Chinese language vacationers poised to flock abroad for western mRNA vaccines

Passengers prepare to enter Shenzhen via the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line Control Point in Hong Kong on the first day of the resumption of normal travel between Hong Kong and mainland China on Jan. 8, 2023.

Li Zhihua | China news service | Getty Images

Mainland China’s move away from its zero-Covid policy has prompted a sharp rise in infections, and the resumption of travel means some are looking further afield for vaccines.

In mid-December, China’s full Covid vaccination rate was nearly 87%, with a 54% increase. The main Covid vaccines approved in China are from Sinovac and Sinopharm.

In recent months, people from the mainland have flocked to Macao to receive western mRNA vaccines, which are being distributed around the world but are not supported by China.

But even if patients tried to book an appointment as early as mid-December, the next available places at Macau University of Science and Technology Hospital, the only place offering injections to tourists, won’t be available until February.

Analysts expect the list of vaccine tourism destinations to grow.

“Natural first destination”: Hong Kong

“I believe the natural first destination for Chinese vaccine tourism is Hong Kong. It will then spread to Asia and the US, maybe even Europe,” Sam Radwan, president of management consultancy Enhance International, told CNBC.

“It’s been a long time since I was in Hong Kong. I can go on vacation and get vaccinated. Doesn’t that kill two birds with one stone? Without further ado, I made my appointment and am getting ready.” A man from Shaanxi province posted on Chinese social media site Weibo on Friday.

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said in a news conference in late December that the city had “achieved a relatively high vaccination rate”, adding that it had “a sufficient amount of medicines to fight Covid”.

However, Hong Kong will not offer free Covid vaccinations to short-term travelers.

“We want to prevent visitors from coming to Hong Kong to use the vaccines at the expense of Hong Kong people, and we will not offer Hong Kong residents any government-procured vaccines for free,” Hong Kong officials said, adding that visitors can do so would have to stay at least 30 days to get a booster shot.

Our latest study suggests that Hong Kong and Thailand could benefit most from the international tourism channel as China lifts visa restrictions and outbound travel gradually normalizes

Expect a wave of mainland residents to travel to Hong Kong to get their vaccinations, said Lam Wingho, a member of Hong Kong’s Scientific Committee on Vaccine-Preventable Diseases, according to a local media report.

Lin said he received a steady stream of inquiries from citizens wanting to know how mainland Chinese relatives could be vaccinated in Hong Kong, sources said.

Thailand is another viable destination for vaccination tourists, and the country is among the top destinations for Chinese, which include Japan, South Korea, the United States and Singapore.

Thailand’s tourism and sports minister said in late December he was considering proposing free vaccines for foreign tourists who request booster shots.

And there is interest from the Chinese.

“At first I didn’t plan to go to Thailand, but I’m thinking about it because of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine,” a Shanghai-based Weibo user said after the announcement.

Another Beijing-resident Weibo user wrote that such a policy move would not only help “attract tourists to Thailand,” but would also provide more diversity for vaccination. “Mainland Chinese hoping for more vaccination options can get vaccinated with the vaccines they want. Win win.”

“Getting out of China is definitely a great healing tool for many… I believe the Chinese will travel to where they can get the medicine,” said Sam Radwan, president of management consultancy Enhance International.

CFOTO | Future Publishing | Getty Images

“Regarding the spillover effects of China’s reopening, our latest study suggests that Hong Kong and Thailand could benefit most from the international tourism channel as China lifts visa restrictions and outbound travel gradually normalizes,” Goldman Sachs wrote in a March 27 research note. December.

“Getting out of China is definitely a great healing tool for many… I believe the Chinese will travel to where they can get the medicine,” said Enhance International’s Radwan.

Making use of for an extended Covid social safety incapacity is difficult

Local residents turn in Covid-19 PCR tests January 5, 2022 at a testing site operated by the Centers for Disease Control, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and eTrueNorth in Washington, DC.

Eric Lee | Bloomberg | Getty Images

When Christopher Perry fell ill in July 2021, he thought he just had a bad cold.

But after Perry’s adult son found him passed out in his living room, he was rushed to hospital and put on life support for Covid-19.

A diagnosis of respiratory failure has led to long-term health consequences.

Today, Perry, 44, of Newport News, Virginia, can only walk short distances and gets winded quickly. His breathing difficulties mean he drives to the emergency room at least once a week.

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Here’s a look at more stories about the complexity and impact of Long Covid:

“I start crying and I can’t breathe,” Perry said.

His weight, blood pressure and blood sugar levels have increased and require medication. He also receives respiratory treatments and oxygen.

“That’s all they can really do,” Perry said.

Perry’s condition has made it impossible to resume his former full-time job at a NASA steam power plant, climbing ladders and servicing boilers.

