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Adobe EVP Anil Chakravarthy talks Covid yr, nearly assembly Tom Brady

Adobe EVP Anil Chakravarthy talks Covid year, almost meeting Tom Brady

When Anil Chakravarthy joined Adobe in January 2020, his job as head of the Digital Experience business was to help customers modernize and take advantage of the cloud. He also had to gear up quickly for Adobe Summit, the company’s annual customer event that was set to start in March in Las Vegas.

Covid-19 changed his plans entirely. Chakravarthy, who had spent the previous six years as CEO of Informatica, canceled all travel and started working from his living room sofa. He spent so much time on video meetings from there that co-workers turned his couch into a meme.

Chakravarthy also missed his chance to meet Tom Brady, who was scheduled to be a guest speaker at the Las Vegas summit. Like its tech peers, Adobe converted its conference into a virtual event.

Despite all the disruption, revenue in the Digital Experience division, which includes products for marketing, analytics and e-commerce, climbed 12% last year. And in the first quarter, sales increased 24% to $934 million, accounting for close to a quarter of the company’s total revenue. It’s the company’s second-biggest business, behind digital media, which includes the Acrobat family of products.

Over a year into his new gig, Chakravarthy is now preparing for the virtual 2021 summit next week. He’s also getting ready for an eventual return to the office and a chance to meet many more of the company’s 23,000 worldwide employees in person.

Chakravarthy sat down with CNBC via video from his home in Silicon Valley to talk about the past year and what lies ahead as the pandemic comes to an end.

Here’s the full Q&A: 

(This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.) 

Ari Levy, CNBC: You started right before the pandemic hit. What was it like being thrown into the fire like that?

Anil Chakravarthy, EVP and GM, Adobe’s digital experience business and worldwide field operations: We had about two months of typical onboarding, we had our employee meetings and I was on the road with customers and partners at our key sites around the world. We were just getting ready to go up to Seattle to meet one of our partners, Microsoft, and I had another road trip planned in March. This was early March. First we put a stop to travel. Then we said, people don’t come into the office. Then it became complete work from home.

The big pivot was this event. It was supposed to be in Las Vegas. We were expecting 23,000 people. We had everything lined up. I was looking forward to meeting Tom Brady on stage.

We redirected the entire stage to go from Las Vegas to come to our office so we could record in the office. That plan went through the window. Finally, we all ended up recording from home and made the entire event virtual. That was our first real, hey this is a digital-only world now. Everybody came face to face with that. We went from digital as an important channel to digital as the primary channel to, in many cases, digital only. That was the pattern we saw across industries. Since we had an early exposure to that, we engaged with a lot of customers and worked with them on that over the course of the year.

Were you supposed to interview Brady on stage?

Tom had his own cameo role. I would introduce him and Tom would do his thing — that was the plan. It became a video thing. The video ended up really nice. He was more produced than it was for me at home.

What became your top job when the pandemic hit as far as supporting employees and working with customers?

For employees, the top job just became, what do we do for their well-being and safety? There were things that we never would have thought about. Employees were all over the place. There were people with health issues, people who just don’t have enough room to work at home. In places like in India, we have employees who live in relatively small apartments and multi-generational households and things like that. There was a whole range of issues. Some people were super happy that everybody was working remote. Some were like, oh my God, I don’t think I can get my job done.

We had people who were going into data centers, and doing things where they couldn’t travel to data centers any more or to customer sites to deliver projects. There was a spectrum of events that we had to deal with to make sure that we were delivering a continuous service. We do trillions of transactions a month online. What happened was the volume really went up like crazy. Every day seemed like Black Friday. The key was, how do you help this wide variety of employees with different functional roles and different personal situations really stay effective using a complete virtual environment.

On the customer side, I would put it into two classes. There was a class who were severely financially impacted, especially in the travel and hospitality verticals. For them it was like, hey work with us and become a long-term partner so we can get through this and continue to invest in Adobe. The other was like, hey finance is not the problem but we never anticipated we would be in this kind of situation. A retailer that was experimenting with digital is now like, nobody is coming to store, the website is it and I have to stand up curbside pickup in four weeks. How do I do that? It was mostly going into both a consultative role but also a role where we could really work with them as a partner while keeping our business healthy.

You’re from India as is your CEO, Shantanu Narayen. You mentioned employees in India specifically. What was the response there and how did you help employees get comfortable with the situation?

First of all, we helped people with arrangements for how to work from home. In our intranet, we actually had a very useful set of collected best practices, advice from employees. There were these little mini networks you could follow. If you’re a young parent and you have young kids at home, what are some things you can do that would help you become more effective while working form home? There was a separate network of people who would share tips about what they were doing. If you were living in a multigenerational household, what would you do? if you are in an engineering role versus a customer support role, where you have to be aligned with customers’ time zones while working from home, what would you do? Those were some of challenges, especially with customer delivery of projects.

All of our customers who would typically be in an office situation, they’re working remote. How do you make sure you have all the permissions and the access to help them deliver those projects? What proved really successful for us was there was a set of things we did to make everybody effective like tools to work from home, which a lot of companies did. In addition, we then had these specific colleague affinity groups of employees who could really, based on their role and their personal situation, find advice to make their own situation more effective at working from home.

Did you have to send hot spots to people who had weak internet connections?

What proved very effective is Adobe made an allowance. You could expense a certain amount of money and you could use it for whatever you wanted as long as it was reasonably justified. Some people used it to buy office furniture and some people used it for better internet and things like that. We had that open for six months or so.

When you arrived at Adobe, what was the high-level expectation?

The experience cloud is the business I’m responsible for. Also, for our enterprise customers we have a sales team that will cover all of Adobe. I’m responsible for the enterprise go to market team as well, which is not only experience cloud, because we want to represent all of Adobe to our enterprise customers.

