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Lukoil Chairman Ravil Maganov is the eighth Russian vitality govt to die all of the sudden this yr

Lukoil Chairman Ravil Maganov is the 8th Russian energy executive to die suddenly this year

Russian President Vladimir Putin stands next to first executive vice president of oil producer Lukoil Ravil Maganov after awarding him with the Order of Alexander Nevsky during an awards ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia November 21, 2019.

Mikhail Klimentyev | Kremlin | Sputnik | via Reuters

WASHINGTON – The death of Ravil Maganov, chairman of Russian oil giant Lukoil, on Thursday in a Moscow hospital appears to be the eighth time this year that a Russian energy executive has died suddenly and under unusual circumstances.

Maganov died after falling from a window at the capital’s Central Clinical Hospital, according to Russia’s state-sponsored Interfax news agency. The circumstances of Maganov’s death were confirmed by Reuters, citing two anonymous sources. The oil company and its CEO had criticized the war in Ukraine and expressed their disapproval in a March 3 statement.

But Lukoil, the company Maganov helped build, said in a press statement the 67-year-old “died after a serious illness”. The Russian embassy in Washington did not respond to a request from CNBC for official comment.

The circumstances surrounding Maganov’s sudden death have attracted international attention, in part because seven other senior Russian energy executives have died untimely since January, according to reports from Russian and international news outlets.

Below is a list of these cases in chronological order.

  • In late January, Leonid Shulman, a top executive at Russian natural gas giant Gazprom, was found dead in the bathroom of a cottage in the village of Leninsky. The Russian media group RBC reported on his death but gave no cause.
  • On February 25, another Gazprom executive, Alexander Tyulakov, was found dead in the same village as Shulman, this time in a garage. According to Russian media outlet Novaya Gazeta, investigators found a note near Tyulakov’s body.
  • On February 28, three days after Tyulakov’s death, a Russian oil and gas billionaire living in England, Mikhail Watford, was found hanged in the garage of his country house. Investigators at the time reportedly said Watford’s death was “unexplained” but did not appear suspicious.
  • On April 18, a former vice president of Gazprombank, Vladislav Avayev, was found dead in his apartment in Moscow along with his wife and daughter, who also died. Authorities were treating the case as a murder-suicide, Radio Free Europe reported at the time. Gazprombank is Russia’s third largest bank and has close ties to the energy sector.
  • On April 19, a former deputy chairman of Novatek, Russia’s largest liquefied natural gas producer, was found dead in a holiday home in Spain. Like Avayev in Moscow, Sergei Protosenya was found with his wife and daughter, who were also deceased. And like Avayev said, police investigating the scene believed it was a homicide-suicide, a theory that Avayev’s surviving son has publicly denied.
  • In May, the body of billionaire and former Lukoil manager Alexander Subbotin was discovered in the basement of a country house in the Moscow region. The room where Subbotin died was allegedly used for “Jamaican voodoo rituals,” the Russian state media company TASS reported, citing local authorities.
  • In July, Yury Voronov, the CEO and founder of a shipping company servicing Gazprom’s Arctic projects, was found dead from an apparent gunshot wound in a swimming pool at his home in Leninsky, the same elite St. Petersburg condominium where Shulman and Tyulakov died earlier in the year.

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Social Safety is projected to be bancrupt a yr sooner than beforehand forecast.

Social Security is projected to be insolvent a year earlier than previously forecast.

The financial outlook for social security is eroding faster than previously expected as the coronavirus pandemic has squeezed government revenues and puts additional strain on one of the country’s top social safety nets programs. However, overall Medicare finances are expected to remain stable, although the health program is expected to remain under financial pressure in the coming years.

Annual government reports on the solvency of the programs, released Tuesday, highlighted questions about their long-term viability at a time when a wave of baby boomers is retiring and the economy faces persistent uncertainty as variants of the coronavirus increase. The US economy is already facing rising national debt in the coming decades, but both Democrats and Republicans have been cautious about making significant structural reforms to popular programs.

“A strong Social Security and Medicare program is essential to ensure a safe retirement for all Americans, especially our most vulnerable populations,” Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in a statement. “The Biden-Harris government is committed to protecting these programs and ensuring that they continue to provide economic security and health care to older Americans.”

Senior administration officials said the long-term impact of the pandemic on programs was unclear. Actuaries were forced to make assumptions about how long Covid would continue to lead to unusual patterns of hospital admissions and deaths and whether it would contribute to long-term disability in survivors.

The Social Security Old Age and Survivors Trust Fund will now be depleted in 2033, a year earlier than previously forecast, according to the report. By that time, the trust fund’s reserves will be depleted and the program will be insolvent as the new tax revenue cannot cover the planned payments. The report estimates that 76 percent of scheduled benefits can be paid out unless Congress changes the rules to allow full payouts.

Understand the Infrastructure Act

    • A trillion dollar package passed. The Senate passed a comprehensive bipartisan infrastructure package on Aug. 10 that concludes weeks of intense negotiations and debates on the largest federal investment in the nation’s aging public construction system in more than a decade.
    • The final vote. The final balance in the Senate was 69 to 30 votes against. Legislation yet to be passed by the House of Representatives would touch almost every facet of the American economy and strengthen the nation’s response to planet warming.
    • Main Spending Areas. Overall, the bipartisan plan focuses on spending on transportation, utilities, and removing pollution.
    • transport. About $ 110 billion would be used on roads, bridges, and other transportation projects; $ 25 billion for airports; and $ 66 billion for the railroad, making Amtrak most of the funding it has received since it was founded in 1971.
    • Utilities. The Senators have also raised $ 65 billion to connect hard-to-reach rural communities to high-speed internet and attract low-income urban dwellers who can’t afford it, and $ 8 billion for western water infrastructure.
    • Cleaning up pollution: Approximately $ 21 billion would be used to rehabilitate abandoned wells and mines, as well as Superfund sites.

The Disability Insurance Trust Fund is now expected to be depleted by 2057, which is eight years earlier than previously assumed, at which point 91 percent of benefits will be paid.

Medicare finances are effectively staying stable. While tax revenue for the Medicare program declined due to the Covid-related recession, Medicare also spent less than usual last year as people avoided electoral care.