First he was able to take out short-term and then long-term disability insurance through his employer. Today, after a “very long, drawn out process,” Perry relies solely on Social Security’s disability benefit for his income, with monthly checks of about $1,600 a month.

“I didn’t know Covid was going to do all that,” Perry said.

To date, the Social Security Administration has reported about 44,000 disability claims that mention Covid-19, although this is not necessarily the primary reason for those claims. That represents only about 1% of the disability claims that have been received since the agency began tracking those claims.

However, it is possible that future claims for disability benefits will increase due to long Covid.

Applying for federal benefits can take months

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, up to 30% of Americans who contract Covid have developed long-range symptoms, affecting as many as 23 million people.

Long Covid has put an estimated 2 to 4 million Americans ages 18 to 65 out of work, according to recent research from the Brookings Institution. Those lost wages can add up to around $170 billion a year and potentially as much as $230 billion, the nonprofit public policy organization estimates.

To make up for the loss of income, patients typically take out short-term or long-term disability insurance if they already have insurance.

Those whose condition is expected to prevent them from working for at least 12 months or result in death may receive benefits from either Social Security disability insurance or Supplemental Security income.

Social Security disability benefits are generally available to workers who have earned enough credits through payroll taxes – typically 40 credits, although younger workers may be eligible with fewer. In 2023, one loan is equivalent to $1,640 in wages or self-employment earnings.

Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, is a federal benefit available to disabled individuals who may not be eligible for a Social Security disability based on their work records.

The average wait time for Social Security’s first disability decisions has increased during the pandemic, rising to an all-time high of 6.6 months in August, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. More than 1 million disability claims are pending with government disability assessment services.

The process of applying for federal disability benefits is lengthy. That has left some patients in a desperate financial situation with no other available source of income, according to Andrew Wylam, attorney and president of Pandemic Patients, a non-profit patient advocacy organization dedicated to helping Covid patients get the services they need.

“Some people hold onto their only hope of receiving SSDI benefits, and that’s a six, eight, or 12 month process,” Wylam said.

Meanwhile, Wylam has seen these patients drain their life savings, pay off their investments and liquidate their properties while clinging that Social Security disability benefits will eventually be available to help them stay afloat.

“It’s very demoralizing and it’s really heartbreaking to see people going through this situation,” Wylam said.

Applicants are also not guaranteed success at the end of this waiting period. The “grant rate” for disability claims, as measured by the Social Security Administration, averaged 31% between 2011 and 2020. Meanwhile, rejected disability claims averaged 67%.

“Invisible” symptoms increase the difficulty

Allsup, which works with people who are claiming or appealing Social Security disability benefits, sees around 4% to 5% of its monthly cases related to Covid or Long Covid, according to TJ Geist, the company’s lead attorney.

The most successful applications are in more severe cases, according to Geist. Often, these cases required hospitalization and ventilators, and resulted in significant long-term health effects such as organ failure.

Allsup, which works with NASA, helped Perry approve his application for Disability Social Security benefits.

“More difficult are still the cases that show more invisible long-term symptoms such as fatigue, brain fog, depression,” said Geist.

“And unfortunately, they have more difficulty getting approved,” he added.

My advice in situations like this would be to make sure your doctor is keeping track of all your symptoms, documenting them and having a full medical history of you.

TJ spirit

Lead Attorney at Allsup

These cases can be successful, but they take longer, according to Geist. A decision on an initial application can take six to eight months. If an objection has to be lodged against this, it can take another six months. And when it comes to a hearing, it could take a year or so.

“It can take up to three years for a case to be decided at a hearing,” Geist said.

When Perry applied for Social Security disability benefits, he had to fill out lengthy paperwork asking everything from how far he could walk without losing his breath to whether he was able to make his own dinner to cook.

Approval took about six months and probably would not have been possible without the help of a lawyer, he said.

Careful documentation of medical records also helps, Geist says, particularly with the “invisible” symptoms associated with long Covid.

“My advice in situations like this would be to make sure your doctor is tracking all of your symptoms, documenting them and having a full medical history on you,” Geist said.

“That can really make or break a case of Social Security disability,” he said.

“Nobody sees us”

The question for patients and medical staff is how long the disease can last. Social security benefits are designed for long-term conditions.

“A lot of people with long Covid want to work, and what they want is work housing,” said Alice Burns, associate director of the Medicaid and Uninsured Program at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Adele Benes, 57, was in “excellent health” when she was exposed to Covid while working at a Chicago-area hospital in 2020. Now, 26 months later, she’s still suffering from debilitating symptoms, including fatigue, brain fog, and cognitive difficulties that have led to frequent trips to the emergency room.

Adele Benes is still battling symptoms after contracting Covid-19 in 2020.

Courtesy: Adele Benes

To improve her condition, Benes has tried everything from off-label treatments to hypnosis. Sometimes she had trouble even moving from her bed to the bathroom, thinking the pain and discomfort would kill her.

