Raphael Stevens

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director at the National Institute Of Allergy and Infectious Diseases attends a U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing to examine the COVID-19 response, focusing on an update from federal officials, on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 18, 2021.Anna Moneymaker | Pool | ReutersOn April 12, 2020, an official at the National Institutes of Health emailed Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, and then CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield fretting about the increasing hostilities between the U.S. and World Health Organization over the coronavirus pandemic.Then President Donald Trump was threatening to withdraw funding from the international health organization for getting “every aspect” of the outbreak wrong “I am concerned about the recent fight between the US and WHO because it may adversely impact the current global efforts in controlling the spread of COVID-19,” said the email, which also raised questions about the accuracy of China’s Covid-19 case and fatality data. Fauci responded: “This pandemic has been extremely challenging for many countries around the globe including China and the USA. I can only say that I (and I am sure that Bob Redfield feels the same way) prefer to look forward and not to assign blame or fault.””There are enough problems ahead that we must face together,” he added.Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) lift a patient that was identified to have coronavirus disease (COVID-19) into an ambulance while wearing protective gear, as the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in New York City, New York, U.S., March 26, 2020.Stefan Jeremiah | ReutersEmails releasedThe message from the NIH official, whose name is redacted, was made public as part of a dump of thousands of Fauci’s emails from the first half of 2020, which were obtained by BuzzFeed News and other media outlets through the Freedom of Information Act. As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases within NIH, Fauci was at the center of the storm.The anxious note, and Fauci’s ominous reply, illustrate the chaos of the moment.CNBC Health & Science Read CNBC’s latest global coverage of the Covid pandemic:Fauci’s 2,000 emails a day show how little U.S. officials knew in the early days of the Covid pandemic CDC director ‘deeply concerned’ over rise in teens hospitalized with Covid United offers flight attendants, pilots offered extra pay for proof of Covid vaccinationMalaysia’s Covid lockdown puts ‘a lot of pressure’ on government finances, says minister   Covid cases and deaths in the U.S. had climbed to terrifying new highs since Trump declared the pandemic a national emergency a month before. State leaders had issued draconian lockdown orders, upending millions of lives and prompting an economic freefall. Testing, social distancing and contact tracing were in their infancy, hospitals were overwhelmed, crucial protective equipment was running short and vaccines had yet to be developed.U.S. President Donald Trump declares the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency as Vice President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar listen during a news conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, March 13, 2020.Jonathan Ernst | ReutersThe president, who in January and February heaped praise on China’s response to the outbreak of the emergent virus, had sharply reversed his tone, slamming the WHO and Beijing and blaming both for the crisis.Fauci had been receiving emails from people saying that a pandemic appeared likely in the days and weeks before the WHO’s official declaration on March 11, 2020. Some asked him whether they should cancel large, in-person events, while others spitballed ideas for potential treatments and solutions to the outbreak. Some asked whether he thought Americans were adequately prepared.2,000 emails a dayFauci showed patience, diplomacy and diligence in his often late-night replies to high-level U.S. officials, famous performers and everyday people. The emails also show the tremendous physical and sometimes emotional toll the pandemic was taking on Fauci, who had become one of the most trusted sources of information on Covid-19 under a sometimes disjointed response under the Trump administration. On Feb. 18, 2020, Fauci received an email from an apparent old acquaintance who asked if he was in town for a potential meet-up over the weekend. Fauci apologized, writing that he would not be able to connect and asked if they could meet some other time as he was working nonstop.”The White House and HHS have me going 24/7 including Saturday and Sunday with the coronavirus crisis. I have seen my wife … for a total of about 45 minutes over the past 10 days,” he wrote. “I hope that you understand.”Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, center, speaks as U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, right, and Deborah Birx, coronavirus response coordinator, listen during a news conference in the briefing room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, March 2, 2020.Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesBy late March, when the U.S. had a little over 153,000 Covid cases, Fauci apologized for taking so long to get back to another old friend, saying he was receiving more than 2,000 emails a day. In a separate email a few days later to Dr. J. Larry Jameson, a fellow physician at the University of Pennsylvania, Fauci said he was “completely swamped” and was getting “3 to 4 hours sleep per night.” Offers of helpHis emails are peppered with pitches from people of widely varying levels of expertise offering their best guesses for how to deal with the ongoing crisis. One person who reached out in early March, describing himself as “neither a physician or a scientist,” suggested that the government expose U.S. adults to other known and “less lethal” coronaviruses to try to develop some level of immunity against the new virus. Fauci responded at 10:50 p.m.: “Thank you for your note. AS Fauci.” Quilter Ami Simms reached out in mid-March to offer her services to the NIH in making a pattern for face masks. She said she’s mobilized quilters for other causes in the past and there were “millions of sewers who would be delighted to step up and help right now.” Fauci forwarded the email to Dr. Andrea Lerner, a top medical officer at his agency. Woman Holding Homemade Face MaskIsabel Pavia | Moment | Getty ImagesHis responses show the inbox-clogging input wasn’t always welcome.”Please read this and figure out what the heck he is talking about and act according to your judgment,” Fauci wrote in a March 7, 2020 email to an NIH official, referring to a message he received making claims about a “game-changer” for Covid detection.”Only 498 emails to go tonight,” Fauci added.The varied advice and questions Fauci received over those early months showed just how much leading U.S. and international scientists, including Fauci himself, didn’t know about Covid at the beginning of the pandemic.Eerie early warningsThe question of masks came up early and often and some of Fauci’s advice later proved to be wrong.In a Feb. 5, 2020 email to American University President Sylvia Burwell, who served as HHS secretary under former President Barack Obama, Fauci advised her against wearing a mask at the airport. “The typical mask you buy in the drugstore is not really effective at keeping the virus out, which is small enough to pass through the material,” he wrote. Pedestrians wearing protective masks to help stop the spread of a deadly virus which began in the Chinese city of Wuhan, walk on a street in Tokyo’s Ginza area on January 25, 2020.Charly Triballeau | AFP | Getty ImagesChinese immunologist George Gao reached out to Fauci in late March to apologize for criticizing the U.S. mask policy. “How could I say such a word ‘big mistake’ about others? That was the journalist’s wording. Hope you understand,” Gao wrote on March 28. The U.S. wouldn’t change its mask guidance until July. Some of the email chains also turned out to be eerily prophetic. Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson reached out to Fauci March 2, 2020 when there were 91 confirmed cased in the U.S., saying NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins told him that 5% to 20% of the country could get infected with Covid. “A pandemic now appears likely,” he said. “Depending on the mortality rate, this could result in hundreds of thousands of deaths,” he wrote. Fauci said he was correct. Even if the mortality was 1% and just 5% of the U.S. population got it it, “we could have a few hundred thousand deaths,” he responded at 6:11 a.m.Wuhan Institute of VirologyA Feb. 1 email from Fauci’s deputy director at National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Hugh Auchincloss, indicates the agency was trying to determine whether it was involved in so-called gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The lab has since been thrust into the spotlight on the debate over the origins of the virus after media reports surfaced that at least three researchers there had become sick enough from a Covid-like infection in Nov. 2019 to seek hospital treatment. Security personnel keep watch outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology during the visit by the World Health Organization (WHO) team tasked with investigating the origins of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Wuhan, Hubei province, China February 3, 2021.Thomas Peter | ReutersFauci had sent Auchincloss a 2015 study published in Nature Medicine titled “A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence.” The study was funded in part by the NIAID and had multiple authors mostly from prestigious U.S. institutions. One of them, however, was based at the Wuhan institute where researchers were using the controversial style of research, which takes a pathogen and makes it more deadly or contagious to study ways to combat it. “The paper you sent me says the experiments were performed before the gain of function pause but have since been reviewed and approved by NIH. Not sure what that means since Emily is sure that no Coronavirus work has gone through the P3 framework. She will try to determine if we have any distant ties to this work abroad.”U.S. President Joe Biden last month said he ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct a deep dive into the origins of Covid, saying it was equally likely that it emerged from nature or leaked out from a lab. Fauci the heartthrobA well-respected infectious disease expert in scientific circles, Fauci’s high-profile role and no-nonsense style as the leading authority on the pandemic made him a household name – and a reluctant pop-culture icon, his emails show.”I could not have even begun to make this up,” Fauci wrote on April 10 regarding an article in The Atlantic describing his rapid ascent to “heartthrob” status amid the pandemic.Brad Pitt as Dr. Anthony Fauci during the “Fauci Cold Open” on “Saturday Night Live” on April 25, 2020.NBC | NBCUniversal | Getty Images”Our society is really totally nuts,” Fauci wrote in reaction to a similar piece documenting “Fauci Fever” and the online “sexualization” of the now-80-year-old virologist.His face was branded on clothing, food and drinks, and he was referenced constantly both in the news and entertainment media. Fauci in a March 31 email reacted to a Washington Post article about his “cult following,” calling it “truly surrealistic.””Hopefully this all stops soon,” Fauci wrote. He added in a follow up: “It is not at all pleasant, that is for sure.”But the records show Fauci was flattered by at least one portrayal of him: Brad Pitt’s version on Saturday Night Live. “Pitt was amazing,” Fauci wrote to a colleague on April 27. “One reviewer of the SNL show said that Pitt looked ‘exactly like me.’ That statement made my year.””Now, you also have the answer on who would play you in the movie,” replied Tara Schwetz, the associate deputy director of the NIH. Fauci indulged in the idea: “You could play the role of my medical school girlfriend, which would give you the possibility of working with Brad Pitt.” More

Damian Lillard #0 of the Portland Trail Blazers shoots against Paul Millsap #4 of the Denver Nuggets in the first quarter during Round 1, Game 6 of the 2021 NBA Playoffs at Moda Center on June 03, 2021 in Portland, Oregon.Steph Chambers | Getty ImagesIt all happened so fast, providing another example of how quickly business can shift with a National Basketball Association franchise.The Denver Nuggets took out the Portland Trail Blazers in six games, capping off their NBA playoff series on Thursday with an 11-point victory. The Blazers couldn’t protect a 14-point second-half lead and had an abysmal fourth quarter. TV cameras captured the scene of franchise star Damian Lillard walking into a dark tunnel at Moda Center in Portland.An Instagram post from Lillard seemed to ask how long he should stay loyal to the only team he’s played for in his nine-year career. He made it clear to the media that the team needs to improve.”We didn’t win a championship, so obviously where we are now isn’t good enough,” Lillard told reporters after the loss. Less than 24 hours after that, head coach Terry Stotts, who fell to 23-44 in the playoffs, paid the price. Lillard quickly informed a handful of media outlets including Yahoo Sports, of his preference — Jason Kidd.It is the fourth time in five years, the team has failed to get out of the first round of the NBA playoffs. With public messages surfacing about the future, consumers and corporate partners should be asking: What is going on with the Blazers?The roster needs major work and ownership — Paul Allen’s estate — is facing pressure to make changes. Top basketball executive Neil Olshey remains, as of now, and is tasked with fixing the $1.9 billion franchise. He needs to do it fast.Satisfying the superstarLillard is one of the NBA’s most dynamic stars. He’s heavily endorsed off the court, with Adidas and Hulu among his top sponsors. He’s known across the league for his clutch performances, which are often labeled “Dame Time.”Against the Nuggets, he averaged a career-best 34.5 points and put together a stat line for the ages in Game 5, scoring 55 points and making 12 of 17 three-point shots. Still, the team lost in double overtime.Lillard made $31 million this season. That will jump to $39 million next season, thanks to a four-year, $196 million extension signed in 2019. The contract keeps Lillard locked up until 2025.But the six-time All-Star turns 31 in July. The nagging injuries have started, and the window to win with Lillard is closing. Olshey has given rival teams no indication that he’s willing to trade Lillard.Lillard and his agent, Aaron Goodwin, could easily change that tone, though. A person close to Lillard told CNBC that he’s expected to wait to see what the Blazers do this off-season before deciding his future.A rival NBA agent, who faced a similar situation with a star player, said Lillard could first gauge how serious ownership is about winning. The Blazers’ willingness to pay into the luxury tax, which carries steep financial penalties, is also a factor.But after his public comments soliciting Kidd, the signs suggest Lillard wants to stay.Who will be the new coach?Kidd is currently an assistant coach for the Lakers, who won the championship last year. He has head coach experience and a title as a player from his time in Dallas. He’d bring credibility in the locker room and will instantly click with Lillard, as both are Oakland natives.  The thing is, can Olshey trust Kidd? If this is Olshey’s final coaching hire, before he too is gone, can he count on Kidd to honor organizational structure?Kidd’s praised for his work with the Lakers, and the chatter is that he’s grown. But his history as a head coach in NBA isn’t the prettiest. He feuded with management in Brooklyn, was criticized for the way he took the helm in Milwaukee. Another respected coach, Larry Drew, was on the job when Kidd maneuvered to get there.Chauncey Billups is another option.Olshey would instantly trust Billups, as he built a strong relationship with the former Detroit Pistons point guard when they were with the Los Angeles Clippers for the 2011-12 season. Billups is now an assistant with the Clippers, and is active in NBA circles. He’s involved with a point guard-driven players group that discusses basketball concepts and is aligned with NBA power booker Rich Paul, who added Billups’ agent Andy Miller, to his sports group.Other names like ESPN NBA analyst and former New York Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy have also emerged. Nets assistant Mike D’Antoni’s name was also lobbied, but with his history of coaching nondefensive teams, he could be a