Medicare’s Hospital Trust Fund is expected to be unable to pay all of its bills by 2026. This estimate is similar to that of Medicare Trustees in recent years. That loophole could now be closed by increasing the Medicare wage tax rate from 2.9 percent to 3.67 percent or by reducing Medicare spending by 16 percent each year, the report said.

However, the report highlighted that the official estimate may be unrealistically optimistic. If certain policies that expire in the next 10 years are renewed or other expected policy changes occur, the projections would look much more worrying.

In the long run, the actuaries said they did not believe that Covid-19 itself would have a significant impact on Medicare’s hospital care spending. On the one hand, the death of many vulnerable, elderly Americans from the virus can reduce future expenses that they would otherwise have received. On the flip side, the actuaries expect that some people might have additional health needs due to the syndrome known as Long Covid.

Biden’s budget 2022

Fiscal year 2022 for the federal government begins October 1, and President Biden has announced what he plans to spend from that point on. But any issue requires the approval of both houses of Congress. The plan includes:

    • Ambitious total expenditure: President Biden wants the federal government to spend $ 6 trillion in fiscal year 2022 and total spending to rise to $ 8.2 trillion by 2031. This would bring the United States to its highest sustained federal spending level since World War II, while running deficits of over $ 1.3 trillion over the next decade.
    • Infrastructure plan: The budget outlines the President’s desired first year of investment in his American Jobs Plan, which aims to fund improvements to roads, bridges, public transportation, and more for a total of $ 2.3 trillion over eight years.
    • Family plan: The budget also addresses the other major spending proposal that Biden has already launched, his American Families Plan, which aims to strengthen the United States’ social safety net by expanding access to education, lowering childcare costs, and bringing women in the world of work are supported.
    • Compulsory programs: As usual, mandatory spending on programs like Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare is a significant part of the proposed budget. They grow as America’s population ages.
    • Discretionary issues: Funds for the individual budgets of the agencies and executive programs would reach around $ 1.5 trillion in 2022, a 16 percent increase over the previous budget.
    • How Biden would pay for it: The president would fund his agenda largely through tax hikes for businesses and high earners, which would begin to reduce budget deficits in the 2030s. Administrative officials said tax increases would fully offset employment and family plans over the course of 15 years, which the budget request supports. In the meantime, the budget deficit would stay above $ 1.3 trillion each year.

The actuaries declined to estimate the effects of Aduhelm, a very expensive Alzheimer’s treatment recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The report said officials waited for Medicare to issue guidelines on drug coverage before doing any calculations. The drug could cost tens of billions of dollars in spending each year.

Democrats in Congress are considering a number of changes to the Medicare program, such as the addition of new benefits, including coverage for dental, hearing and visual aids. While these changes are expected to affect Medicare’s overall finances, none of them are likely to have a major impact on the trust fund, which only covers hospital care.

“Medicare Trust Solvency is an incredibly important, long-standing issue and we are determined to work with Congress to continue building a dynamic, equitable, and sustainable Medicare program,” said Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

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Dow jumps 200 factors, S&P 500 hits report as Powell prepares markets for Fed’s bond taper this 12 months

Dow jumps 200 points, S&P 500 hits record as Powell prepares markets for Fed's bond taper this year

Traders work on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, USA, 19 August 2021.

Wang Ying | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images

Shares rose on Friday, heading for a successful week as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell prepared the markets for the central bank to pull back on some of its monetary stimulus and said it will likely begin its monthly bond purchases in the amount of $ 120 billion this year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 244 points, or 0.6%. The S&P 500 rose 0.8% to hit a record 4,505.16. The Nasdaq Composite gained 1.1% to hit a record 15,102.70.

The three most important stock averages will all close the week in the green. The Dow is up 0.9% since weekday, while the S&P 500 is up 1.4% and the Nasdaq Composite is up 2.5%.

The 10-year government bond yield featured in Powell’s speech this week eased slightly after the Fed chief made it clear that rate hikes would not follow immediately after the tapering ended.

“The timing and pace of the impending reduction in bond purchases will not be a direct signal of the timing of the rate hike, for which we have formulated a different and much more stringent test,” said Powell.

Powell also said inflation is solidly around the central bank’s 2% target rate, one of the targets of the Fed’s dual mandate. However, it “has a lot of ground to overcome” to meet its other goal of maximum employment, although there has been “clear progress” along the way, Powell added. The Fed has used the phrase “significant further progress” as a measure of when it will start tightening monetary policy.

Based on statements from other Fed officials, a reduction in the announcement could be made at the Fed meeting on September 21-22.

The financial market reaction on Friday is a sign that the central bank has so far been successfully preparing investors for their monthly $ 120 billion in 2013. Markets seem relieved that the Fed is not planning to hike rates anytime soon, said Michael Arone, Chief Investment Strategist for the US SPDR business at State Street Global Advisors.

“Rate hikes are far, far away and investors are excited about them,” he said. “I think Powell deserves credit for mastering asset reductions and avoiding a tantrum. The market appears to be well prepared for the reductions to begin.”

The speech also signaled that the Fed is not nearly as nervous about prices as some in the market and in Washington, said Adam Crisafulli, founder of Vital Knowledge.

“Powell spends most of the speech addressing inflation concerns,” he said of the speech, adding that Powell “is addressing concerns about rate hikes and telling markets that the threshold for rate hikes is much higher than a cut.”

Cornerstone Wealth’s chief investment officer, Cliff Hodge, noted that Powell held firm to the Fed’s view that increased inflation is temporary, despite the fact that the Department of Commerce on Friday reported the largest increase in consumer spending since 1991. The PCE index rose 4.2% in July on the same date last year and 0.4% on the previous month.

“He successfully threaded the needle to communicate that the taper is likely to begin this year while reiterating the idea that the taper is not a tightening,” Hodge said. “We believe that this September, subject to further setbacks from the Delta variant, is likely to result in a number of blowout jobs and set the table for the official reduction announcement at the FOMC meeting in September.”

Energy stocks led the S&P higher after being hit hardest on Thursday. Occidental Petroleum was up 7%, Cimarex Energy was up 6% and Marathon Oil was up 5%.

Workday’s shares were up 11% after reporting strong earnings and subscription income currently, up 23% year over year. Gap rose nearly 2% after the apparel retailer’s quarterly earnings report beat sales and bottom line, while Peloton stocks fell after the exercise equipment maker’s fourth quarter financial results missed Wall Street’s estimates. The peloton fell 8%.