“The feeling was overwhelming,” said Benes. “How can you feel so bad and not die?”

Benes applied for Disability Social Security benefits in February and is still awaiting a response. But what she wants most is to get healthy and get back to her normal life.

She cries when she remembers her previous job as an ultrasound technologist, where she was able to help sick patients. “It was joy,” she said.

The hardest part can be knowing that there is no cure.

“It’s a crazy disease and it’s invisible because we’re all hiding in our homes,” Benes said. “Nobody sees us and we look normal from the outside.”

The watchdog group accuses George Santos of marketing campaign finance violations in an FEC grievance

New York Republican Rep. Elect George Santos attends the US House of Representatives January 4, 2023 voting for a new Speaker at the US Capitol in Washington, DC.

Olivier Douliery | AFP | Getty Images

A national monitoring group has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission against US Republican Rep. George Santos for allegedly violating numerous campaign finance laws during his successful run for Congress.

The Campaign Legal Center, a non-partisan campaign monitoring organization, filed the complaint with the FEC on Monday. The group accuses the Santos campaign of allegedly violating campaign finance laws in three counts, including one linked to a $705,000 loan that lawmakers made for his campaign.

“It is far more likely that after he failed to win his 2020 bid for Congress, Santos and other unidentified individuals hatched a plan to covertly — and illegally — pour money into his 2022 campaign,” the complaint reads . “The hidden true source behind $705,000 in donations to Santos’ campaign could be a corporation or a foreigner — both are categorically barred from donating to federal candidates.”

The FEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A Santos spokeswoman referred CNBC to the congressman’s attorneys. A Santos attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

Santos is under scrutiny by congressional lawmakers and federal agencies for lying and embellishing key elements of his resume during his campaign for Congress in 2022. According to NBC News, prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York are investigating Santos’ finances, including possible irregularities related to financial disclosures and loans Santos made to his campaign while he was running for Congress.

Santos admitted to beautifying his resume in an interview with City & State New York. While apologizing to anyone who is “disappointed with the CV beautification,” he vehemently denies committing any crimes.

The Campaign Legal Center claims that the loan he made for his campaign may have come from a straw donor. Santos’ most recent financial disclosure says he made $750,000 from 2021-2022 from his company, the Devolder Organization. Santos told WABC radio host John Catsimatidis, who also donated to Santos, that the loan came from “money I paid myself through the Devolder organization.”

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The watchdog accuses Santos of possibly concealing the true source of the money his campaign claimed was credit.

The group also accuses Santos’ campaign of falsifying its reported payouts and using campaign funds to cover personal expenses.

“George Santos lied to voters about many things, but while it may not be illegal to lie about your background, deceiving voters about your campaign funding and spending is a serious violation of federal law,” said Adav Noti, legal director at Campaign Legal Center said in a statement. “That is what we are asking the Federal Election Commission to investigate. As the agency responsible for enforcing America’s campaign finance laws, the FEC owes the public a debt of discovering the truth about how George Santos raised and spent the money he used to run for public office and around the world Ensure accountability for Santos’ illegal conduct.”

How medical health insurance might have made well being care dearer

Widespread medical debt is a uniquely American problem. About 40% of US adults have at least $250 in medical debt, according to a survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“The history of medical debt is essentially a history of the changing answer to the following question: if the patient cannot pay the bill, who pays it?” said dr Luke Messac, an emergency room physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who is writing a book on the history of medical debt.

As health care prices have increased over the past fifty years, patients have been asked to pay more out of pocket when receiving health care.

There are many complicated reasons for the increase in care costs, such as: B. the lack of prioritization of care or lack of price transparency, but one of the biggest catalysts for inflation has been the rise of health insurance.

“When you get this third-party pay system, the patient doesn’t have to pay all the costs directly, the insurer pays part of it,” he said. dr Peter Kongstvedt, a senior member of the faculty of health policy at George Mason University. “That gives you unrelenting upward pressure on prices, because if you’re getting paid, why not pay a little more?”

In the early 2000s, federal legislation led to a major overhaul of how insurance plans share costs, with the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 sparking a boom in high-deductible health insurance plans.

A deductible is the amount that a policyholder must pay up front before their health insurance plan takes effect. The average deductible for one person in 2022 is about $1,760, which is double what it was in 2006, adjusted for inflation.

About 70% of low-income adults said they couldn’t afford an unexpected $500 medical bill. Almost a quarter of households with an income of at least $90,000 also said they could not afford it right away.

“It doesn’t really take a Nobel Prize in Economics to realize that when most people can’t afford a $500 bill and the average deductible on a health insurance plan someone receives at work is now over $1,500 That’s going to create a problem,” said Noam Levey, senior correspondent for Kaiser Health News. “You can’t go into an emergency room or a hospital in this country and typically come out for less than a few thousand dollars.”

