipated, but we expect to see them coming down over the next few weeks,” Colin Hamilton, managing director for commodities research at BMO Capital Markets, said by phone. “If the pace of the inventory builds doesn’t start to slow, investors will start to question whether smelters are actually cutting and whether the impact of weak construction activity is starting to weigh more heavily on the market.”

* * *

Few have been as happy with the recent surge in copper prices as Goldman's commodity team, where copper has long been a preferred trade (even if it may have cost the former team head Jeff Currie his job due to his unbridled enthusiasm for copper in the past two years which saw many hedge fund clients suffer major losses).

As Goldman's Nicholas Snowdon writes in a note titled "Copper's time is now" (available to pro subscribers in the usual place)...

... there has been a "turn in the industrial cycle." Specifically according to the Goldman analyst, after a prolonged downturn, "incremental evidence now points to a bottoming out in the industrial cycle, with the global manufacturing PMI in expansion for the first time since September 2022." As a result, Goldman now expects copper to rise to $10,000/t by year-end and then $12,000/t by end of Q1-25.’

Here are the details:

Previous inflexions in global manufacturing cycles have been associated with subsequent sustained industrial metals upside, with copper and aluminium rising on average 25% and 9% over the next 12 months. Whilst seasonal surpluses have so far limited a tightening alignment at a micro level, we expect deficit inflexions to play out from quarter end, particularly for metals with severe supply binds. Supplemented by the influence of anticipated Fed easing ahead in a non-recessionary growth setting, another historically positive performance factor for metals, this should support further upside ahead with copper the headline act in this regard.

Goldman then turns to what it calls China's "green policy put":

Much of the recent focus on the “Two Sessions” event centred on the lack of significant broad stimulus, and in particular the limited property support. In our view it would be wrong – just as in 2022 and 2023 – to assume that this will result in weak onshore metals demand. Beijing’s emphasis on rapid growth in the metals intensive green economy, as an offset to property declines, continues to act as a policy put for green metals demand. After last year’s strong trends, evidence year-to-date is again supportive with aluminium and copper apparent demand rising 17% and 12% y/y respectively. Moreover, the potential for a ‘cash for clunkers’ initiative could provide meaningful right tail risk to that healthy demand base case. Yet there are also clear metal losers in this divergent policy setting, with ongoing pressure on property related steel demand generating recent sharp iron ore downside.

Meanwhile, Snowdon believes that the driver behind Goldman's long-running bullish view on copper - a global supply shock - continues:

Copper’s supply shock progresses. The metal with most significant upside potential is copper, in our view. The supply shock which began with aggressive concentrate destocking and then sharp mine supply downgrades last year, has now advanced to an increasing bind on metal production, as reflected in this week's China smelter supply rationing signal. With continued positive momentum in China's copper demand, a healthy refined import trend should generate a substantial ex-China refined deficit this year. With LME stocks having halved from Q4 peak, China’s imminent seasonal demand inflection should accelerate a path into extreme tightness by H2. Structural supply underinvestment, best reflected in peak mine supply we expect next year, implies that demand destruction will need to be the persistent solver on scarcity, an effect requiring substantially higher pricing than current, in our view. In this context, we maintain our view that the copper price will surge into next year (GSe 2025 $15,000/t average), expecting copper to rise to $10,000/t by year-end and then $12,000/t by end of Q1-25’

Another reason why Goldman is doubling down on its bullish copper outlook: gold.

The sharp rally in gold price since the beginning of March has ended the period of consolidation that had been present since late December. Whilst the initial catalyst for the break higher came from a (gold) supportive turn in US data and real rates, the move has been significantly amplified by short term systematic buying, which suggests less sticky upside. In this context, we expect gold to consolidate for now, with our economists near term view on rates and the dollar suggesting limited near-term catalysts for further upside momentum. Yet, a substantive retracement lower will also likely be limited by resilience in physical buying channels. Nonetheless, in the midterm we continue to hold a constructive view on gold underpinned by persistent strength in EM demand as well as eventual Fed easing, which should crucially reactivate the largely for now dormant ETF buying channel. In this context, we increase our average gold price forecast for 2024 from $2,090/toz to $2,180/toz, targeting a move to $2,300/toz by year-end.

Much more in the full Goldman note available to pro subs.

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/15/2024 - 14:25

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Government

Moderna turns the spotlight on long Covid with new initiatives

Moderna’s latest Covid effort addresses the often-overlooked chronic condition of long Covid — and encourages vaccination to reduce risks. A digital…

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Moderna’s latest Covid effort addresses the often-overlooked chronic condition of long Covid — and encourages vaccination to reduce risks. A digital campaign debuted Friday along with a co-sponsored event in Detroit offering free CT scans, which will also be used in ongoing long Covid research.

In a new video, a young woman describes her three-year battle with long Covid, which includes losing her job, coping with multiple debilitating symptoms and dealing with the negative effects on her family. She ends by saying, “The only way to prevent long Covid is to not get Covid” along with an on-screen message about where to find Covid-19 vaccines through the vaccines.gov website.

Kate Cronin

“Last season we saw people would get a flu shot, but they didn’t always get a Covid shot,” said Moderna’s Chief Brand Officer Kate Cronin. “People should get their flu shot, but they should also get their Covid shot. There’s no risk of long flu, but there is the risk of long-term effects of Covid.”

It’s Moderna’s “first effort to really sound the alarm,” she said, and the debut coincides with the second annual Long Covid Awareness Day.

An estimated 17.6 million Americans are living with long Covid, according to the latest CDC data. About four million of them are out of work because of the condition, resulting in an estimated $170 billion in lost wages.

While HHS anted up $45 million in grants last year to expand long Covid support initiatives along with public health campaigns, the condition is still often ignored and underfunded.

“It’s not just about the initial infection of Covid, but also if you get it multiple times, your risks goes up significantly,” Cronin said. “It’s important that people understand that.”

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