Author: Mary Pat Campbell

People With Dementia Are Twice As Likely To Get Covid-19 And Four Times More Likely To Die From It

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mishagajewski/2021/02/09/people-with-dementia-are-twice-as-likely-to-get-covid-19-and-four-times-more-likely-to-die-from-it/

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Patients with dementia are at higher risk for Covid-19 and are more likely to have worse outcomes, according to a new study published today.

The study, led by Case Western Reserve University researchers, reviewed electronic health records of 61.9 million adults in the United States and found that the risk for contracting Covid-19 was twice as high for people with dementia compared to the general population.

The risk was even greater still for African Americans with dementia, who were found to be close to three times as likely to be infected with Covid-19.

….

The study, which was published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, also found that certain types of dementia had a greater risk than others.

Author(s): Misha Gajewski

Publication Date: 9 February 2021

Publication Site: Forbes

India is betting on glitchy software to inoculate 300 million people by August

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/10/1017860/india-covid-vaccine-cowin-software/

Excerpt:

India, which has had the second-highest number of covid-19 cases in the world, has launched one of Asia’s most ambitious vaccination drives, aiming to inoculate 300 million people by August. To make it happen, the government is using a vaccine management system called Co-WIN. For now, the focus is on getting 30 million health-care and frontline workers vaccinated. 

These workers will receive one of two vaccines approved for emergency use: the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine—known locally as Covishield and being manufactured by the Serum Institute of India—and Bharat Biotech’s indigenous vaccine, called Covaxin. 

Co-WIN is the backbone of the vaccination drive, so to speak. It handles registrations, creates vaccination schedules, informs the recipients through text messages, sends people to the right vaccination center, and also creates a vaccination certificate after they’ve received two doses. Although it’s starting with health-care workers, it’s expected to be used for the general public, too, and people will be asked to self-register through the app. 

Author(s): Varsha Bansal

Publication Date: 10 February 2021

Publication Site: MIT Technology Review

Teamsters Laud House Committee For Including Pension Reform In Stimulus Bill

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/teamsters-laud-house-committee-for-including-pension-reform-in-stimulus-bill-301225317.html

Excerpt:

 The Teamsters are applauding the House Ways & Means Committee’s inclusion of a multiemployer pension reform measure in a broader stimulus package introduced by the panel yesterday.

In unveiling language included in the Butch Lewis Emergency Pension Plan Relief Act of 2021, the House panel took the first step towards ensuring that millions of retirees and active workers who have played by the rules will receive the pension benefits they earned through years of hard work.

“The financial distress many of these plans are facing is beyond the control of retirees and workers,” Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa said. “While multiemployer pension plans have been buffeted by economic turbulence over the decades, the situation has been seriously exacerbated by the current pandemic.”

Author(s): International Brotherhood of Teamsters

Publication Date: 9 February 2021

Publication Site: PR Newswire

Massachusetts Pension Fund Returns 12.6% in 2020, Hits Record Asset Value

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/massachusetts-pension-fund-returns-12-6-2020-hits-record-asset-value/

Excerpt:

A strong second half rebound helped the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Trust (PRIT) end calendar year 2020 with a 12.6% return, beating its benchmark’s return of 10.8% and raising the fund to a record high of $86.9 billion in assets, according to Pension Reserves Investment Management (PRIM), which oversees the fund.

The fund also surpassed its benchmark over the past three, five, and 10 years, with annualized returns of 8.8%, 10.4%, and 8.9%, respectively, compared with 8.0%, 9.5%, and 7.6%, respectively for its benchmark over the same time periods.

Author(s): Michael Katz

Publication Date: 9 February 2021

Publication Site: ai-CIO

House scuttles proposals to politicize investments of Indiana Public Retirement System

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.elkharttruth.com/news/state/house-scuttles-proposals-to-politicize-investments-of-indiana-public-retirement-system/article_b2427808-e315-5ae3-b66b-ba77baa3ef88.html

Excerpt:

State and local government employees, including Hoosier teachers, can breathe a little easier knowing their retirement funds — for now — will not be subject to political whims.

Two proposals seeking to politicize the investments of the Indiana Public Retirement System (INPRS) failed to advance out of the Republican-controlled House by this week’s deadline, and likely will not again be considered by state lawmakers this year.

Author(s): Dan Carden

Publication Date: 24 February 2021

Publication Site: The Elkhart Truth

Springfield looks to make extra payment to fire, police pension funds

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://newschannel20.com/news/local/springfield-looks-to-make-extra-payment-to-fire-police-pension-funds

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The City of Springfield is looking to make a payment to the city’s growing fire and police pension funds.

An ordinance states the city can put $589,323 towards that pension fund.

During the Committee of the Whole meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 9, Springfield City Council members were in favor of doing this, including Ward 7 Alderman Joe McMenamin.

Author(s): Tessa Bentulan

Publication Date: 10 February 2021

Publication Site: News Channel ABC 20

America Went on a Borrowing Binge, but Banks Were Left Out

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-went-on-a-borrowing-binge-but-banks-were-left-out-11612953008

Excerpt:

Large U.S. lenders saw their loan books shrink in 2020 for the first time in more than a decade, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by Jason Goldberg, a banking analyst at Barclays. The 0.5% drop was just the second decline in 28 years.