hard sell to the fanbase.The Blazers didn’t return a request for comment when contacted by CNBC.But should he get his coaching wish, Lillard would still need to see the Blazers make moves to try and upgrade the roster, which was among the worst in the league on defense. A top asset like guard CJ McCollum could attract a healthy return. McCollum will make $30 million next season, part of a three-year extension.The Cleveland Cavaliers were mentioned as one possible destination for McCollum. The San Antonio Spurs like McCollum, but his name hasn’t gained traction within their trade scenarios. A Western Conference executive floated the idea of the Clippers trading Paul George this summer if the team failed to meet expectations. Hence, a possible McCollum to the Clippers package. And if Miami can’t lure a Lillard deal, McCollum could be an option there, too.”To come up short in the first round and for our season to end on our home floor is disappointing,” Lillard told reporters after the loss to the Nuggets. When discussing his future, he added, “we’ll see what happens. I haven’t thought that far out.”Portland Trail Blazers General Manager Neil Oshley looks on during a game between the Portland Trail Blazers and San Antonio Spurs at Moda Center on February 06, 2020 in Portland, Oregon.Abbie Parr | Getty ImagesOlshey’s future seems secure for nowUntil Stotts’ departure, uncertainty about the Blazers’ future went all the way up to the top.Chris McGowan is CEO of Vulcan Sports and Entertainment, which operates the Blazers and Seattle Seahawks. Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, died in 2018 and his sister, Jody, now has the last word. Olshey reported exclusively to Allen when it came to basketball decisions. But that picture now is more muddied.Olshey is viewed as a solid executive who has done everything he could to work within the team’s budget, and form a good roster around Lillard. And he was critical in keeping the franchise stable after the departure of former franchise star LaMarcus Aldridge in 2015.Bert Kolde, vice chairman of the Blazers and Seahawks, has been mentioned both locally and by a former team staffer as the person who could insert himself as a loud voice in future basketball affairs. What Kolde knows about hiring basketball executives is unclear. But Olshey’s name was in the announcement to part ways with Stotts, so it appears he’ll get another shot to run basketball operations.On the business side, McGowan doesn’t want the pressure of losing Lillard, either.When a rebuild occurs, a team loses leverage in negotiating corporate partnerships. The Blazers will be navigating a new regional sports network partner, moving from NBC Sports Northwest to AT&T’s Root Sports. Distribution issues have been a concern for the team for years and has cost it audience reach. But entering a new local TV deal with no superstar isn’t ideal.Lillard is a huge financial draw, and losing him could be devastating. There would likely be fewer nationally televised games. It’s here the team’s jersey patch asset could take a hit because less exposure makes that advertising real estate less attractive.The good news for the Trail Blazers is that Portland has proven to provide a loyal fanbase. It was the first major sports team in town, followed by Major League Soccer’s Portland Timbers and National Women’s Soccer League’s Thorns FC.Since 2007, the Blazers finished in the top 10 in NBA attendance. The team was fifth in 2020 before the pandemic struck, according to ESPN’s NBA attendance. The team brings in more than $240 million in annual revenue, according to Forbes.Lillard’s value is no secret to management. A team executive, who asked not to be named so he could speak candidly, told CNBC that a Lillard departure is the biggest risk to the franchise’s value declining.The executive added that the team as currently constructed clearly isn’t good enough to win a title. Regardless of who’s to blame, the person said, big changes have to be made.Stotts was the first move. Now fans, corporate partners and the rest of the NBA are waiting to see what’s next in Portland. And most of all, if Lillard’s loyalty will keep the Blazers business from crumbling.WATCH: How Air Jordan built a $3.6 billion sneaker empire More

Chef Matt BolusSource: Kelli LaMatiaLike many restaurant owners, Matt Bolus, executive chef of The 404 Kitchen in Nashville, had to get creative when the city shut down due to Covid-19 mandates last spring.He kept some of his core staff busy by cooking meals for the local food bank, private dinners and other opportunities to pay the bills. “You were just truly grabbing at every straw you could because you didn’t know when the end was,” he said. As the city opened back up and mandates vanished, Bolus saw an influx of guests returning to the restaurant. But now he faces a huge challenge: staffing the kitchen to meet rising demand. “The labor pool is still, unfortunately, more of a labor puddle,” he said.  