The three major US indices closed the regular trading session lower on Thursday. The Dow had a four-day winning streak while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both broke a five-day winning streak.

Market participants also observed new developments in Afghanistan that appeared to weigh on investor sentiment. The Pentagon confirmed Thursday that explosions near Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan killed 13 US soldiers and injured 18.

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“The markets don’t like uncertainty and uncertainty in Afghanistan is high and feels like it is rising,” said Bob Doll, chief investment officer of Crossmark Global Investments.

The indices are on track to end the month higher. The Dow was up 1.4% in August. The S&P 500 is up 2.5% this month and the Nasdaq Composite is up 2.9%.

– Jeff Cox, Patti Domm, and Yun Li contributed to this report.

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Health

A Return to Freedom, After Almost a 12 months Trapped Indoors Underneath Lockdown

A Return to Freedom, After Nearly a Year Trapped Indoors Under Lockdown

TORONTO — Ted Freeman-Atwood, 90, rolled out of his tall brick nursing home in his wheelchair, wearing a blue tweed jacket with a white handkerchief peaking from its breast pocket. “This is the farthest I’ve traveled since last year,” he told the manager of his favorite restaurant two blocks away, who greeted him by name.

It was a beautiful day in June. The sky clear, the sun generous and Toronto’s streets alive. After eight months of near-constant, government-enforced closures, small storefronts flung open their doors to customers and restaurant patrons spilled out from sidewalk patios onto the road.

It was Mr. Freeman-Atwood’s first real outing since August 2020; his second since the coronavirus pandemic began.

He ordered a glass of pinot grigio, explaining how he hadn’t tasted that pleasure in almost a year because “the joint I live in doesn’t want drunk old men pawing girls after 5 p.m.”

Toronto — the city labeled “the lockdown capital of North America” by the national federation of small businesses — was giddy with liberty and freedoms that many had considered chores back in February 2020.

Since December, gatherings in the city — even outdoors — had been banned, filling the city with a sense of loneliness. No one felt this more acutely than residents of Toronto’s nursing homes. Ground zero for the pandemic’s cruel ravages, they account for 59 percent of the country’s Covid-19 deaths. As a result, they also became the most fortified. Locked down since last March, most facilities refused all visitors for months.

For all but five weeks between March 2020 and June 2021, care home residents in Toronto were not permitted to leave their buildings for nonmedical reasons, not even a stroll. Many compared themselves to caged animals or prisoners. The lucky ones lived in residences with attached courtyards, where they could at least feel the sun on their faces.

Mr. Freeman-Atwood was not among the lucky ones.

“I’m bored to tears,” he said in January, two weeks after he’d received his first dose of the Moderna vaccine. “I do virtually nothing. Today, nothing awful happened, noting half-awful happened, nothing brilliant happened, nothing half-brilliant happened.”

He added, “I’m in my room all day.”

The child of a British army general and a mother from Newfoundland, Mr. Freeman-Atwood had lived a large, roaming life. He traveled around the world as a child and spent most of his adulthood in Rio de Janeiro, where he eventually became president of Brascan, a large Canadian firm that owned the biggest hydroelectric utility in the Southern Hemisphere, until he negotiated its sale to the Brazilian government.

In 2012, Mr. Freeman-Atwood moved into the Nisbet Lodge, a Christian nonprofit long-term care home in Toronto’s busy Greektown neighborhood. He’d suffered five aneurysms in 10 years, and had one leg removed because of bad circulation. After gangrene eventually set into the remaining leg, the doctors amputated that one, too.

His second wife had died from cancer, and he’d stubbornly refused an offer from his only child, Samantha, to take him in.

“I’m too much of a bloody nuisance,” he explained. “I’m in a wheelchair. I can’t get up or downstairs. Why should I inflict that on her?”

Before the pandemic, Mr. Freeman-Atwood regularly met Samantha, his son-in-law and two grandsons for lunch at nearby restaurants; he visited the bank and local cheese shop; and once a week, he wheeled his way to the liquor store for some wine, which he would smuggle back to his room.

Then, in March 2020, he lost what was left of his relatively independent lifestyle. He survived an outbreak in the home, during which 35 staff members and 53 residents tested positive. Four residents died. Mr. Freeman-Atwood tested positive, but experienced no symptoms.

He could no longer see his daughter, who found the trips to the building to drop off cookies and supplies for him heartbreaking.

On regular phone calls throughout the winter and spring, Mr. Freeman-Atwood’s only complaint was boredom. Sometimes, the sound of his neighbor moaning in pain echoed hauntingly in the background.

“I know it could be a hell of a lot worse,” he said. “I’d love to go out. What if I picked it up and then came back?”

During the pandemic, Canadian geriatricians sounded an alarm about “confinement syndrome.” Residents in nursing homes were losing weight, as well as cognitive and physical abilities because of social isolation — concerning given that even in nonpandemic times most residents die within two years of arriving at a care home.

Mr. Freeman-Atwood tried to stay busy. He had three newspapers delivered on Saturdays, tabulated the tax returns for four people in the spring and completed 300 exercise repetitions each morning before getting out of bed.

A big day for him was a rare trip to the building’s dining room on the top floor, where he could speak to one young waitress in German, a language he had perfected in 1956 in Austria, when he worked doing the accounts of an aid group tending to Hungarian refugees.

He met his first wife, who was also working with refugees, in Vienna. “We were young enough to think we were doing good,” he said.

As the pandemic dragged on, Mr. Freeman-Atwood also revealed some vulnerable moments.

In late March, he was presiding over a second-floor meeting of the residents’ council, which he has led since moving in. Outside, the city was in early bloom, the forsythia bushes glowing an electric yellow of promise. In an instant, the sun spilled through the windows.

“It was drawing us out, calling, ‘Come out, come out, come out and play,’” said Mr. Freeman-Atwood. “‘You’ve had your two Moderna jabs, why can’t you come out?’ The answer is, ‘No, the rest of the world hasn’t. And when will that be, nobody knows.”

Canada’s nursing homes were the first places to receive the country’s vaccines and by February, every resident of these homes in Ontario had been offered a first dose. Still, the restrictions did not change.

Government officials were “so burned by poor performance, the last thing they wanted is to be that minister who allows more bad things to happen,” said Dr. Samir Sinha, the director of geriatrics at Sinai Health System and University Health Network in Toronto. He was among those lobbying the government this past spring to relax its restrictions.