Bank of America Corp.’s loans and leases dropped by 5.7%. Citigroup Inc.’s loans dropped by 3.4% and Wells Fargo & Co.’s shrank by 7.8%. Among the biggest four banks, only JPMorgan Chase & Co. had more loans at the end of the year than the start.

Lenders are flush with cash that they want to put to use, and executives say they are hopeful loan growth will pick up in 2021. Brisk lending typically suggests there is enough momentum in the economy to give companies and consumers the confidence to borrow. But the current weakness suggests questions remain about the vigor of the economic recovery.

Author(s): Ben Eisen

Publication Date: 10 February 2021

Publication Site: WSJ

Flood of Cash Pushes Borrowing Costs to Unusual Lows in Europe

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/flood-of-cash-pushes-borrowing-costs-to-unusual-lows-in-europe-11612780202

Excerpt:

Italy’s Enel SpA, one of Europe’s biggest electricity producers, has short-term commercial paper that recently offered an annualized yield of minus 0.61%, according to FactSet: That is 0.11 percentage point lower than the ECB’s deposit rate of minus 0.5%.

When interest rates are negative, borrowers pay back less than they were lent when their debt comes due. At Enel’s rate, if it borrowed $100 for a year, it would pay back $99.39. For the lender, in this case the money-market funds that buy commercial paper, the opposite is true. They get back less money.

“It took a couple of years for clients to get their heads around the idea that they’d have to pay to leave money in a safe spot,” said Kim Hochfeld, global head of State Street’s cash business. State Street’s EUR Liquidity LVNAV Fund — worth 6.6 billion euros, equivalent to $7.9 billion — yields minus 0.68% after fees, but that compares with total costs on large bank deposits of up to 1%, she added.

Author(s): Paul J. Davies

Publication Date: 8 February 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Long-COVID – What Are the Long-term Effects of COVID-19?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.genre.com/knowledge/publications/rpakt20-2-dorn-en.html

Excerpt:

The COVID Symptom Study App provides a first overview of who is more likely to develop Long-COVID after an acute infection. More than four million users have described their post-COVID symptoms here.

The first published evaluation of slightly more than 4,000 participants showed that one in 22 COVID‑19 cases is still affected by Long-COVID symptoms eight weeks later; every 44th person maintains symptoms after four more weeks.66

Risk factors identified here are an increased BMI and higher age, although any age group can be affected. In the younger age group, the risk for women seems to be higher than for men. Since males have a higher risk of a severe acute COVID‑19 disease, this raises further questions about the underlying differences. For Long-COVID, there may be a connection with the fact that chronic fatigue syndrome occurs more often in women than in men.67 Asthma is another risk factor for Long-COVID. In general, the probability for Long-COVID increased with the number of symptoms in the first week.

Author(s): Dr. Katharina Dorn, Life/Health Associate Underwriter, Cologne

Publication Date: February 2021

Publication Site: Gen Re

North Carolina Lowers Assumed Rate of Return for State Pensions to 6.5%

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/north-carolina-lowers-assumed-rate-return-state-pensions-6-5/

Excerpt:

The $116 billion North Carolina Retirement Systems has lowered its assumed rate of investment return for the third time in four years, cutting it by 50 basis points (bps) to 6.5% from 7% annually.

The target return had already been reduced to 7.2% from 7.25% in 2017 and again in 2018 to 7%. Prior to then, the rates had been left unchanged for nearly six decades even though the two main state pension funds—the Teachers’ and State Employees’ Retirement System and the Local Government Employees’ Retirement System—have, on average, underperformed their assumed rates of return over the past 20 years. In fact, the new target rate of 6.5% is still higher than the fund’s estimated 20-year return of 6.28%.

Author(s): Michael Katz

Publication Date: 5 February 2021

Publication Site: ai-CIO

Public Pensions Increasingly Rely on Investment Earnings

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/public-pensions-increasingly-rely-investment-earnings/

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Public pension funds derived 71% of their revenue from their investment earnings last year, up from 69% in both 2019 and 2018, according to an annual study from the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems (NCPERS).

Employer and employee contributions made up the rest of the revenue, accounting for 20% and 9%, respectively. The share of revenue from employer contributions declined from 22% in 2019, while the share of revenue from employee contributions remained unchanged.

The study was based on responses from 138 state and local pension systems that have approximately 12.8 million active and retired members, and assets of more than $1.5 trillion in actuarial and market value. Among the responses, 51% were from statewide pension systems, while 49% were from local pension systems.

Author(s): Michael Katz

Publication Date: 5 February 2021

Publication Site: ai-CIO

55% of Ontario’s nursing home workers opted for vaccine

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/55-per-cent-ontario-long-term-care-workers-vaccinated-fears-remain-1.5928220

Excerpt:

Despite the fact long-term care workers were the first in Ontario invited to get the COVID-19 vaccine last December, a little more than half of them have volunteered to get the shot.

As of this week, only 55,000 of 100,000 long-term care workers in Ontario have been inoculated, according to the province’s Ministry of Health.

Dr. Hugh Boyd, chair of the Ontario Medical Association’s section on long-term care and care of the elderly, said a lack of confidence in the vaccine and pervasive myths about the quick development and safety of the shot is at the root of the low numbers.

Author(s): Julie Ireton

Publication Date: 26 February 2021

Publication Site: CBC News