More from Personal Finance:Guy Fieri is on a mission to help save restaurants hit by pandemicHere’s how these small businesses pivoted to survive during CovidStart-ups boomed during pandemic. How some entrepreneurs found nichesThe pandemic gutted the hospitality industry, which shed 2.5 million jobs in 2020, the National Restaurant Association reported.Although restaurants have added jobs in 2021, the unemployment rate for restaurant workers is still above the national average. But despite the jobless rates in hospitality, many restaurants are still stretched to find workers.Almost half of establishments are operating with 20% less staff than usual, the National Restaurant Association found.Moreover, accommodations and food service job openings spiked to nearly 1 million in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwardsWhile there have been debates over the prolonged restaurant worker shortages, some point to the enhanced unemployment benefits. “If you talk to any restaurateurs, they will tell you that a lot of their workforce is making more money with the stimulus to stay home,” said Jean Chick, U.S. restaurant and food service leader at Deloitte in Chicago.But others blame systemic issues that have plagued the restaurant industry for years.”The places that want to continue the old model of no benefits, low wages and poor working conditions are having the most trouble bringing in staff,” said Teofilo Reyes, chief program officer at Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a non-profit advocating for restaurant workers.Leaving the industryWhile the pandemic heightened staffing issues, restaurant worker shortages were a problem before Covid, Bolus said.In Nashville, restaurateurs grappled with stiff competition for talent as the city welcomed a surge of new establishments. There were 112 new restaurants, bars or cafes in 2019, the third consecutive year of more than100 openings, according to the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp.  “In the 26 years that I’ve been doing this, it might have been the roughest two-year patch that I’ve seen for hiring,” Bolus said.Nashville isn’t the only city that coped with a tight hospitality labor market pre-pandemic. “We’ve been in what the press has called a ‘hospitality staffing crisis’ for over a decade,” said Ben Ellsworth, founder and CEO at GigPro, an on-demand hiring app based in Charleston, South Carolina. After wrestling with worker shortfalls for years, Charleston restaurants veered to layoffs last March, cutting 65% of the city’s 28,000 restaurant workers by mid-April 2020, according to estimates from the College of Charleston.As workers scrambled to pay the bills, many looked for jobs elsewhere. Some employees found higher-paying jobs with landscaping or construction companies, Ellsworth said.Pre-pandemic, experienced line cooks in Charleston were making $15 or $16 per hour. With one-bedroom apartments renting for more than $1,000 per month in the area, it’s easy to see why some workers have left the industry, he said.Health risks have also impacted the shortage, as many workers haven’t felt safe returning to work, said William Dissen, executive chef and owner of Haymaker in Charlotte, North Carolina.Restaurant workers, especially those working in a small kitchen, have been vulnerable during the pandemic. Line cooks may have been among the highest for worker mortality from March to October 2020, a study from the University of California, San Francisco found.Since reopening back to 75% and 100%, we’ve really had difficulty. I put ads out almost every day.William Dissenexecutive chef and restaurateurAfter mass layoffs nationwide, burnt-out restaurant workers may have taken the opportunity to pursue other career options, Ellsworth said.More than one-quarter of kitchen workers have permanently left the industry, according to a survey of 2,000 line cooks from staffing firm Mis en Place. Some workers cited relatively low pay and long hours as reasons for leaving.However, one-third of those surveyed say they plan to return but haven’t yet for various reasons, including looking for the right opportunity (20%), Covid concerns (7%) and unemployment benefits or stimulus checks (6%).On-demand hiring appsAlthough North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper recently lifted restrictions, many operators have failed to staff restaurants to full capacity, said Dissen, who also owns The Market Place in Asheville, North Carolina, and Billy D’s Fried Chicken in Asheboro, North Carolina.Restaurateurs often turn to Craigslist to find workers, but lately, there hasn’t been sufficient response to meet rising demand, he said.”Since reopening back to 75% and 100%, we’ve really had difficulty,” Dissen said. “I put ads out almost every day.”As the industry continues to battle increased worker shortages, Dissen has turned to GigPro, an on-demand hiring app, to fill temporary needs, such as line cooks or dishwashers.”It has really been just amazing for our business [in Charlotte] to be able to fill the gaps when we need it,” he said.Managers may offer higher pay for last-minute workers. For example, if a dishwasher’s typical hourly rate is in the $15 per hour range, they may offer to pay $20 per hour on GigPro, Dissen said. “I’ve literally filled gigs at our restaurant within 5 minutes of posting,” he said.The app also allows managers and workers to try a shift together before taking the plunge with employment, said Bolus, who has hired a handful of staff from the app.”They’ve got a chance to shine or they’ve got a chance to leave,” he said.Downsides of on-demand hiring appsWorker advocates say there may be some drawbacks to on-demand hiring apps, however.”The biggest downside is that you’re going to be treated as an independent contractor,” Reyes said. “This means you’re not subject to the few labor protections that we have under the Fair Labor Standards Act.”Another potential shortfall may be the increased risk of race or gender discrimination based on the worker’s profile pictures in the app, he said. “I think this is definitely something to monitor,” Reyes said.I think these kinds of applications are just starting and I think they’re possibly going to revolutionize how we all work.Matt BolusExecutive chef of The 404 KitchenA ‘reckoning’ in the