“At this point,” he said, “the risks of loneliness and social isolation are far greater than dying from Covid in these homes.”

Though the Delta variant has reached Ontario in recent months, it has not caused the damage — or shutdowns — as seen in other parts of the world, in part because of the high rate of vaccinations. Eighty-two percent of the province’s eligible population has received at least one vaccine dose, as of Aug. 11.

When Mr. Freeman-Atwood finally emerged in June, it wasn’t to go on a grand voyage. His dream outing was much simpler. He rolled into a dollar store a block from his building to peruse the cheap watches, since his had broken. “Do you remember me?” he asked the man behind the counter. He was like a shipwreck survivor, giddy from the joys of basic social interaction.

“This is my first time outside in a year,” he exclaimed.

The restaurant patio bubbled with noises, like an awakening orchestra. The music from speakers threaded with boisterous conversation. A toddler at a neighboring table screamed; her parents explained this was her first time at a patio.

Meals were savored, checks slow to arrive. Mr. Freeman-Atwood ordered two more glasses of wine.

“This is more fun than I’ve had in a year,” he said.

On the way back to his building, he pushed past storefronts that hadn’t survived the pandemic; “For Sale” signs posted in their dusty windows. The sky was turning a bruising purple; storm clouds were gathering.

Mr. Freeman-Atwood said he didn’t know how long these freedoms would last, or whether we’d pay for them. But he was already planning another outing.

Vjosa Isai contributed research.

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Prime Cuomo aide’s father lobbied the governor’s workplace earlier this 12 months

Top Cuomo aide's father lobbied the governor's office earlier this year

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (L) speaks with Secretary to Governor Melissa DeRosa (R) during his daily press conference on March 20, 2020 in New York City.

Bennett Raglin | Getty Images

A firm run by the father of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s closest adviser was actively lobbying members of the governor’s team for clients earlier this year when former Cuomo advisors made allegations of sexual harassment and the governor was under investigation by the attorney general.

Giorgio DeRosa, the father of the governor’s powerful secretary Melissa DeRosa, is listed in lobbyists ‘disclosure reports as part of a group that actively engaged Cuomo’s staff in the Executive Chamber during Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation into the governor for alleged sexual harassment of several women, as records show.

The disclosure reports show that Giorgio DeRosa, a head of the influential Bolton-St. Johns and his team lobbied the Cuomo Executive Chamber from January through April. Melissa DeRosa’s brother, who also works at the company, is also listed in disclosure reports showing the group targeted the governor’s office during the same period.

Bolton-St. Johns made just over $ 80,000 in that time lobbying Cuomo’s team, the revelations show.

The first former Cuomo adviser went public in December on allegations of sexual harassment against the governor. James announced in late February that he would take over the investigation.

The attorney general’s report found that Cuomo sexually molested eleven women and violated state and federal laws. It is also alleged that Melissa DeRosa was an architect to protect the governor from the allegations. Cuomo continues to deny wrongdoing. A new Quinnipiac poll says 7 out of 10 voters think Cuomo should step down.

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Between January and February, Giorgio DeRosa was part of a team hiring Cuomo’s consultants on a variety of topics for phone giant Verizon, food service company Delaware North and casino giant Caesars Entertainment.

Recent lobbying by the team also targeted members of the attorney general of the Live Nation ticket company later in the year, although those investigating Cuomo were not listed as the people contacted by Giorgio DeRosa and his team.

Melissa DeRosa said she has withdrawn from anything to do with her father and her entire family. Giorgio DeRosa has stood up for Cuomo’s team in the past.

Still, the lobbying reports show that he and his company continued to have access to the governor’s inner circle at the start of and during an investigation highlighting his daughter’s role in the alleged attempt to protect the governor from scrutiny.

After CNBC asked questions about Melissa DeRosa’s father’s recent lobbying efforts, a Cuomo spokesman dismissed CNBC’s coverage as “nonsensical”. The spokesman reiterated that the governor’s secretary had withdrawn from all matters related to her family.

“As has been publicly announced for years, Melissa is being proactively withdrawn on any specific matter that involves members of her family, and the premise of this article is nonsensical,” Rich Azzopardi, a Cuomo spokesman, said in an e- Mail to CNBC on Friday.

Azzopardi is also mentioned repeatedly in the attorney general’s report.

The attorney general’s report shows, among other things, that in March Melissa DeRosa twice requested that Larry Schwartz, who was Cuomo’s Covid vaccine czar at the time, call the Democratic district governments to take her pulse on whether the governor should resign in light of the allegations.

“On the call, Ms. DeRosa asked Mr. Schwartz to contact the Democratic District Councils to clarify their positions on whether the governor should resign in light of the sexual harassment allegations. Mr. Schwartz said he agreed to make the calls because Ms. DeRosa, the governor’s secretary, had asked, “the report said. “Two weeks after Mr. Schwartz made his first round of calls, Ms. DeRosa asked him to make another round of calls to the county boards to review their positions. Mr. Schwartz made those calls again and reported back to Ms. DeRosa.”

Ethics experts have previously questioned Melissa DeRosa’s attempt to distance herself from her father. Susan Lerner, the executive director of the guard dog Common Cause / New York, told CNBC in a telephone interview on Friday that after she and her group initially asked Melissa DeRosa for greater transparency, she received a call from the secretary to the governor.

“She refuses to provide a list of the matters that she has withdrawn from. When she was first appointed we raised this issue and she said she would withdraw herself,” Lerner said. “We said, ‘OK, let the public know which of these customers you are not going to discuss with.’ She refused and called to yell at me and say it was out of my turn to address these issues. “

Lerner said there were always the appearances of ethical issues when Giorgio DeRosa swayed the governor’s office while his daughter worked for the governor.

“It’s built into the situation and that was clear from the start,” she said. “By the time she was selected, there would be at least the semblance of inappropriateness that everyone in the executive who met with her father was very much aware of the relationship between the governor’s secretary and the lobbyist’s meeting with. It certainly is obvious to customers. “

Melissa DeRosa was first appointed secretary in 2017.

Giorgio DeRosa defended the company, saying it always acted in accordance with the laws of the state.

“Bolton-St.Johns has been rated as the top lobbying firm in New York for over two decades. Clients hire our firm to leverage our diverse knowledge and political know-how to support effective results-oriented strategies, ”he said in an email on Friday. “This topic has been covered extensively by other media in the past, and only the impeccable compliance with state law has been reported.”