In terms of the experience cloud, we’ve been investing in this now for well over 10 years starting with the acquisition of Omniture. We’re the clear leader in providing the customer experience. The nature of how customers provide this customer experience is changing rapidly so it’s much more data driven. It’s driven off a common understanding for the customer. Think of it as a unified profile of the customer and then how we deliver content to the customer, how we help them do online commerce, how we market to them.

It’s all being driven off this common platform, the data-driven platform. That, by the way, is what made Adobe successful. The Adobe transformation was the result of moving online and really driving the personalized journey with customers. We call that our data-driven operating model. How do we make that available to all of our customers? Coming from Informatica, which is where I was before, I had that background in enterprise and driving data-driven platforms. That was my charter was how do we accelerate that journey. We’re making good progress on that front.

What was it like for you working from home?

I have a couch behind me that you can see. I was sitting on the couch before I got this — using my allowance I got this desk and everything. The couch became very famous inside the company, because I think people are bored and everything became a meme, including my couch. I don’t why it became a meme. I was just sitting on the couch. I guess not too many people sit on the couch all day. It became like, hey he’s on the couch again.

Our chief human resources officer has a Dr. Fauci bobblehead behind her. So that became a big meme. This couch became a meme. If I could explain memes, I’m telling you I’d be in a different line of work.

Now I have this standing desk. It’s a nice setup. Somebody from the security team brought my office monitor and everything here. I waited like six months. I was fighting it.

Now that we’re over a year into the pandemic, how much of your job is still dealing with personal issues and making sure people are OK?

A good 10-20% of my job is that, a coach and consultant and sounding board and just being able to help people work through that. One of the good things we’ve been able to do is for several of the people who are here and are open to it, I go for a walking one on one. We mask up and go for a walk. That’s provided a nice way to balance both the human aspect of life with what we’re trying to get done at work. I do about three or so a week, typically during workday evenings and sometimes over the weekend.

Did you find yourself front and center at the company faster than you expected because of Covid?

The digital experience is a big business and we have lots of employees. The part that was a little bit unexpected was I had not had the chance to meet in person as many people as I would have otherwise met. We had a whole lineup of international events. Our summit events, once we do the one in Las Vegas, we do them in many markets around the world. I had decided that I would travel to those events and that would give me a chance to meet our employees and customers in the regions. All of that became virtual. The good news is virtually I’ve met a ton of employees and a ton of customers. That has worked really well.

Typically when you go into a new company or you take over a new role within company, as part of doing that job you get a lot of incidental contact. You meet employees and customers in situations where you just have a lot of casual conversations and you pick up a lot of things about what’s really going on and what are the issues they face in doing their jobs. That incidental contact is much harder to create in an online environment. I had to work around that. It doesn’t happen naturally. I have to work at making it happen.

What ‘s been the biggest surprise for you?

The biggest positive surprise has been the resiliency of our company and the employees and how they’ve worked around these constraints. With 23,000 people, we support trillions of transactions. The volume has really gone through the roof. It’s been crazy. Being able to keep all of that up and running and scaling, working in a virtual environment, the resiliency required when people are scrambling and trying to make sure they’re taking care of their families and themselves and so on.

The surprise we’re continuing to work on is, from a customer perspective things have changed. Customers have also done a really good job of pivoting for the most part. But it’s not done. Right now as everybody starts to think about the future of work, that’s the unknown that we’re all working through.

Where are we now in the reopening of the economy and returning to work?

We’re at the beginning of that process of reentering and coming back. Everybody is thinking it through and figuring out what’s the right way to do it, the right pace to do it at and what should be required and what should be recommended in terms of employees and customers. We just had our employee meeting and there were lots of questions about that. We have been doing a lot of — our HR team working with our facilities team — has done a lot of work, both our own surveys and our own thought leadership but also comparing notes with our peer companies on what this future of work will look like and within the Adobe employee base what people would like to do.

We do believe that this idea of working from home for some portion of the week is going to stay as the norm for a large number of employees. The piece that we are moving to is, hey there are certain types of activities where we will require people to be in the office because that’s more productive. That’s brainstorming about new products, for example, or key planning sessions and things like that. As more people get vaccinated, that gets easier.

I went into the office to record my session for [the] summit. We were super duper careful. I got tested that morning and made sure everybody got tested before going in. Some of that might continue and some of that might get relaxed. 

Give me a little more detail on this year’s summit and how how it will be different from last year.

We have Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, doing a fireside chat with Shantanu. We also have the COO of FedEx. One as a partner but they’ve also had a huge role in the pandemic distributing vaccine. This year we have Serena Williams. I know I’m not meeting her this time so there’s no let down, unlike last year. We have hundreds of customers and lots of partners. We expect that we’ll have well over a half-million attendees virtually.

What we’ve learned from last year to this year is how to really personalize it at scale. Last year, because we moved so quickly, it was like we made the content, we put it out there and people came. It was all in a couple weeks. This time, we opened up registration a while ago and people have indicated what they want. We know what they’re interested in based on our relationships with them. It’s a lot more targeted, a lot more personalized and essentially built from the ground up to be a digital experience.

Finally, how did you meet Shantanu and did her personally recruit you?

Informatica was a partner of Adobe’s. At that time, Informatica was a partner for the Adobe Experience platform, especially in the data integration space. It was complementary. That’s how I met Shantanu. A lot of the reason I came was the opportunity to work with him and work with the leadership team at Adobe.

WATCH: Adobe CEO says digital services remain mission critical to business

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Business

Client merchandise gross sales jumped 9.4% to $1.53 trillion final yr

Consumer products sales jumped 9.4% to $1.53 trillion last year

People buy toilet paper at a Costco store in Novato, California on March 14, 2020.

Josh Edelson | AFP | Getty Images

Soaring demand from the coronavirus pandemic saw sales of packaged consumer goods, which include everything from toilet paper to canned soup, surge 9.4% to $ 1.53 trillion last year, according to a new report from the Consumer Brands Association -Dollar.

But the boom in demand hasn’t let up, and the trading group said manufacturers are still struggling to catch up on their stocks. To meet this challenge, companies are hiring more workers, adding new factory lines, and raising wages in light of the continued surge in demand.