Watch them Video above to learn more about how medical debt became so prevalent in the US healthcare system and what we can do to change it.

The World Cup’s “sexiest fan” was noticed with Drake, Jamie Foxx, in Miami

A woman who went viral during World Championship After the internet dubbed her the “World’s Sexiest Fan”, she’s making the most of her 15 minutes of fame after being spotted out in Miami with the likes drake and Jamie Foxx.

Ivana KnollWho became an internet sensation with her sultry outfits at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, first celebrated New Year’s Eve with Foxx before spending some time with Drake on Thursday.

Knoll shares celebrity encounters like Drake, Jamie Foxx post World Cup Internet Stardom

Knoll, a Croatian soccer fan and Miami-based model, took to Instagram to share her encounters with the actor and rapper.

“There’s no better way to start 2023 than with good friends 🙏🏼 @iamjamiefoxx,” Knoll captioned her photo with an animated Foxx.

She also shared videos to her Instagram Story that showed her and Foxx at a nightclub surrounded by champagne bottles.

Foxx and Know also reportedly went to a separate group dinner, according to video obtained by The Sun.

Knoll appears to be at a club with Foxx, restaurant with Drake Pictures Show

The clip shows her showing off her outfit before filming Foxx, who was sitting next to her and pointing in her direction.

Then on Thursday, Knoll uploaded the photo with Drake alongside a fire emoji in the caption, wearing the same cut-out black jumpsuit she’d worn with Foxx a few days earlier.

The rapper was smiling and appeared to be in good spirits as he had his arm around her waist at what appeared to be a restaurant.

Know has over three million Instagram followers and was hugely popular with fans and cameras alike at the World Cup for her creative Croatian-themed dress.

A die-hard soccer fan is said to be a native of Croatia and is now working as a model in the United States

The die-hard soccer fan, who is believed to be from the country, is now being represented by a modeling agency in Los Angeles, the outlet reports.

Finally, in October 2022, she received a visa that allowed her to work in the United States for the next three years.

China’s massive client market will not be but recovering to pre-pandemic ranges

Tourists visit ice sculptures in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province on New Year’s Day 2023.

China news service | vcg | Getty Images

BEIJING — It will be some time before Chinese consumers really start spending again, despite China’s abrupt move towards a reopening.

About a month after the city of Guangzhou resumed in-store dining, local cafe owner Timothy Chong said revenue was recovering — to 50% of normal levels.

“At the end of December, the flow of customers gradually normalized, with a slight upward trend, but [a recovery in] Business volume has yet to wait,” he said in Chinese, translated by CNBC.

He anticipates that it will take at least three to four months for earnings to return to normal. In the past six months, revenue has fallen to 30% of typical levels, Chong said. He said the first Bem Bom Coffee store opened in late 2019, followed by a second store and coffee academy in August 2021.

China’s retail sales were slightly down for 2022 from November, official data showed. Consumption has lagged behind overall economic growth since the pandemic began almost three years ago.

For the coming year, Bain partner Derek Deng is holding back expectations. “The hope is that we at least get back to where we were in the first quarter of 2022,” he said, noting that this was just before Shanghai went into lockdown.

According to Wind Information, retail sales rose about 3.3% year over year in the first three months of 2022 but slowed to a 0.7% decline in the first half of the year.

A return to 2021 — when retail sales rebounded 12.5% ​​– would be a bullish scenario, Deng said. “I don’t think people see that as some sort of baseline, mostly because the macro factors are actually less favorable compared to 2021.”

The bulk of Chinese household wealth is tied up in real estate, a once-hot market that has plummeted in the last year. Stock markets in mainland China collapsed for the first time in four years in 2022. Exports, an engine of China’s growth, have started to fall in recent months as global demand slows.

Deng also noted fears of a second wave of Covid, the highly contagious XBB omicron subvariant coming in from overseas, and geopolitical uncertainties.

“I think that’s also impacting people’s perceptions of their disposable income or whether they need to save to get through all this uncertainty,” he said.

Chinese consumers’ propensity to save hit record highs last year, according to surveys by the People’s Bank of China.

Hopes for a travel recreation

Analysts are closely watching the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday for clues on consumer sentiment. The travel season for China’s big holiday runs from around January 7 to February 15 this year — with about 2.1 billion trips expected, according to official estimates.

That’s double last year and 70% of 2019 levels, China’s Transport Ministry said on Friday. It found that most trips are likely to be for visiting family, while only 10% are for leisure or business trips.

This year, many more Chinese will finally be able to travel abroad. The country is restoring the ability of Chinese citizens to go abroad for leisure after tightly controlling borders with the mainland for nearly three years. On Sunday, China also officially lifted quarantine requirements for inbound travelers.