For Verizon, the Executive Chamber’s lobbying focused, according to the disclosure, on “New York State budget items that affect Verizon’s services” and an “ongoing approval issue at the Verizon workplace.”

During the same period, Giorgio DeRosa and his team, along with members of the state legislature, participated in the Cuomo Executive Chamber on “Sports Betting Issues in NYS”. [New York State]“For Caesars.

In April, Cuomo signed a budget bill for fiscal year 2022 that would enable online sports betting in the Empire State. Giorgio DeRosa’s group supported Cuomo’s team on the same issues for Delaware North, which also owns casinos.

Giorgio DeRosa’s lobbying work towards the Executive Chamber did not end there. It was not until April that he and his company continued to advocate for Caesars on issues related to sports betting.

From March through April, they also got access to the executive chamber of FuelCell Energy, a Connecticut-based clean energy provider.

Giorgio DeRosa and his law firm also targeted state legislators for FuelCell with discussions about the review of the “Definition of Renewable Energy in New York State”.

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Hong Kong’s Safety Regulation: One 12 months Later, a Metropolis Remade

Hong Kong's Security Law: One Year Later, a City Remade

HONG KONG – With each passing day, the border between Hong Kong and the rest of China is fading faster.

The Chinese Communist Party is rebuilding this city, permeating its once lively, irreverent character with ever more open signs of its authoritarian will. The structure of daily life is attacked as Beijing shapes Hong Kong into something more familiar, more docile.

Local residents are now teeming with police hotlines with reports of disloyal neighbors or colleagues. Teachers were told to fill students with patriotic zeal through 48-volume book sets entitled “My Home Is In China.” Public libraries have withdrawn dozens of books, including one on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

Hong Kong has always been an improbability. It was a flourishing metropolis on a headland of inhospitable land, an oasis of civil liberties under iron rule. As a former British colony that returned to China in 1997, the city was promised freedom of speech, assembly and press unimaginable on the mainland in an agreement that Beijing called “one country, two systems”.

But under Xi Jinping, China’s leader, the Communist Party is fed up with Hong Kong’s dueling identities. For the party, they made the city unpredictable and even brought it to the brink of rebellion in 2019 when anti-government protests erupted.

Now, armed with the sweeping national security law it imposed on the city a year ago, Beijing is pushing to transform Hong Kong into yet another of its mainland megacities: economic engines that instantly stifle disagreements.

“Hong Kong people from all walks of life have also recognized that ‘one country’ is the foundation and foundation of ‘two systems’,” said Luo Huining, Beijing’s senior official in Hong Kong, this month.

Hong Kong today is a montage of unfamiliar and for many unsettling scenes. Police officers were goose-stepped in the Chinese military style, replacing decades of British-style marching. City guides regularly denounce “external elements” that seek to undermine the country’s stability.

Senior officials in Hong Kong have gathered with their hands raised to pledge allegiance to the country, just as mainland bureaucrats are regularly called to “biao tai”, Mandarin, to “express their position”.

When the government ordered ordinary employees to sign a written version of the oath, HW Li, a seven-year-old civil servant, resigned.

The new requirements not only require loyalty professions; they also warn of dismissal or other vague consequences in the event of violations. Mr. Li heard some supervisors nag their co-workers to fill out the form right away, and employees vie for how quickly they complied.

“The rules that should protect everyone – as employees and as citizens alike – are being weakened,” said Mr. Li.

In some corners of society the rules have been completely rewritten. However, Beijing denies failing to keep its promises to Hong Kong and insists on reiterating them.

When China revised Hong Kong’s electoral system to purge disloyal candidates, Beijing described the change as “Hong Kong’s perfecting electoral system.” When Apple Daily, a major pro-democracy newspaper, was forced to close after police arrested its senior executives, the party said the publication had abused “so-called freedom of the press”. When dozens of opposition politicians organized an informal pre-election, Chinese officials accused them of subversion and arrested them.

China’s power has become so ubiquitous that Chan Tat Ching, once a hero of the Hong Kong democracy movement, spent the past year urging his friends not to challenge Beijing.

Three decades ago, after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, Chan, a Hong Kong businessman, helped direct an operation that smuggled students and academics from the mainland.

But Beijing is more demanding today than it was in 1989, Chan said. It had intimidated Hong Kong without even sending troops; that demanded respect.

He admitted that the security law was enforced too strictly, but said that nothing could be done.

“Some young people don’t understand. They think the Communist Party is a paper tiger, ”he said. “The Communist Party is a real tiger.”

China’s new power has also established itself in the Hong Kong business community. For decades, the mainland economy had tried to catch up with that of Hong Kong, the financial center so proud of its global identity that its government dubbed it “Asia’s metropolis.”

Now China’s economy is booming, and officials are increasingly turning Hong Kong’s global identity towards that one country.

Chinese state-owned companies have recently moved into offices in Hong Kong’s iconic skyscrapers that have been vacated by foreign banks. In November, Meituan, a Chinese grocer, ousted Swire, a British conglomerate, from the city’s main stock index. Financial analysts have called it the end of an era.

The rush on the mainland money has brought some new conditions with it.

After Beijing ruled that only “patriots” could run for office in Hong Kong earlier this year, the Bank of China International – a state-run institution – posted an advertisement for a director-level position stating that candidates should be “the country.” love”.

The central government is trying to convince Hong Kongers that the compromises on the mainland’s promise of prosperity are worthwhile. Officials encourage young Hong Kong residents to study and work in southern China’s cities of Shenzhen and Guangzhou, saying that those who do not go risk missing out on opportunities.

Toby Wong, 23, grew up in Hong Kong and had never considered working on the mainland. Her mother came from the mainland for work decades earlier. The salaries there were significantly lower.

But recently, Ms. Wong saw a subway advertisement promoting open positions in Shenzhen, in which the Hong Kong government promised to subsidize nearly $ 1,300 from a $ 2,300 monthly wage – more than at many entry-level positions at home. A high-speed rail link between the two cities allowed her to return to her mother at the weekend, who has to support Ms. Wong financially.

Ms. Wong applied to two Chinese technology companies.

“It’s not a political question. It’s a practical question, ”she said.