“This was the greatest test the system has ever seen,” said Geoff Freeman, chief executive officer of the CBA. “Our wildest imaginations may not have been able to imagine the 12 month climb we just went through.”

Even if the pandemic subsides, the CBA predicts that industry revenue will still increase 7.4% to 8.5% in 2021 from 2019 onwards. Sales in January are up 16% year over year which is the biggest change from last year last March. Revenue growth slowed slightly in February but was still in double digits. Prior to the pandemic, strong growth for a CPG company meant an increase in the low single digits.

“This industry is still sprinting a marathon,” said Katie Denis, CBA’s vice president of research and industry storytelling.

The surge in demand over the past year means manufacturers are still trying to catch up, and any obstacle can result in millions in lost sales. Freeman cited a conversation with a business executive who saw that more than a quarter of its manufacturing facilities were closed for a week in February because of the Texas winter storm. The blockade of the Suez Canal in March caused even more headaches.

General Mills and Clorox are among the companies that have reached out to third-party manufacturers for a temporary fix to the skyrocketing demand. The situation has led some CPG companies to rethink inventory targets and how close products are to retailers. Freeman said some manufacturers won’t be able to catch up on inventory until new investments go online.

The current stress on the supply chain is making some bottlenecks, such as the ongoing shortage of ketchup packages first reported by the Wall Street Journal, harder to predict.

“We should see something like this six to twelve months in advance,” Freeman said.

The rise in demand has resulted in higher wages for CPG manufacturing workers. PepsiCo and Hormel were among those who gave rewards to their frontline employees last year. From July to September, wages for food processing workers rose 3.4% from the same period last year, according to the CBA report. Nationwide non-farm wages fell 0.8% over the same period.

“I do not know if [wages] will rise higher than 2020 but there is no reason to believe there will be a decline, according to the companies we surveyed with McKinsey, “said Denis.

CPG companies have also increased their recruitment. After initially losing jobs in the industry, particularly among food service providers, other manufacturers of food, beverages and household products sought to attract more workers. Some companies hired 10 to 20% more workers than they actually needed to account for employees who quarantined or cared for sick loved ones, Freeman said.

Current manufacturing employment in the industry is only 2% down from January 2020, while the total employment rate in the US was 6% in March, according to the CBA report.

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Business

Tax cheats price the U.S. $1 trillion per yr, I.R.S chief says.

Tax cheats cost the U.S. $1 trillion per year, I.R.S chief says.

The United States loses approximately $ 1 trillion in unpaid taxes every year, Internal Revenue Service commissioner Charles Rettig estimated Tuesday that the agency lacks the resources to catch tax fraud.

The so-called tax gap has increased over the past decade. The last official estimate by the IRS was that from 2011 to 2013, an average of $ 441 billion a year was under-paid. Most of the unpaid taxes are the result of evasion by the rich and big corporations, Rettig said.

“We are disappointed,” said Rettig during a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee on the upcoming tax season.

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, the Democratic chairman of the committee, called the $ 1 trillion tax gap a “mind-boggling number.”

“The fact of the matter is that nurses and firefighters have to pay with every paycheck and so many high-flyers can get out,” said Wyden.

Mr. Rettig attributed the growing tax gap to the $ 2 trillion surge in the cryptocurrency sector, which remains lightly regulated and a tax avoidance option. He also pointed to foreign income and corporate abuse of pass-through provisions in the tax code.

The size of the IRS’s enforcement division has declined sharply in recent years, Rettig said, and its ranks have decreased by 17,000 in the past decade.

The spending proposal published by the Biden government last week called for a 10.4 percent increase from the current level of funding for the tax office to $ 13.2 billion. The extra money would be used to better monitor the tax returns of high-income individuals and companies and improve customer service with the IRS

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Health

Mother and father, Cease Speaking In regards to the ‘Misplaced Yr’

Parents, Stop Talking About the ‘Lost Year’

“They had a sense of resilience and ‘grit’, even prepandemic which I think served them well,” she said. “I see an ability to pan.”

In Dr. Luther’s research actually regressed reports of loneliness for seventh and eighth grade students between spring 2020 and spring 2021 – a reflection of how she suspects how alienating and lonely middle school is for many of them in “normal” times. (“The loners, the introverts, the kids who weren’t popular – they’re fine, thank you,” she said.)

Other new data suggests that the youngest teens may have got through the pandemic year with slightly less wear and tear than older teens. In the fall of 2020, a research team led by psychologist Angela L. Duckworth of the University of Pennsylvania surveyed more than 6,500 high school students in a large, demographically diverse school district where families could choose whether their children would attend remotely or in school Person.

They found that students who attended school from a distance, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, exhibited significantly lower social, emotional, and academic wellbeing – with the exception of ninth graders, whose level remained roughly the same. (And who for most of the 20th century were considered to be in the same developmental category as seventh and eighth grade students, teaching in middle schools.)

Overall, according to Dr. Steinberg, the youth who fared best during the pandemic were more likely to be the ones who were able to keep in touch with their friends. And for many middle school students, that means having parents willing to relax their usual rules on social media and screen time.

“Social media mitigates some of the effects of isolation,” he said.

This message, often echoed by experts and educators, should provide some relief to the many parents who feel guilty about the screen time they have given their children over the past year.

Rabiah Harris, a Washington public middle school science teacher, holds a PhD in education that, as the mother of a nearly 12-year-old, allows her to take a philosophical viewpoint.

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Health

Psychological well being professionals are in excessive demand because the pandemic enters a second yr

Mental health professionals are in high demand as the pandemic enters a second year

Coronavirus has rocked the nation with a year of restrictions, bans, missed meetings and events, isolation, and a staggering loss of more than half a million Americans. As the pandemic extends for a second year, Americans struggling with increased rates of depression, anxiety, and insomnia are seeking mental health support, and providers are working hard to keep up with demand.