However, Chinese outbound travel is unlikely to pick up again until around the next public holiday in early April, said Chen Xin, head of China Leisure and Transport Research at UBS Securities.

By then, people will be able to process their passport applications while the number of international flights may have recovered to 50% or 60% of 2019 levels, Chen said. He added that measures such as pre-flight virus testing requirements for visiting certain countries could be eased in a few months.

Inside China, Chen expects travel to get another boost after February as business travel picks up again and hotel business returns to 2019 levels by the end of the year. This is based on an industry metric that measures revenue per available room.

Not all go out

China’s major city streets are getting busier as the first wave of infections has passed.

But it’s mostly younger and middle-aged people who are on the move again, UBS’s Chen said.

After a gradual rollback of Covid controls, Chinese authorities suddenly scrapped most of the country’s virus testing and contact tracing measures last month. However, vaccination rates for the elderly in China are relatively low. In China, only domestically produced vaccines are generally available.

Read more about China from CNBC Pro

Bain’s Deng is also monitoring whether consumers will start going out more. In the first three quarters of 2022, about 56% of consumer spending was at home – reversing the pre-pandemic trend, he said.

If the share of out-of-home spending can increase even a few percentage points, it will affect how malls and restaurants consider their business strategy, especially for delivery services, Deng said.

Chinese e-commerce giant for the past 18 months JD.com shortened the delivery window for many products from the next day to just one hour. That is through its partnership with dadanow majority owned by JD.

Company figures showed that the hour-long delivery platform roughly doubled sales of vegetables, beef and mutton in the period Dec. 16 to Jan. 1 from a year earlier. According to the data, sales of refrigerators increased 700%, while sales of flat-screen TVs increased 10-fold year-over-year.

Virtually 11,000 Democrats had their votes canceled utilizing envelopes

Found: The stolen Republicans-by-choice continue.

Result: 10,920 Pennsylvania Democrats were cheated of their votes.

The November Pennsylvania court decision canceling mail-in ballots that lacked accurate handwritten data on their outer cover resulted in valid votes being cancelled. Democrats accounted for 2/3 of the total votes annulled.

That means over 10,000 voters in Pennsylvania were barred from voting for no reason. You are eligible to vote and have voted. They did this properly, except that they may have entered the wrong date, or omitted the date, or improperly signed it on the outer envelope, or failed to include the second “non-disclosure” envelope.

“The State Department said more than 16,000 mail-in ballots were disqualified by county officials this week for lacking classified envelopes or proper signatures or dates. Democratic voters, who are much more likely to vote by mail, accounted for more than two-thirds of the total canceled ballots,” The AP reported.

“Democrats were thrown out 10,920 votes, about half for missing non-disclosure envelopes. The Republicans forfeited 3,503 ballots. Independents and third parties got 1,731 votes, which did not count in the fall election.”

In Pennsylvania, Democrats narrowly recaptured the House of Representatives for the first time in a decade.

While many cities worked to “heal” votes, that is, allow the voter to fix the mistakes, others did not.

Republicans sued in October 2022 to try to obtain undated mail-in ballots:

A coalition of GOP groups, including the Republican National Committee and the State Party, filed a lawsuit late Sunday night asking the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to block the counting of undated mail-in ballots.

The AP detailed some of the litigation, including the failure of negotiations between Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, and (then) Republican Legislative leaders to end the outer shell date requirement, with Republican lawmakers defending the need for the requirements, the 3rd U.S. Circuit The Court of Appeals ruled in May that the data was “irrelevant,” but the Republican-led US Supreme Court then ruled that decision moot.

A fight to see if qualified voters can have their votes counted. That’s it. And not counting them has historically hurt Democrats and helped Republicans.

This Republican-led “fight” against counting votes with undated outer envelopes dates back to the 2020 election that Trump lost. A more direct way of putting this is that Republicans looked for all sorts of ways to invalidate votes that should have been the majority of Democrats.

When that eventually failed, they tried appointing “alternative voters” to simply invalidate the millions of votes in states that didn’t go their way. At the same time, their party leader and then president instigated a domestic terrorist attack to stay in power.

The Republican Party is not the “Party of Liberty,” and that’s an understatement at this point.

It will come as no surprise to readers to discover that the 2020 Trump campaign filed a lawsuit alleging that ballot hardening was done on partisan grounds, with then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany claiming the top spot at the time State election officials have accused state election officials of using ballot hardening as a means to “tilt the scales of an election to functionally favor the Democratic Party.”

So many lies, so much projection.

In reality, all counties received the same guidance, but some did not notify voters and others did.

Counties that didn’t even allow ballots to be cured tried to claim that the guidance they received on Oct. 21, 2020 was too late, but in Pennsylvania, election officials can’t even start checking mail-in ballots before 7 a.m start election day.

Even in the Republicans’ own lawsuits, the facts proved that the red counties, which didn’t allow ballot treatment, hurt Democratic voters more than Republicans.