After all, the government is hoping to make the motivation political. At the heart of Beijing’s campaign is an attempt to educate future generations who will never think of separating the party’s interests from their own.

China’s firm grip

    • Behind the Hong Kong acquisition: A year ago, the city’s freedoms were being curtailed at breakneck speed. But the crackdown took years and many signals were overlooked.
    • Mapping China’s Post-Covid Path: China’s leader Xi Jinping tries to balance trust and caution as his country moves forward while other places continue to grapple with the pandemic.
    • A challenge for US global leadership: As President Biden predicts a battle between democracies and their adversaries, Beijing seeks to defend the other side.
    • ‘Red Tourism’ is flourishing: New and improved attractions dedicated to the history of the Communist Party, or an adjusted version of it, draw crowds ahead of the party’s centenary.

The Hong Kong government has issued hundreds of pages of new curriculum guidelines designed to “inspire affection for the Chinese people.” The geography class must confirm China’s control over the disputed areas of the South China Sea. Schoolchildren from the age of 6 learn the criminal offenses according to the Security Act.

Lo Kit Ling, who teaches a citizenship course at a high school, now makes sure to say only positive things about China in class. Although she has always tried to offer multiple perspectives on any subject, she feared that a critical perspective could be taken out of context by a student or parent.

Ms. Lo’s subject is particularly sensitive – city leaders have accused her of poisoning Hong Kong’s youth. The course had encouraged students to critically analyze China and convey the country’s economic successes alongside topics such as the Tiananmen Square raid.

Officials have ordered that the subject be replaced with an abbreviated version that emphasizes the positive.

“It’s not a class. It’s like brainwashing, ”said Ms. Lo. Instead, she will teach an elective in Hospitality Studies.

Not only school children are asked to watch out for dissenting opinions. In November, Hong Kong police opened a hotline to report suspected security law violations. “#YouCanHelp #SaveHK,” wrote the police on Twitter. An official recently applauded residents for leaving more than 100,000 messages in six months.

Constant neighborhood surveillance by informants is one of the Communist Party’s most effective tools for social control on the mainland. It’s supposed to keep people like Johnny Yui Siu Lau, a radio host in Hong Kong, from being so free in his criticism of China.

Mr. Lau said a producer recently told him that a listener reported him to the Broadcasting Authority.

“It will be a competition or a struggle to see how people in Hong Kong can protect freedom of expression,” Lau said.

Other freedoms that were once at the core of Hong Kong’s identity are disappearing. The government announced that it would censor films that are considered a threat to national security. Some officials have called for works of art by dissidents like Ai Weiwei to be banned from museums.

However, Hong Kong is not just another metropolis on the mainland. Residents have proven extremely reluctant to give up their freedom, and some have rushed to preserve totems of a discreet Hong Kong identity.

Masks labeled “Made in Hong Kong” are very popular. A local boy band, Mirror, has become a source of hope and pride as interest in canto pop resurfaces.

Last summer, Herbert Chow, who owns the children’s clothing chain Chickeeduck, installed a two-meter-tall protester figure – a woman with a gas mask and a protest flag – and other protest art in his shops.

But Mr Chow, 57, has come under pressure from his landlords, several of whom have refused to renew his leases. Last year there were 13 chickeeduck stores in Hong Kong; now there are five. He is unsure how long his city can withstand the burglaries of Beijing.

“Fear – it can make you stronger because you don’t want to live under fear,” he said. Or “it can kill your desire to fight.”

Joy Dong contributed to the research.

Categories
Health

Covid is deadlier this 12 months than all of 2020. Why do People assume it is over?

Covid is deadlier this year than all of 2020. Why do Americans think it's over?

Fans in the audience react as The Foo Fighters reopen Madison Square Garden in New York City on June 20, 2021.

Kevin Mazur | Getty Images

As the US presses on its reopening, easing masking requirements and lifting public health restrictions, much of the rest of the world is experiencing an alarming spike in Covid-19 infections and deaths.

The stark contrast underscores how unevenly the coronavirus pandemic has spread and is now hitting low-income countries harder as they struggle with access to vaccines, the rapid spread of new variants, and heavily stressed health systems.

It also shows why the global health crisis is far from over, even if nations like the US, China and the UK are seeing relatively low levels of Covid-19 infections and deaths thanks to a mass vaccination campaign.

According to the World Health Organization, more people died of Covid-19 this year than in all of 2020. The official worldwide death toll was 1,813,188 at the end of 2020. More than 2 million people have died as a result of Covid so far this year.

Covid-19 cases in the US have fallen well below the winter peak in recent weeks, with new diagnoses now falling a seven-day average of around 11,310 per day, compared to more than 250,000 at the start of the year. Fewer reported infections were associated with fewer hospitalizations and fewer deaths.

It has paved the way for most states to pursue plans to return to business as usual, with California and New York lifting most of their public health restrictions in the past few days.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said the state “turned the page on this pandemic,” while New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said, “We don’t just survive – we thrive.”

Fans break out after Phoenix Suns striker Mikal Bridges (25) shot a three-pointer over LA Clippers guard Reggie Jackson (1) late in the first game of the NBA Western Conference Finals at the Phoenix Suns Arena.

Robert Gauthier | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

Mississippi and Texas both lifted all Covid restrictions in March, with Texas Governor Greg Abbott adding additional threats of fines in May for cities and local officials who still impose mask requirements.

In the US, amusement parks, sports stadiums and bars are reopening and operating at full capacity since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eased their mask guidelines in May. The country’s leading health agency said it was safe for fully vaccinated people to take off their masks whether they were outside or inside.

“Two-lane pandemic”

The latest Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index found that the country’s fears of Covid-19 continued to decline as people increasingly got out of their homes. In the week ending June 8, about two-thirds of Americans saw family and friends, and 61% went to eat.

Both numbers have risen since the end of May and are said to represent “the highest level of out-of-home activities since the beginning of the pandemic”. The Axios-Ipsos survey was conducted from June 4th to 7th and was based on a nationally representative probability sample of 1,027 adults.

The return to normal in the US was encouraged by the country’s relatively high vaccination rates. More than 177 million doses have been given in the US, which according to US data, 53% of the population gives at least one dose. In contrast, some of the poorest countries in the world still have to register a single dose.

White House Health Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, during a press conference on the pandemic Tuesday, said the highly transmissible Delta variant is the “greatest threat” to the nation’s attempt to eradicate Covid-19.