When the pandemic first started, Dr. Mary Alvord that there was an almost instant increase in those seeking treatment for anxiety and depression. Alvord is a psychologist and director of Alvord, Baker & Associates in Rockville, Maryland, a group of 19 clinicians primarily focused on children, adolescents and families.

“I think everyone was just in a state of disbelief that this was going on so quickly and so dramatically,” said Alvord. “That first rush was fear of the daily uncertainty of not knowing what was going to happen [regarding] the pandemic. And I think it led to a lot of sadness. “

Psychologists like Alvord report that they have seen more patients with anxiety and depression in the past year, and most say they treat patients remotely via telemedicine. Last fall, a third of psychologists said they saw more patients since the pandemic began, according to the American Psychological Association (APA).

Among psychologists treating anxiety disorders, nearly three-quarters of those surveyed by APA reported an increase in demand for treatment, while 60% of patients treating depression saw an increase. A similar increase in demand for treatments for traumatic and stress-related disorders and sleep-wake disorders has also been reported.

“We had a waiting list of about 187 people,” said Alvord. “We seem to take it down and then we go up again.”

Telemedicine use has expanded thanks to states-issued emergency directives to improve access to services during the pandemic, the APA said. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid have also revised the rules to allow for expanded services via telemedicine. The group is pushing for this access to continue for at least six months after the federal government declares the pandemic is over.

There are still many barriers to treatment, including the number of mental health professionals available, cost, scarring, and time, but the expansion of telehealth has improved access to care for many.

“You can see a therapist in your own home, you don’t have to rely on transportation or childcare. I think that helps having access to it once you’re under treatment. But we still have a pretty big problem with the health system with having enough providers for the people who need them, “says Dr. Vaile Wright, Senior Director, Healthcare Innovation at APA.

However, Wright noted that the shortage of healthcare professionals was a long-standing problem prior to the pandemic. “Even if we do things like lower the retirement age or increase the workforce, we will never meet everyone’s needs,” he said.

The pandemic may have fueled the growth of telehealth services, but the course is expected to continue. According to financial data firm PitchBook, the global telemedicine market beyond therapy is expected to reach $ 312 billion by 2026, more than quadrupling from 2019 levels. A total of $ 1.8 billion was invested in virtual health companies in 2020, including Doctor on Demand and MDLive, both of which offer virtual therapies, PitchBook analysis shows.

Frontline health workers, parents of children under the age of 18, and fathers – more than mothers – have been seeking treatment lately, according to the APA. It’s too early to tell if those who sought treatment during the pandemic will continue to have access to care once life returns to normal, but advanced telehealth could help.

“I think the convenience consumers expect will encourage them to stay in treatment rather than having to come back in person. So that’s going to be a big component,” Wright said. “I also think that if individuals are unable to manage the stress they are experiencing, we will have long-term mental health consequences.”

In particular, Wright noted that key workers – including frontline healthcare workers – are most vulnerable to parents with children under 18, people from color communities, and younger adults with high levels of stress and stress.

Alvord of Alvord, Baker & Associates is also committed to expanding telehealth and has trained 10,000 mental health professionals on how to do this effectively and ethically over the past year. One silver lining for the extreme challenges facing the world over the past year is that the conversation about mental health has come to the fore.

“We’re all in it together, so the message is, ‘You are not alone,'” she said. “The mental health stigma has really gone because it’s okay not to be okay. There are normal levels of stress that is a part of life and the grief and loss and sadness that come with it.”

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Business

One yr on, frustrations and protests mount

One year on, frustrations and protests mount

Activists protest coronavirus lockdown restrictions in London, England on December 14, 2020.

NurPhoto | NurPhoto | Getty Images

LONDON – When the UK’s first coronavirus lockdown was imposed exactly a year ago, most would have struggled to imagine that after 12 months there would still be restrictions on public and private life.

With this now a reality, there are growing signs that the UK public is becoming increasingly frustrated by the pressures and protests against the lockdown hit the capital over the weekend.

Although the UK has put in place a roadmap for lifting restrictions, with the government aiming to relax most of the Covid curbs by June 21, there have been smoke signals in recent days that the government is not expecting normal life is resumed even then.

Government ministers and health experts who advise them have made a number of comments suggesting that summer holidays are now “highly unlikely” given the situation in other parts of Europe where coronavirus cases are on the rise due to new variants of the virus.

Another health expert – the head of immunization at Public Health England – suggested Sunday that masks and social distancing measures could be required for several years.

The government has also signaled that it intends to expand its powers to reverse any easing of measures, and thanks to support from the opposition Labor Party, approval to extend the emergency powers is expected by October, despite a group of lawmakers within the ruling Conservative Party Describe the move as “authoritarian”.

Combine these factors and a summer of freedom for the British public seems less likely, possibly creating the conditions for more public discontent as the British are desperate to return to “normalcy”. Especially since the vaccine rollout is advancing at a rapid pace; A record-breaking 844,285 first and second doses were given to those waiting to be shot on Saturday, up from 711,157 people who received a vaccine dose on Friday.

The toll on Great Britain in numbers

March 23rd marks the first anniversary of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement to the UK public that the country will go into a lockdown. The government has taken unprecedented measures in peacetime to stop the spread of the coronavirus, which first appeared at the time. The Chinese city of Wuhan was largely unknown in December 2019.

Then by the time Johnson made the first stay-at-home announcement that citizens are now used to, the UK had reported a daily surge in the number of deaths from the virus, with 335 deaths within 24 hours in hospitals and health workers, that deals with understanding Covid-19 and effective treatments.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during a televised press conference at 10 Downing Street on February 22, 2021 in London, England.

Leon Neal | Getty Images News | Getty Images

A year fast forward, and the UK is in the shameful position of having the fifth highest number of coronavirus cases in the world after the US, Brazil, India and Russia, according to a record by Johns Hopkins University. To date, the UK has reported over 4.3 million infections and over 126,000 deaths – the fifth highest number of deaths in the world after the US, Brazil, Mexico and India.