restaurant industry Still, some restaurateurs say changes to the hiring and recruiting process may be a good thing. “I think these kinds of applications are just starting and I think they’re possibly going to revolutionize how we all work,” said Bolus.Another trend in the hiring process is offering applicants money to show up for interviews, said Chick.”They’re saying, ‘we will actually give you $50 cash to show up for the interview,’ and then the onus is on the owner of the restaurant to sell them on taking the position,” she said.As hiring managers test new recruiting strategies, some have noticed a shift in the dynamic between owners and workers. “I think there’s been kind of a reckoning in the restaurant industry,” said Dissen.As restaurants examine operations, there may be some steps to try and “level the playing field” between owners and employees, he said.But it will look different for every restaurant, depending on long-term debt, products sold and how much they pay employees, he admits.”I think it’s a lot of deep questions and maybe sleepless nights to try and figure out what the answer is,” Dissen said. “But I think that’s how you stay viable for the future.” More

Medical researchers say within a few years major breakthroughs in blood testing technology that use immune system response and genetic analysis to identify disease quickly and cost-effectively will be on the market.picture alliance | picture alliance | Getty ImagesOne morning last May, Tayah Fernandes’s mother Shannon realized her four-year-old daughter was seriously unwell, and rushed her to the nearest ER in the English city of Manchester. The coronavirus had crashed onto Britain’s shores weeks earlier, and emergency doctors were initially uncertain how best to treat Tayah’s constellation of symptoms, which included stomach pains and a bright red rash.They gave her antibiotics for a suspected bacterial infection, but her condition only worsened, her fever spiking. For her parents, for any parents, this was the ultimate medical nightmare; doctors in the dark for days over the cause of their daughter’s illness.Eventually, after further blood tests, physicians decided Tayah was suffering from an unusual inflammatory syndrome that pediatric infectious disease specialists had only just started to see, but suspected had links to Sars-COV-2.Young patients across the U.K. and U.S. were arriving in intensive care units with symptoms similar to another disease doctors already recognized, called Kawasaki. But they had no guarantee that the same course of treatment — injecting a solution of donors’ antibodies into the bloodstream — would prove successful.In Tayah’s case the antibodies solution, known as immunoglobulin, worked, to her parents’ relief. But at around that same time last May a team of researchers at Imperial College, London confirmed through complex analyses of blood samples, taken from patients like Tayah, that this was indeed a new disease, distinct from Kawasaki.Hunting inside immune system response to bacteria, virusA related breakthrough in that same laboratory, focused specifically on the way individual genes behave, could have seismic implications for a multi-billion dollar diagnostics sector that has received unprecedented attention from patients, regulators and the business world over the course of this pandemic.A new method for identifying a specific illness from blood samples relies on the correlation between the activity in small set of genes, which represents the immune response, and specific pathogens that cause a specific disease — just as the poliovirus causes polio, the coronavirus (SARS-COV-2, a pathogen) causes Covid-19. Scientists believe that by studying a small number of genes, they can quickly discern which pathogen is in a patient’s system, what disease they have, and so how best to treat them. Companies from small research university spin-offs to industry giants like Abbott Laboratories and Danaher’s Cepheid are looking to build on two decades of research into the way our own immune systems naturally respond to foreign substances in our bodies, including pathogens like bacteria or viruses. A current technology like Cepheid’s GeneXpert technology is able to distinguish between the different RNA of various viruses, such as SARS-COV-2, or a particular influenza strain, but experts say it’s become increasingly clear that our body’s immune systems can be faster, more accurate detection systems. Historically, doctors have had to rely on a patient’s case history and symptoms to narrow down the cause of an illness and develop a treatment plan. More recently, laboratory inspections at the molecular level such as the Cepheid technology have allowed clinicians to identify specific pathogens in nasal mucus, throat swabs or blood samples that might have caused an illness. But hunting for bacteria or a virus in this way can be time-consuming, costly and sometimes simply ineffective. The specific RNA signature of a virus can be hard to detect.Abbott and Cepheid did not respond to requests for comment.More from CNBC’s Healthy ReturnsPfizer says mRNA technology can create seasonal flu shot of the futureAbbott’s virus hunters and the search for new Covid variantsA psychedelic boom in PTSD and depression treatment is comingThe team at Imperial College, London, working separately but at the same time as several counterparts around the world, are now convinced that future diagnoses can soon be conducted using table-top tests that will take just a matter of minutes.These tests would not explicitly screen for a specific pathogen, but instead, allow scientists and medical professionals to