However, in the “red counties” cited in a Republican lawsuit, Biden has outperformed Trump in voting by mail, often by a significant margin. By not allowing voters to heal ballots, these counties hurt Democratic voters more than Republicans.

Republicans urged their constituents not to use mail-in ballots. Trump constantly fueled fear of them. So when they decided not to allow healing in some counties in 2020, they had a pretty good idea which party was hurting.

Here we are after the midterms and find that the Republicans have once again canceled the Democrat vote.

A piece of it was laid at the feet of the Democratic State Party in 2020 because it called for decisions on ballot secrecy, among other measures to protect postal voting. (The nerve of the party, which wants all qualifying votes counted.) That 2020 action led to a court ruling that the GOP-led legislature had intended the non-disclosure envelope to be “mandatory.”

Is this obsession with non-disclosure envelopes normal? no It’s actually rare.

Charles Stewart, an MIT political science professor who studies American elections, said: “Denials for lack of a non-disclosure envelope are so rare that the US Electoral Services Commission does not ask about it in its Election Administration and Post-election Survey. ”

Another expert chimed in, saying the non-disclosure envelope wasn’t even necessary.

Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, head of voting information for the nonprofit US Vote Foundation, said in the same Whyy article above, “I can tell you unequivocally that we believe in the confidentiality of each person’s vote as the ultimate goal, but we don’t agree with you that it should be used as a reason for rejecting the ballot. That is extreme.”

Republicans have ruled Pennsylvania’s bicameral legislature for the past decade. After the midterms of 2022, the lower chamber will now be managed almost democratically.

Democrat Mark Moffa swept the final State House race for Bucks County’s 142nd District to Republican Joseph Hogan, while the Republican held a 53-vote lead that was close to the Democrat but saw no victory.

As a person who was registered as a voter in four different states, Pennsylvania’s mail-in voting rules are the most prohibitive and stressful. They are difficult to complete correctly, in part due to their needless stupidity and busy work. Add people who aren’t detail oriented, can’t read well, are older – it’s an unfair and pointless obstacle.

The party, which says it opposes the culture of cancellation, is working hard to cancel elections and votes. There is no more egregious culture of abortion than the abrogation of a person’s fundamental right to choose.

The votes of ten thousand nine hundred and twenty Democratic voters were annulled. Every single qualified voter whose vote was annulled by this unnecessary rule and failure to push for a cure has been unfairly disenfranchised.

Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily’s newsletter podcast here.

Sarah has been accredited to report on President Barack Obama, then-Vice President Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and to exclusively interview spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively on her first appearance at home following the then-Vice President’s first impeachment to report to President Donald Trump.

Sarah is a two-time Telly Award-winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

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FDA Approves Biogen, Eisai Remedy Lecanemab

MRI image of brain showing area of ​​Alzheimer’s patient.

Getty Images

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday granted accelerated approval for Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab, the second treatment out biogenic and its Japanese partner Eisai received the early green light in less than two years.

The FDA’s approval comes after clinical trial results released in November indicated that lecanemab may slow cognitive decline somewhat in people with mild impairment from Alzheimer’s disease, but the treatment also carries the risk of brain swelling and bleeding.

Eisai, who led the development of lecanemab, is pricing the treatment at $26,500 a year in the US. It is sold under the Leqembi name.

The FDA may expedite approval of a drug to get it to market quickly if it is expected to help patients with serious illnesses more than is currently available. Biogen and Eisai filed for accelerated approval in July.

“Alzheimer’s disease immeasurably impacts the lives of those who suffer from it and has a devastating impact on their loved ones,” said Dr. Billy Dunn, director of the FDA’s Division of Neuroscience, in a statement. “This treatment option is the latest therapy that targets and affects the underlying disease process of Alzheimer’s rather than just treating the symptoms of the disease.”

More than 6.5 million people in the US suffer from Alzheimer’s. The irreversible disease destroys memory, the ability to think, and eventually the ability to perform simple tasks.

The decision on lecanameb came after Congress released a damning report last week on how the FDA handled the controversial approval of another Alzheimer’s drug developed by Biogen and Eisai called Aduhelm. The 2021 approval of this treatment, which experts said showed no clear clinical benefit, was “riddled with irregularities,” according to the report.

The congressional report said the “FDA must act quickly to ensure that its processes for reviewing future treatments for Alzheimer’s disease do not raise the same doubts about the integrity of the FDA’s review.”

Slightly slows down the disease

Lecanemab is a monoclonal antibody that targets a protein called amyloid, which builds up in the brain of people with Alzheimer’s. The antibody is given intravenously every two weeks in doses based on a patient’s body weight, given 10 milligrams per kilogram.