A minute’s silence will be observed in the UK on Tuesday to ponder the deaths caused by the virus.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement that “the past 12 months have taken a tremendous toll on all of us and I extend my condolences to those who have lost loved ones.” He added that the country “showed great spirit that our nation showed over the past year”.

The reasons for the higher death toll in the UK compared to continental fatalities in mainland Europe are many. However, underlying factors include higher obesity rates, pre-existing health conditions, and socio-economic factors.

What went wrong or right?

For its part, the government has been heavily criticized for late locking, failing to perform border controls and controls on incoming travelers to the UK, not adequately protecting healthcare workers and running an inadequate testing and tracing system, still viewed as below average. Overall, it has been accused of not being prepared for a pandemic and of poorly managing it upon arrival.

A ray of hope and a salvation has been the highly respected British scientific community that has been at the forefront of research into the virus, its effects and attempts to find the best way to combat it. In June 2020, for example, British health experts led by Oxford University found that an inexpensive steroid treatment, dexamethasone, can significantly reduce the risk of death in seriously ill Covid patients.

An even bigger breakthrough came when Oxford University and the Anglo-Swedish drug AstraZeneca successfully developed and tested one of the few effective vaccines. The development of the shot was all the more remarkable given that vaccines can take years to develop. UK vaccine research also received government funding.

The UK became the first country in the world to approve and use the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine in early December and has quickly embarked on a national vaccination program that has gained momentum.

In January, the AstraZeneca vaccine was added to the arsenal and the vaccination program grew stronger, surprising even the most cynical Britons and winning the country’s health experts and the praise of the National Health Service for courageous decision-making and a well-managed roll-out.

Unlike other countries in Europe which falsely questioned the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine in those over 65, the UK has had mass vaccination programs giving priority to the elderly and healthcare workers.

Health experts also believed (criticized at the time but now repeated in other countries) that the gap between the first and second dose of the coronavirus vaccines used should be extended to up to 12 weeks in order to provide more people with more initial protection .

Margaret Keenan, 90, is the first patient in the UK to receive the Pfizer / BioNtech covid-19 vaccine at University Hospital in Coventry.

Pool | Getty Images News | Getty Images

The decision was confirmed by later clinical data showing that the strategy was effective and even increased the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The rollout exceeded expectations. As of March 20, over 27.6 million UK adults had received a first dose of vaccine and over 2.2 million had received their second shot, according to government figures.

There is palpable unrest among members of the public – especially those who are primarily against a lockdown – as well as in the business community so that society can reopen. Anti-lockdown protests in London last weekend attracted several thousand protesters saying “Freedom!” as they marched through the capital. Later brawls between police and protesters resulted in over 30 arrests.

Protesters carry a sign reading “The Cure Is Worse Than The Sickness” as they march during a World Wide Rally For Freedom protest on March 20, 2021 in London, England.

Hollie Adams | Getty Images News | Getty Images

What happens next?

So when it comes to the vaccine, it was a case of “so far, so good”. The number of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths has steadily decreased in the UK.

The speed of the rollout was seen as critical at a time when new variants of the virus have emerged and could potentially undermine the positive effects of the vaccines.

Mainland Europe is seeing the consequences of its possibly understandably slower introduction, as the EU ordered vaccines as a block and, above all, ordered later than the UK and the US

In addition to slower supply and production problems, the EU has had to grapple with the UK’s non-prevalent vaccine reluctance and bureaucracy, which is also not that big of a problem in the UK, where the healthcare system is largely integrated -up and well-connected central system.

However, this week the UK faces a potential challenge to its rollout if EU leaders, practically meeting on Thursday, decide to block exports of block-made Covid vaccines to countries like the UK, which are in their Vaccination programs are further ahead.

Johnson has reportedly tried to stop such a move by speaking to his colleagues in France and Germany over the weekend. However, if the EU steps forward, the UK could face further supply shortages. A supply bottleneck is already expected due to a reported delay in exports from an Indian production facility.

Delays could cost the UK the hitherto successful rollout and citizens their freedoms, despite the government’s announcement to offer all adults a first dose of a vaccine by July 31st.

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World News

Saudi Aramco revenue drops after Covid-battered 12 months, upholds dividend

Saudi Aramco profit drops after Covid-battered year, upholds dividend

A worker at an oil processing plant for Saudi Aramco, a Saudi Arabian state oil and gas company, in the Abqaiq oil field.

Stanislav Krasilnikov | TASS | Getty Images

Oil giant Saudi Aramco reported a 44% drop in full-year 2020 results but maintained its dividend payout of $ 75 billion. CEO Amin Nasser described the last twelve months as one of the “most challenging years” in recent history.

Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s giant state-owned oil company, posted net income of $ 49 billion in 2020, up from $ 88.19 billion in 2019. Earnings were slightly below analysts’ expectations of $ 48.1 billion, but is still the highest of all listed companies in the world.

“In one of the most challenging years in recent history, Aramco has demonstrated its unique value proposition through considerable financial and operational agility,” said Amin Nasser, chief executive of Saudi Aramco, in a statement from the company on Sunday.

Aramco said sales were impacted by lower crude oil prices and volumes sold, as well as weaker margins in refineries and chemicals.

The company also expects to cut investments in the coming year, slashing its spending forecast from $ 40 billion to $ 45 billion to around $ 35 billion.

Free cash flow was down nearly 40% to $ 49 billion, well below the level of the highly anticipated dividend. Aramco also declared a $ 75 billion payout for 2020, despite fears it would take on additional debt to keep it up.

“Looking ahead, our long-term strategy to optimize our oil and gas portfolio is on track. As the macro environment improves, we see a pickup in demand in Asia and positive signs in other countries,” he added.

Shares in leading Western oil and gas companies, including Royal Dutch Shell and BP, fell to multi-year lows in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic devastated the global economy and sparked historic oil prices. Exxon Mobil, the largest US energy company, posted its first annual loss.