simply watch how specific genes in the body are behaving as an indication of how an immune system is already responding to a pathogen that may not be easily otherwise detectable. Imperial College professor Mike Levin currently leads an ongoing European Union-funded study focused on this potential, called “Diamonds.” In recent years he and other scientists have shown how the observed activity in a small number of our genes can work as a kind of shorthand for our body’s immune response to a pathogen. If a handful of specific genes out of thousands in a blood sample are seen to be activated — or the opposite, inhibited — it can indicate that a person is preparing to fight off a specific pathogen.We think this is a completely revolutionary way of doing medical diagnosis.Imperial College professor Mike LevinLevin and colleagues already have a proof of concept for this diagnostic approach after studies involving thousands of patients with fever caused by tuberculosis, and hundreds of Kawasaki patients. And his Imperial College team’s work with the “Diamonds” study are starting to bear fruit and could help identify the distinct immunological markers of illnesses like the coronavirus-linked multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children like Tayah Fernandes, now commonly known as MIS-C. When Covid-19 turned up in multiple locations, with MIS-C in its wake, it presented Levin and his researchers with an unprecedented opportunity to test this technique on an entirely new disease.In the future, these tests — by relying on huge amounts of data and machine learning — should be able to produce multi-class rather than just binary results. This means they could confirm not only if a pathogen is bacterial or viral, or whether someone has a specific disease or not, but could distinguish which one of a multitude of illnesses is afflicting their patient.In short, Levin expects that by examining the behavior of a relatively small number of genes, clinicians will be able to assign patients to all the major disease classes within an hour.”We think this is a completely revolutionary way of doing medical diagnosis,” Levin said. He expects the research will provide the basis for new technology, but has no financial interest in any business related to it. Rather than what he calls the “stepwise process” of first eliminating bacterial infections, treating for the most common conditions, and then doing more investigation, “this idea is the very first blood test can tell you, has the patient got an infection or not an infection, and what group of infection that is, right down to the individual pathogens.”Purvesh Khatri, an associate professor at the Stanford Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection and Department of Medicine, says our immune systems have been evolving for millennia to combat pathogens, and so it may prove more effective, and efficient, to examine the response of our bodies.”We didn’t have a technology, until now, that could measure a set of genes in a rapid point of care way,” he said. “But in the last couple of years, there have been enough technologies available that now allow us to measure a few genes in a rapid multiplex point of care assay way.”While neither the FDA nor any European regulators have approved these kinds of gene-based pathogen detection systems, Khatri, who is helping launch a related commercial venture, says they’re coming soon. “In the next year or two, there will be several that will be available on the market.”Stay connected with Healthy ReturnsFor a front row seat at CNBC Events, you can hear directly from the visionary executives, innovators, leaders and influencers taking the stage in “The Keynote Podcast.” Listen now, however you get your podcasts.For more exclusive insights from our reporters and speakers, sign up for our Healthy Returns newsletter to get the latest delivered straight to your inbox weekly. 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Pedestrians wearing protective masks walk past a Lululemon store in San Francisco, California, on Monday, March 29, 2021.David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesInstead of jumping to a conclusion about the post-Covid consumer, revert back to one that psychology studies educated us on long before the pandemic. Individuals don’t change habits easily, and what they may stand to lose by changing behavior weighs more heavily on the mind than any potential gain.”Breaking habits is hard. It is an uphill battle,” said Wharton professor of marketing and psychology Deborah Small at the recent CNBC Small Business Playbook Summit.The idea behind that is known in the academic field as risk perception, and the pandemic did complicate it. An unprecedented event which suddenly forced consumers to go against their nature and into new behaviors, and out of many of the commerce interactions previously taken for granted: bars, cafes and restaurants, in-person fitness classes, and in-person education. Consumers have been exploring alternatives in ways they rarely do, and that occurred on top of a consumer landscape that is always changing, in recent years mostly related to digital buying and selling.”Lots of ways in which people consumed pre-pandemic won’t return to those levels,” Small said. “We’ve been permanently changed by different experiences we had in the past year plus.”But the Wharton professor also says it is unwise, based on all that we know about the consumer brain, to assume that the habits formed during the pandemic will become a permanent, preferred majority state. A recent Forrester survey found 75% of U.S. adults saying that the pandemic would