The FDA approved lecanemab based on the reduction in amyloid plaque observed in clinical trial participants who received the treatment, the agency said in a statement. Participants who did not receive the treatment, the placebo arm, had no reduction in amyloid plaques.

The results of the clinical study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that people who received lecanemab had a 27% slower rate of cognitive decline over 18 months than those who did not receive the treatment. The study was funded by Biogen and Eisai.

Cognitive decline was measured using a system called the Clinical Dementia Score, an 18-point scale, with a higher score indicating a higher level of impairment. It measures cognitive functions such as memory, judgment and problem solving.

Alzheimer’s disease progressed by an average of 1.21 points in the group that received lecanemab, compared with 1.66 points in the group that did not receive the treatment, a modest difference of 0.45 points.

Almost 1,800 people aged 50 to 90 with early-stage Alzheimer’s took part in the study, about half of whom received lecanemab and half did not.

security concerns

Although lecanemab may slow cognitive decline somewhat, the treatment also comes with risks.

Almost 13% of the patients who received lecanemab developed brain swelling, compared with around 2% in the group that did not receive the treatment. However, most of these cases were mild to moderate, did not cause symptoms, and usually resolved within four months.

About 3% of patients receiving lecanemab had more severe brain swelling, with symptoms such as headache, blurred vision and confusion.

Around 17% of the patients who received lecanemab had bleeding in the brain, compared with 9% in the group not taking the treatment. The most common symptom associated with the bleeding was dizziness.

Overall, 14% of people who received lecanemab experienced serious adverse events in the clinical study, compared with 11% of people who did not receive treatment.

The study authors said longer clinical trials are needed to determine the efficacy and safety of lecanemab in patients with early Alzheimer’s disease.

The FDA said the prescribing information for lecanemab will include a warning about a risk of swelling and bleeding, commonly referred to as amyloid-related imaging abnormalities.

The death of a participant in a clinical trial in the Chicago area could also potentially be linked to lecanemab, according to a research letter published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The 65-year-old suffered a stroke and was hospitalized four days after the third lecanemab infusion. A CT scan performed after the patient’s stroke revealed severe bleeding in the brain. An MRI done 81 days before the stroke had found no bleeding.

The patient had also been given a drug called t-PA, which is used to break up blood clots that cause strokes. However, according to the physicians who wrote the research letter, extensive cerebral hemorrhage would be an unusual complication of this drug alone.

Researchers involved in the lecanemab clinical trial argued in a reply letter that the blood clot drug appeared to be the immediate cause of the patient’s death, with the first symptoms appearing 8 minutes after receiving an infusion of the blood clot breaker.

CNBC Health & Science

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Damar Hamlin speaks publicly for the primary time since cardiac arrest

Damar Hamelin spoke up after his hospital stay.

Buffalo Bills security took to Instagram to share his first public statement since suffering cardiac arrest on the field during an NFL game earlier this week.

“When you put true love into the world, it comes back to you three times as much,” Hamlin wrote on Jan. 7. “The love was overwhelming, but I’m thankful for every single person who prayed for me and reached out to me.”

While recovering, Hamlin commented that he has confidence in the future of his health.

“We brought the world back together behind it,” he continued. “If you know me, you know it only makes me stronger. On a long way keep praying for me!”

Hamlin also took to his IG Story on January 7 to share a snap of himself on a video call, showing him grinning from ear to ear. He paired the screenshot with the words “Back Working Back Smiling!!!”

Who would purchase WWE when McMahon returns on board to drive gross sales?

World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. Chairman Vince McMahon is introduced during the WWE Monday Night Raw show at the Thomas & Mack Center August 24, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Ethan Mueller | Getty Images

Vince McMahon has returned World Wrestling Entertainment Board of Directors to facilitate potential sales discussions prior to the renewal of the company’s media rights.

The idea of ​​selling WWE isn’t new. CNBC reported that it looked like a sell target in April and only looked more appealing in July following a sexual misconduct scandal. The rationale is pretty simple: WWE is valuable intellectual property.

Owning IP allows streaming services to offer content exclusively without the hassle of winning licensing rights in an auction every few years. WWE also has value to offer in the areas of merch and theme parks.

According to people familiar with the matter, WWE has hired JPMorgan to advise the company on a potential sale. JPMorgan declined to comment. A WWE spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.

If a deal does come about, it would likely happen in the next three to six months, said the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are private. WWE plans to talk to potential buyers before making a decision on TV rights renewal deals.

facilitating a sale

McMahon’s return should help ensure a smooth sales process, though there could still be hiccups.

The former CEO and chairman is 77 years old and is WWE’s majority shareholder. He resigned after an investigation found he paid nearly $15 million to four women over 16 years to quash allegations of alleged sexual misconduct and infidelity. Returning to the board gives potential buyers the confidence that he supports the details of each transaction.