Escalating attacks on oil facilities

Aramco’s facilities have been the target of several attacks by the Houthi rebels in Yemen – attacks that escalated this year, with Saudi Arabia and Iran, the latter of which supports the rebels, opposing the sides of the bloody civil war in Yemen.

Houthi rocket bursts in parts of Saudi Arabia, which hit Aramco’s facilities in early March, briefly brought the price of oil above USD 70 a barrel to the highest level in more than a year. Most recently, the rebels took responsibility for drone attacks on an Aramco plant in the capital Riyadh on Friday, which led to a fire that, according to the Saudi energy ministry, was quickly brought under control without any losses.

When asked how the company wanted to reassure investors and the global community that its infrastructure was well protected and ready to prevent serious business disruptions, CEO Amin Nasser said the attacks had “no business impact.”

“I think the most important thing is the willingness of our employees,” Nasser told CNBC during a press conference after the results were released. “There is always something you learn from every attack and you go out and improve your emergency response … and you make sure you have what it takes to restore these facilities if they are attacked.”

“We learned a lot and were able to prove with a reliability of 99.9% that we are able to put the system back into operation in every scenario, to guarantee the safety of our employees and to guarantee this at the same time.” The deliveries to our customers are fulfilled, “added Nasser.

“The attack on Riyadh is a good demonstration. Within hours of putting the fires out and completing the investigation, we started (re) operating the facility,” he said. “The Riyadh refinery went live today. This is a demonstration of the capabilities and contingency plan and emergency response of the first responders.”

Nasser was also optimistic about the outlook for oil demand in 2021.

“We have seen prices improve, with demand picking up and recovery much better. China is also very close to pre-pandemic levels,” said the CEO.

“As the use of vaccines increases, we will see a stronger pick-up in demand, so we are very optimistic about demand growth, especially in the second half of the year, and we can see that prices so far are responsive to what we see in the market We look forward to a much better year in 2021. ”

The international benchmark for Brent crude is $ 64.53 a barrel, up 25% year-to-date and a whopping 73% year-over-year.

Several oil analysts have raised their 2021 price predictions for vaccine and demand confidence. Goldman Sachs is forecasting a spike to $ 80 a barrel by the third quarter of this year – something unimaginable when WTI prices went negative for the first time in history about one year ago.

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Business

With media offers full, NFL eyes over $100 million per yr for its knowledge rights

NFL asking for 100% increase on TV rights, Disney pushing back

New York Giants wide receiver Sterling Shepard (87) caught a pass in the first half at MetLife Stadium in front of Pittsburgh Steelers strong security Terrell Edmunds (34) and linebacker Devin Bush (55).

Vincent Carchietta | USA TODAY Sports

About 30 minutes after the National Football League announced their new 11-year media rights deal this week, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft praised commissioner Roger Goodell.

Kraft, the chairman of the league’s media committee, had many reasons to congratulate Goodell. He has just given more than $ 100 billion in media rights fees to NFL team owners. Kraft was so excited that he said working with Goodell on these negotiations was “one of the most enjoyable experiences of my professional career.”

Kraft added, “He regards his position as the steward of the league’s long-term best interest. Coupled with his unique strategic business acumen, we can achieve results like this. We are very happy to have him as ours.” Commissioner. “

Goodell has completed a decade of NFL labor peace and TV deals. Now he will oversee the league’s data rights that fuel sports betting. The NFL could seek over $ 100 million a year for its new data rights agreement, according to people familiar with the situation.

People said the NFL was trying to reconcile its new data rights deal with media contracts. The individuals spoke to CNBC on condition of anonymity for privacy reasons. One respondent said the NFL could charge as much as $ 250 million as its data rights continue to lead U.S. sports betting transports.

The NFL currently has a data agreement with Sports Radar and has a stake in the company since 2015. The terms of this agreement are unknown, but the parties are currently in talks to extend the agreement.

Sportradar is a data and integrity company that collects sports data such as live play-by-play and manages the NFL’s next generation stats using Amazon technology. The company has entered into contracts with sports game companies to provide data that will be used to set betting odds. Sportradar uses the SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) route to enter the public market.

The company also renewed its contract with the National Basketball Association last October. As part of his previous contract, she paid the NBA about $ 41 million a year. Chicago-based Stats Perform is also one of the best-known data companies.

The NFL did not provide an officer to discuss the matter and Sportradar declined to comment.

With regard to the broader agreement on media rights concluded on Thursday:

In this photo illustration, an Amazon Prime Video logo is displayed on a smartphone.

Mateusz Slodkowski | SOPA pictures | LightRocket via Getty Images

Amazon video ads could increase with NFL

Networks that had the NFL’s Thursday package aren’t going to lose the game entirely, as the two teams playing in the game have the competition on the air and Amazon has to pay the cost of production.

This can get expensive, but Amazon’s video ads will benefit from it. In a statement to customers, Morgan Stanley analysts wrote that Amazon’s video ads are the fastest growing part of the company’s advertising revenue of around $ 20 billion. And now that it’s all football, rates could go up. The tech company only tracks Google and Facebook to get market share for digital advertising.

“The Amazon deal is particularly interesting because it shows the importance of live sports content in the streaming wars,” Bill Wise, CEO of advertising software company Mediaocean, told CNBC via email. “It also shows Amazon’s continued foray into advertising and, with it, its unique ability to close the loop between screens and purchase.”

“For advertisers, the imperative is clear,” added Wise. “You need to think about omnichannel and consistently market your brands across screens to connect with fragmented audiences.”

Disney gains access to Super Bowl money

With Disney back on the rotation to broadcast Super Bowls, it will now be able to take advantage of the most watched U.S. sporting event and money that comes with it.

The 2021 Super Bowl commercials were around $ 5.5 million per ad. For the 2020 game, Fox raised more than $ 400 million from Super Bowl spots. Once it’s time for Disney in 2026, that rate could top $ 7 million per slot. Disney will also have a Super Bowl worth $ 2.7 billion a year in 2030 under its agreement.