Delta, which was first identified in India, now accounts for about 20% of all new cases in the United States, up from 10% about two weeks ago, Fauci said. He previously warned the country should not fall into the trap of believing the coronavirus crisis is over and no longer needs to be addressed.

In the global battle for Covid-19 vaccines, high-income countries have, as predictably, first tried to secure supplies for their own populations. It has created a situation where millions of people in countries like the US, UK and China have been given doses, largely thanks to domestic vaccine development and through pre-purchase agreements with manufacturers.

In comparison, parts of Africa, Asia and the Pacific islands have so far had low vaccination rates. Less affluent countries rely on Covax, the WHO vaccine exchange initiative. Vaccine diplomacy has also played an important role in the race for security of supply, despite health professionals raising questions about the effectiveness of vaccines made in China.

Ireland’s Health Minister Stephen Donnelly appeared to have gotten to the heart of why high-income countries are taking a “first-person” approach to vaccines when he spoke to the country’s Newstalk radio station earlier this year.

The idea that countries would be willing to vaccinate other countries before vaccinating their own populations “obviously doesn’t hold up,” Donnelly said. Referring specifically to the UK, he added, “You are not doing it. We would not be doing it.”

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), speaks after Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, during the 148th session of the Executive Board on the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Geneva, Switzerland, January 21, 2021.

Christopher Black | WHO | via Reuters

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has described persistent global inequality as “vaccine apartheid” and a “catastrophic moral failure” that has led to a “two-pronged pandemic”.

The WHO has warned that Covid-19 is spreading faster than the global distribution of vaccines. The common goal of the world must be to vaccinate at least 70% of the world’s population by the next meeting of the G-7 in Germany next year. Tedros has announced that it will take 11 billion doses of vaccine to meet this goal.

The heads of state and government of the G-7 promised on June 11 that they would secure an additional 1 billion vaccine doses either directly or through Covax over the next 12 months.

“This is a big help, but we need more and we need it faster. More than 10,000 people die every day,” Tedros said at a press conference on June 14th.

“These communities need vaccines now, not next year,” he added.

Access to the vaccine

Health experts have warned billions of people worldwide may not have access to vaccines this year, a prospect that increases the risk of further mutations in the virus – potentially undermining the effectiveness of existing vaccines – and prolong the pandemic.

“The very unequal access to vaccines between rich and poor countries is probably the most glaring example of how global inequalities manifest themselves during the Covid-19 pandemic,” says Dr. Michael Baker, an epidemiologist at the University of Otago in Wellington, New Zealand told CNBC.

Many groups have urged the waiver of certain intellectual property rights in Covid-19 vaccines and treatments, including the WHO, health experts, former world leaders and international medical charities.

President Joe Biden’s administration has thrown its weight behind the demands, but a small number of governments – including the UK, the EU and Brazil – have blocked a groundbreaking proposal submitted to the World Trade Organization.

A Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) officer manages the crowd while people line up in Phnom Penh on May 31, 2021 as part of the government’s campaign to curb the rising number of cases of China’s Sinopharm Covid-19 coronavirus Get vaccine.

TANG CHHIN SOTHY | AFP | Getty Images

The latest WHO figures show that the number of new cases has fallen worldwide for eight straight weeks, but that trend obscures worrying increases in cases and deaths in many countries.

“The decline has slowed in most regions, and in every region there are countries that are seeing rapid increases in cases and deaths. In Africa, the number of cases and deaths rose by almost 40% in the past week, and in some countries the number of deaths has tripled or quadrupled, “Tedros said at a briefing on Monday.

A study published May 22 in the medical journal The Lancet found that Africa has the world’s highest mortality rate among seriously ill Covid-19 patients, although fewer cases are recorded than most other regions.

“While a handful of countries have high vaccination rates and are now experiencing fewer hospital admissions and fewer deaths, other countries in Africa, America and Asia are now facing severe epidemics. These cases and deaths are largely preventable, ”said Tedros.

Warning delta variant

Health professionals are concerned about the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant. The Covid variant first identified in India is believed to be well on the way to becoming the dominant strain of the disease worldwide.

Former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC Thursday that the spread of the Delta variant in the US was “very worrying,” noting that its prevalence in the country is currently doubling every 10 to 14 days.

“It will become the dominant strain in the United States. Now the question is, will it be 90% of 10,000 infections a day or 90% of 100,000 infections a day?” said Gottlieb.

“I think as far as the summer is concerned, even with this new variant, we probably won’t see a major flare-up of infections, but this is a significant risk for the fall,” said Gottlieb.

Categories
World News

Bitcoin sell-off intensifies because the crypto falls under $30,000 degree, turns unfavorable for the 12 months

Bitcoin sell-off intensifies as the crypto falls below $30,000 level, turns negative for the year

The slump for bitcoin intensified on Tuesday as the leading cryptocurrency fell below the key $30,000 level and turned negative for 2021.

At its low of the day, Bitcoin fell more than 11% to about $28,911, below the $29,026 level where it ended 2020, according to Coin Metrics.The cryptocurrency was last down more than 9% to $29,410.30, according to Coin Metrics.

Technical analysts had been watching the $30,000 level as a key support level on the charts after the cryptocurrency had fallen to near that low during its May crash. The analysts, who study charts to make buying and selling decisions, believe the next level to watch for support could now be as low as $20,000.

Now that it is approaching $29,000, the price of bitcoin is threatening to turn negative for the year.

Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that bitcoin could still rebound after Tuesday’s move but there was significant downside to the next support level.

“$30,000, we’ll see if it holds on the day. We might plunge below it for a while and close above it. If it’s really breached, $25,000 is the next big level of support,” Novogratz said. “Listen, I’m less happy than I was at $60,000 but I’m not nervous.”

Bitcoin has been struggling to reclaim its highs from earlier in the quarter. It fell dramatically in May following some market-moving tweets by Elon Musk about bitcoin-related environmental concerns, and then even further in early June around fears of the cryptocurrency’s use in the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack.

It’s been on a rollercoaster ride since then, battered by a stream of headlines out of China, where regulators have imposed new restrictions on energy-intensive mining and ordered financial institutions like Alipay to stop doing business with crypto companies. The price briefly touched $40,000 last week and fell again Monday.

With Tuesday’s losses, bitcoin has slid about 54% from its all-time high of more than $64,000 in mid-April, taking other cryptocurrencies along with it. Ether fell 8% and dogecoin is dropping more than 16%.