“My return will allow WWE, as well as all transaction partners, to participate in these processes knowing that they will have the support of the controlling shareholder,” McMahon said in a statement Thursday.

McMahon’s return does not affect the current lead. McMahon’s daughter Stephanie and former CAA agent Nick Khan are co-CEOs. However, it remains unclear what kind of role McMahon wants in WWE if he sells the company. WWE has told investors that McMahon’s role with the company is critical to “our ability to create beloved characters and creative storylines.” Currently, McMahon has no formal say over the company’s creative direction.

Mansoor (below) competes with Mustafa Ali during the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Crown Jewel pay-per-view in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on October 21, 2021.

Fayez Nureldine | AFP | Getty Images

Whether a buyer would be ok with McMahon taking a more hands-on role at the company is unknown. But WWE is McMahon’s life’s work. It is possible that a sale will only take place under conditions to which at least some conditions are attached.

WWE has a market cap of more than $6 billion after rising nearly 17% percent on Friday, boosted by heightened speculative selling.

There are three categories of potential buyers for WWE – the legacy media companies, the streamers, and the entertainment holdings. Here’s who might be interested.

Komcast

Komcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is a potential buyer for WWE. McMahon’s company already has an exclusive streaming deal with Comcast’s streaming service Peacock and a cable TV deal with NBCUniversals USA Network. Comcast has a market cap of more than $160 billion and can easily afford the company — especially with a $9 billion (or more) check from Disney for a 33% stake in Hulu back in January 2024 comes.

Comcast can permanently ban WWE without paying for upcoming rights renewals and can use the company’s intellectual property for theme parks, movies and other spin-off series.

Still, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said in October “the bar has never been higher when it comes to mergers and acquisitions,” and has repeatedly said the company is in no rush to pursue an acquisition.

Fox

Disney

Returning CEO Bob Iger may want to make a splashy acquisition when he reclaims the throne Disney. WWE suits Disney as well as Comcast. It would bolster Disney’s streaming ambitions (maybe ESPN+), it would support its linear network business, and it would add some weight to its merch and theme park businesses.

Not wanting Disney to walk away with Fox in 2019, Comcast drove the price up tens of billions by beating Iger’s original bid. Could Iger see WWE as the next IP match between Disney and its rival Comcast?

Disney CEO Bob Iger attends the European film premiere of ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ at Cineworld Leicester Square on December 18, 2019 in London, England.

Viktor Szymanowicz Future Publishing | Getty Images

Warner Bros. Discovery

Netflix

Netflix has long shied away from sports and other live events, but has recently been open to the idea of ​​fully owning or taking a stake in a league. Owning a sports league would give Netflix the ability to smoothly create video games and spinoff series. Netflix’s success with its Formula 1 documentary series, Drive to Survive, gave co-CEO Reed Hastings confidence that certain sports offerings would resonate with Netflix’s massive global audience. But Netflix doesn’t own Formula 1, which limits its future options.

Acquiring WWE or any other sports league would be a way to offer live entertainment without renting content – much like Zaslav thinks.

“We haven’t seen a profit path to rent big sports,” co-CEO Ted Sarandos said at the UBS Global TMT Conference last month. “We’re not anti-sport, we’re just pro-profit.”

Amazon

Endeavor Group holdings

Make an efforthelmed by super agent Ari Emanuel could add WWE to its assets after agreeing to buy 100% of UFC in 2021.

Emanuel bought UFC to expand the talent agency’s business scope into live events. WME-IMG, now just part of Endeavour, represents many UFC athletes – as well as WWE Superstars. The UFC deal was a success for Endeavor, which paid out roughly seven times the $600 million in 2016 earnings in 2016. UFC generated more than $1 billion in revenue in 2022.

Ari Emanuel speaks onstage during the 2017 LACMA Art + Film Gala Honoring Mark Bradford and George Lucas Presented By Gucci at LACMA on November 4, 2017 in Los Angeles, California.

Stefanie Keenan | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Endeavor’s enterprise value of just about $11 billion makes WWE a big move for the company. The company’s relatively small balance sheet would likely prevent Endeavor from winning a bidding war against media giants. But McMahon’s oversized persona might suit brash Emanuel and UFC President Dana White.

Selling it to a third party would also allow WWE to increase the renewal of the rights every few years. That may or may not bode well for the company’s long-term future as the media distribution ecosystem changes.

freedom media

While Endeavor owns UFC, Liberty’s Formula 1 group owns Formula 1. John Malone, Liberty’s majority shareholder, and CEO Greg Maffei, along with Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali, have figured out how to market the auto racing league globally, including breaking through American culture after decades of darkness.

Malone and Maffei have extensive track records of maximizing media ratings and acquiring media assets for less than $10 billion including Formula 1, Sirius XM and Pandora. The global success of Formula 1 could provide a roadmap for future WWE strategy.

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, CNBC’s parent company.

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