The NFL’s Covid-19 Super Bowl in February drew 96.4 million viewers who saw the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9. Although NFL attendance has declined, the game remains a draw for marketers.

“Linear television continues to be a major pillar of the branding budget and the Super Bowl offerings are reaching a reach like no other event in the world,” said Wise.

A FOX Sports TV cameraman during the Week 5 NFL game between the Atlanta Falcons and the Carolina Panthers at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on October 11, 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia.

David J. Griffin | Icon Sportswire | Getty Images

Fox was able to see effects after cutting TNF

Had Fox kept Thursday’s package, it could potentially have paid nearly $ 3 billion for NFL rights, counting the $ 660 million per year it currently spends on the TNF package. Advertising data company MediaRadar estimates that Fox’s 2020 NFL games generated around $ 2 billion worth of national advertising, largely from Sunday afternoon games.

“It’s the weakest of the packages,” longtime television manager Neal Pilson said of TNF. “No surprise that none of the networks wanted it, and it’s no surprise that Amazon stood up for it.”

However, unloading NFL rights comes at a cost to Fox. Deleting TNF could impact Fox stations ‘network of distributors and subsidiaries’ retransmission fees in 2024, which may have to pay less on Thursdays without the NFL.

Morgan Stanley said, “We assume that Fox’s existing retransmission agreements will not be affected by the loss of this content. Once these agreements are in place and Fox begins negotiating new distribution agreements with MVPDs and Fox station subsidiaries, the release of TNF cause costs. “

But one of the interesting parts of the new rights deal is that the network’s FoxBet gambling asset will become an official league sportsbook “when and when the NFL approves official sports betting operators for their officially licensed intellectual property,” according to one Fox Sports press release.

This puts Fox in the best position to take advantage of the popular NFL betting as the league continues to explore the sports betting arena and also help network partners. And once the NFL has organized its role in the sports game, Kraft’s praise for Goodell should only increase as more revenue is generated.

“We’re going to find ways we can appeal to fans through legalized sports betting,” said Goodell of media companies’ support for gambling. “But we have retained these rights and will see where these opportunities lie and how we work with our network partners. However, we assume that they will be involved in all of our activities in the future.” . “

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Health

Disenfranchised Grief in a Yr of Pandemic Losses

Disenfranchised Grief in a Year of Pandemic Losses

Lockdowns had an immediate financial impact on Annabelle Gurwitch, a Los Angeles writer who lost assignments and lectures. The advertisement for her new book “You go when ?: Adventure in downward mobility” has become virtual. But when her kid’s graduation from Bard College went online, she cried in her backyard. Her child had worked hard and even started a sobriety club on campus.

“I was so proud of them that they graduated from college in four years,” she said. “David Byrne should be the speaker. There is so much suffering going on and I felt like such a terrible person, upset that I couldn’t go to graduate school and see David Byrne. That is low on the level of suffering. But damn it, we got our kid through four years. The child sobered up while studying. May I say we were disappointed? “

Around the same time as graduation, Ms. Gurwitch developed a cough. She received a coronavirus test and a chest x-ray, which eventually led to a diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer. After being diagnosed with cancer, Ms. Gurwitch noticed that her friends were starting to downplay their own struggles and grief. A friend was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy, but didn’t want to tell her because she felt that breast cancer wasn’t as bad as lung cancer.

“I had her from cancer,” said Ms. Gurwitch. “It’s terrible not to feel that your suffering has a place.”

38-year-old Erin, who asked that her full name not be used to protect her privacy, said she lost another year of fertility during the pandemic lockdowns. After miscarriage a few years ago, she tried to conceive, but her husband did not think it useful to start a pregnancy during a pandemic. “Mother’s Day came and I was close to my 38th birthday and it became clear that I didn’t have much time,” she said. “This biological clock – The tick is very noisy and it’s a very real thing. “

Erin said that their marriage was starting to fall apart and she realized that she would probably have to do it alone if she wanted to become a mother. She and her husband are now getting divorced, she is taking steps to freeze her eggs, and she is investigating adoption and promoting parenting. She said grief over infertility and miscarriages was only compounded by living in a pandemic as she gains insight into people’s family lives through video calls.

“A staff member, every time we talk, she talks about the Lamaze class,” she said. “This is great for her, but it’s not OK for me to say that I’m struggling with it. I lost a child. I’ve lost my fertile years. This is one area where I am really having trouble. As a society, we don’t talk about it openly. “

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Health

Well being Care Employees on the Frontline Face a 12 months of Threat, Worry and Loss

Health Care Workers on the Frontline Face a Year of Risk, Fear and Loss

Gabrielle Dawn Luna sees her father with every patient she treats.

As a nurse in the emergency room at the same hospital where her father died of Covid in March last year, Ms. Luna knows firsthand what it is like for a family to hold onto any new information. She has become aware of the need to take extra time to explain developments to a patient’s family members who are frequently checking for updates.

And Mrs. Luna was willing to share her personal loss if it helps, as she recently did with a patient whose husband has died. But she also learned to hold it back to respect each person’s grief, as she did when a colleague’s father succumbed to the disease.

It is a challenge to let oneself grieve enough to help patients without feeling overwhelmed.

“Sometimes I think it’s too much of a responsibility,” she said. “But that’s the job I signed up for, isn’t it?”

The Lunas are a foster family. Her father, Tom Omaña Luna, was also a lifeguard and was proud when Mrs. Luna came to him in the field. When he died on April 9, Ms. Luna, who also had mild symptoms of Covid-19, took about a week off. Her mother, a nurse in a long-term care facility, then spent about six weeks at home.

“She didn’t want me to go back to work for fear that something would happen to me too,” said Ms. Luna. “But I had to go back. You needed me “

As her hospital in Teaneck, New Jersey swelled with virus patients, she struggled with stress, burnout, and an excruciating fear that left an open wound on her grief: “Did I give it to him? I don’t want to think about it, but it’s a possibility. “

Like the Lunas, many who treated millions of coronavirus patients in the United States last year come from medically defined families. It is a calling that is passed down through the generations and connects spouses and siblings who are states apart.