Significant pullbacks have happened before in the cryptocurrency market, with bitcoin falling about 80% from its late 2017 highs at one point. Professional crypto investors have warned that the space should continue to be volatile in the years ahead.

“The only guarantee with the cryptocurrency space is volatility and obviously, that’s what we have right now,” Fairlead Strategies founder Katie Stockton told CNBC. “It’s not new, we’ve had days like this before, it’s just a matter of navigating through this noise.”

Crypto investment product providers, such as CoinShares, Grayscale and Bitwise, are experiencing their sixth consecutive weeks of outflows, though some providers are seeing inflows, according to CoinShares. Bearish sentiment is more focused on bitcoin, with outflows for the week totaling $89 million.

Novogratz also noted that despite previous pullbacks, crypto market infrastructure is only becoming more mature, which has helped usher in more institutional support over the past year, with major hedge fund managers, pension funds and banks jumping into crypto, while registered investment advisors seek ways to get clients exposure to cryptocurrencies in ways that are compatible with their current workflow and wait for custody banks to introduce crypto services.

The price of bitcoin rose nearly 500% between mid-September of last year and its April peak. Even with the recent decline, the cryptocurrency is still up about 150% over the past 12 months.

Categories
Health

C.D.C. Requires Up to date Childhood Vaccinations After Decline Final 12 months

C.D.C. Calls for Updated Childhood Vaccinations After Decline Last Year

Pediatricians urge U.S. parents to get their children given routine vaccinations after vaccinations for diseases such as measles declined last year as the pandemic imposed restrictions, including the arrangement of homes.

New data from 10 jurisdictions that closely monitor vaccinations confirms that the number of vaccine doses administered fell between March and May last year, particularly in older children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.

Although vaccinations recovered between June 2020 and September 2020 and were approaching pre-pandemic levels, the increase was insufficient to offset the earlier decline, the study found.

Vaccination is required to attend most schools, camps and daycare, but the CDC study authors warned that the delay could nonetheless pose “a serious public health threat that would lead to vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks.”

They expressed concern that the move to distance learning during the pandemic may have hampered enforcement of vaccination regulations, noting that even a temporary drop in vaccination can affect herd immunity.

A measles outbreak occurred in Rockland County, NY and surrounding counties in 2018-2019 after the measles vaccination rate in schools in the area dropped to 77 percent, among the 93 to 95 percent required to maintain herd immunity are. “Pediatric outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases can undo efforts to reopen schools this fall,” the researchers added.

Parents should plan ahead now and make appointments so their children can be protected, said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, Chair of the Infectious Diseases Committee at the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“We should start thinking about it,” said Dr. Maldonado in a telephone interview. “People forget. We have whooping cough outbreaks regularly every four or five years and are just waiting to see another. “

“We’ll likely see more infections because the kids will get back together and there will be less masking and social distancing,” she added.

The CDC analyzed data from nine states and New York City. In eight of the jurisdictions, a stay at home order was issued last spring.

The number of doses of diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccines (DTaP) administered decreased by 15.7 percent in children under 2 years of age and in children aged from in the spring of last year compared to the same period in 2018 and 2019 2 to 6 years back by 60 percent.

The vaccine doses against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) fell by 22.4 percent in 1-year-olds and by 63 percent in 2 to 8-year-olds.

HPV vaccine administration decreased more than 63 percent in adolescents aged 9-17 years compared to the same period in 2018 and 2019; and doses of Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, and whooping cough) decreased by over 60 percent.

Categories
Health

Biogen’s Alzheimer’s drug may value Medicare billions of {dollars} a yr: report

Biogen's Alzheimer's drug could cost Medicare billions of dollars a year: report

A pedestrian walks past Biogen Inc. headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Monday, June 7, 2021.

Adam Glanzman | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Biogen’s expensive new Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm could cost Medicare billions of dollars, according to an analysis published Thursday by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation.

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved the company’s drug, the first U.S. regulator-approved drug to slow cognitive decline in people with Alzheimer’s and the first new drug for the disease in nearly two decades.

The biotech company said it charges $ 56,000 for an annual course of the new treatment, which is higher than the $ 10,000-25,000 price some Wall Street analysts were expecting. This is the wholesale price, and the cost that patients actually pay depends on their health insurance plan.

It is estimated that Alzheimer’s disease affects more than 6 million Americans, the vast majority of whom are 65 years of age and older. Biogen estimates that about 80% of Alzheimer’s patients are covered by Medicare, the state health insurance for the elderly.

It is still unclear how many Medicare beneficiaries will take Biogen’s drug, but even a conservative estimate would result in a “substantial increase” in Medicare spending, according to KFF.

In 2017, nearly 2 million Medicare beneficiaries were using one or more Alzheimer’s treatments that are covered under Medicare Part D, according to KFF. The group said if a quarter of those beneficiaries were instead prescribed Aduhelm, and Medicare paid 103% of $ 56,000 in the near future, “the total spending on Aduhelm in a year alone will be nearly $ 29 billion”.

According to the KFF, Aduhelm is covered by Medicare Part B, which generally covers FDA-approved, physician-administered drugs.

“If 1 million Medicare beneficiaries received Aduhelm, which may be on the lower end of Biogen’s expectations, spending for Aduhelm alone would exceed $ 57 billion in a single year – well above anything else covered by Part B. Medication together, ”group said. The total spend for Part B in 2019 was $ 37 billion.

Biogen has been criticized by Wall Street analysts and advocacy groups for questioning how the company could justify the price, especially as medical experts continue to debate whether there is enough evidence that the drug actually works and criticize the industry for drug prices becomes.

On a call to investors Tuesday morning, Evercore ISI analyst Umer Raffat congratulated the Massachusetts-based company on US approval of the drug before asking executives to explain the price.

“I think there is a discrepancy between some of the words you shared in your press releases like responsibility, access, health equity, and price, especially given the basic care population,” he told executives.

Biogen executives said Tuesday the overall price of the new treatment was “underpinned” by the value it is expected to bring to patients, caregivers and society. They insisted that the price was “responsible” and stated that the disease costs the US billions each year.

The company has pledged not to increase the price of the new drug over the next four years. However, executives said they were “open-minded” and suggested reconsidering price as the company assesses demand over the next few years.