It’s a bond that brings the success of shared experiences, but for many, the pandemic has also brought a variety of fears and stresses with it. Many have been concerned about the risks they are taking and those their loved ones are exposed to every day. They worry about the invisible scars they have left.

And for those like Ms. Luna, the care they give coronavirus patients is shaped by the beloved healer they lost to the virus.

For Dr. Nadia Zuabi is so new to the loss that she still refers to her father, another ambulance in the present.

Your father, dr. Shawki Zuabi spent his final days at her UCI Health hospital in Orange County, California before dying of Covid on January 8th. The younger Dr. Zuabi returned to work almost immediately, hoping to carry on with the purpose and camaraderie of her colleagues.

She had expected that working with the people who had cared for her father would deepen her commitment to her own patients, and to some extent, too. Most importantly, she realized how important it is to balance this stressful emotional availability with her own well-being.

“I always try to be as empathic and compassionate as possible,” said Dr. Zuabi. “There is a part of you who may have to build a wall as a survival mechanism because I don’t think it’s sustainable to feel it all the time.”

The work is filled with memories. When she saw the fingertips of a patient, she remembered how her colleagues had also pricked her father’s to check insulin levels.

“He had all these bruises on his fingertips,” she said. “It just broke my heart.”

The two had always been close, but they found a special bond when she went to medical school. Doctors often descend from doctors. About 20 percent in Sweden have parents with medical degrees, and researchers believe the rate is similar in the United States.

The older Dr. Zuabi had a present for conversation and loved talking about medicine with his daughter as he sat in his living room chair with his feet propped up. She is still in her residency training and would reach out to him all last year for advice on the challenging Covid cases she was working on and he would dispel her doubts. “You have to trust yourself,” he told her.

Updated

March 13, 2021, 6:24 p.m. ET

When he caught the virus, she took each day off to be by his bedside and continued their conversations. Even when he was intubated, she pretended they were still talking.

She still does. After difficult shifts, she turns to her memories, the part of him that stays with her. “He really thought I was going to be a great doctor,” she said. “If that’s what my father thought of me, it must be true. I can do it, even if it doesn’t feel like it sometimes. “

Just as medicine is often a passion that arises from a set of values ​​passed down from one generation to the next, so it is also one that is shared by siblings and that brings healers together in marriage.

A quarter of doctors in the US are married to another doctor, according to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Maria Polyakova, a professor of health policy at Stanford University, said she wouldn’t be surprised if the number of doctors in the U.S. who had siblings with medical degrees was about as high as the Swedish, about 14 percent.

In interviews with a dozen doctors and nurses, they described how helpful it has long been to have a loved one who knows the rigors of the job. But the pandemic has also shown how frightening it can be to put a loved one at risk.

A nurse’s brother took care of her when she had the virus before volunteering at another virus hotspot. A doctor chatted with her children about what would happen if she and her husband both died from the virus. And others described crying softly during a will talk after putting their children to bed.

Dr. Fred E. Kency Jr., a doctor at two emergency rooms in Jackson, Miss., Understood that he was surrounded by danger while serving in the Navy. He never expected that he would face such a threat in civil life or that his wife, an internist and pediatrician, would face the same dangers.

“It’s scary to know that my wife has to go to the rooms of patients with Covid every day,” said Dr. Kency before he and his wife were vaccinated. “But it is a reward to know that not just one of us, the two of us, are doing everything we can to save lives in this pandemic.”

The vaccine has eliminated fears of being vaccinated at work among vaccinated medical professionals, but some express deep concern at the toll that working in a year of horror has left their closest relatives.

“I am concerned about the amount of suffering and death she sees,” said Dr. Adesuwa I. Akhetuamhen, an emergency physician at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, about her sister, the doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. I feel like I learned to deal with this while working in the emergency room before Covid started, but it’s not something that should be happening in her specialty as a neurologist. “

She and her sister, Dr. Eseosa T. Ighodaro, have been on the phone regularly to compare notes on the precautions they have taken, to update their families, and to support one another. “She totally understands what I’m going through and encourages me,” said Dr. Ighodaro.

The seemingly endless intensity of work, increasing deaths, and the careless attitudes of some Americans about safety precautions have caused anxiety, fatigue, and burnout in a growing number of healthcare workers. Almost 25 percent of them are most likely to have PTSD, according to a survey published by the Yale School of Medicine in February. And many have left the field or are considering doing so.

Donna Quinn, a midwife at NYU Health in Manhattan, has feared that her son’s experience as an ambulance doctor in Chicago will cause him to leave the field he recently came to. He was in his final year of residence when the pandemic started and he volunteered on the intubation team.

“I’m concerned about the toll he’s taking emotionally,” she said. “There were nights when we tearfully talked about what happened to us.”

She still has nightmares that are sometimes so terrible that she falls out of bed. Some are about her son or about patients she cannot help. In one, a patient’s bed linen is transformed into a towering monster that chases her out of the room.

When Ms. Luna first returned to her emergency room at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, New Jersey after her father’s death, she felt that something was missing. She had got used to having him there. It had been nerve-wracking when she was asked, “Is that my father?” On every urgent intercom call after a resuscitation. But at least she could stop by now and then to see how he was doing.

Furthermore, she had never known what it was like to be a nurse without him. She remembered going to elementary school to step into the field and using a yellow highlighter to paint over almost every line in his large textbooks.

During breakfast last March, Ms. Luna told her father how upset she was after holding an iPad for a dying patient to say goodbye to a family who couldn’t go to the hospital.

“This is our job,” she recalled Mr. Luna. “We’re here to act as a family when the family can’t be there. It’s a difficult role. It will be difficult, and there will be more times that you have to do it. “

Kitty Bennett contributed to the research.