drive long-term changes in behavior, but its research also stresses that the consumer has always been in a state of flux; it’s just maybe now more likely that change is the “new normal” for consumers.In Small’s view, there is no single consumer to sell to — and thinking in those terms would be a fundamental mistake.More from CNBC’s Small Business PlaybookGary Vaynerchuk: The 3 social media ‘requirements’ for every small business’Shark’ investor Robert Herjavec: ‘I am highly, highly bullish’Life is Good was on brink of bankruptcy, here is what saved retailer: CEOHow to get billion-dollar retail to stock your million-dollar product ideaOffice reopening plans could make or break restaurants Take exercise, as an example, and the rise of workout-from-home Peloton before its momentum was taken away by what Wall Street calls the reopening trade. Meanwhile, Lululemon continues to sell a lot of yoga pants, but it has seen a steady increase in store traffic after seeing the popularity of direct-to-consumer athleisure wear sales during the peak of Covid in the U.S. It also bought at-home fitness start-up and Peloton competitor Mirror.Betting on more than one kind of consumer — which was already occurring before the pandemic with the rise of digital — is a smarter strategy than planning around a fixed idea of the consumer emerging from the past year.”Imagine someone who used to go to the gym and then couldn’t, started exercising from home. Maybe they really miss the old way and are dying to get back, and couldn’t replicate it at home,” Small said. The pandemic may ultimately reconfirm that person’s original preference. On the other hand, she says, some consumers try new forms and conclude “it is convenient for me” and are changed forever.This thinking already has a name in retail, and big presence: omnichannel. Or in other words, spread your bets rather than concentrate them. Meet the consumer where they want to be met, and understand that each consumer is not motivated by the same set of preferences. Small said it is the type of thinking which small business owners across the country — if they were able to survive the pandemic or opportunistic enough to form a new business during it — need to be acting on as the post-pandemic period begins.She provided CNBC with a few key ideas for tackling this tricky consumer landscape.1. Learn the difference between risk and risk perception.Many people want to put the consumer into the pre-pandemic and post-pandemic buckets, and Small said that is actually a reasonable starting point in order to make predictions. Humans tend to categorize as a way of making sense of the world, it just becomes dangerous to categorize all consumers as being similar.”There is enormous heterogeneity, variation across consumers, in their views, risk preferences, political ideologies … all the stuff shaping the way changes are affecting them,” she told CNBC.That is why she says the first thing to keep in mind is the difference between risk and risk perception.”Risk perception is not risk,” Small said. “Risk is reality, its truth. Risk perception is psychology, what we feel and think.”Risk perception is a function of personality and the culture we live in, and the information we consume. And that can all be varied at the individual and community level.2. Accept Covid-19 politics will continue to be a big buying and selling factor.The politics of the pandemic are an example of how that risk perception needs to be factored into consumer marketing in the future.The information people consume in communities can be a function of local political ideology, and Small says it is compounded by the fact that social networks are overlapping, with individuals talking to others within a cluster.In communities and regions where there are greater concerns about Covid, consumers may remain more risk-averse even after the CDC guidance on mask wearing eased. And there is going to be the polar opposite extreme — “feelings of invulnerability and shades in between.””Businesses need to measure and understand where their customers are coming from,” the Wharton professor said.There may be areas where patrons, including fully vaccinated ones, continue to only enter stores where others are masked. That may be due to personal preference, new habits being formed or politics, including wanting to be an ally of essential workers who could still be at risk of contracting the virus. And there may be examples that go far in the opposite direction, and reinforce how political polarization is part of the future that Main Street businesses must navigate. Think of the hat store in Nashville, Tennessee, which made national headlines for yellow star lapels promoting non-vaccinated status.3. Don’t draw a pandemic line, but maybe segment by preferences.Vaccination efforts in the U.S. have made great progress and case counts and mortality from the virus have sharply declined, but there is a significant portion of the public which will need more time to be at ease with Covid.Small says that means it is smart to maintain a stance that leans into hygiene, but also recognize that among your customer base there may be those who believe society went too far in reacting to the risk of the virus, and there is a risk of backlash towards businesses that overemphasize sanitation.”This is a tricky balancing act,” Small said, one that is maybe most difficult to navigate for businesses in “purple states.”She strongly recommends considering if there are ways to doing segmentation of consumers to meet the needs of those who continue to stress Covid hygiene and those who may feel differently. The idea of segmentation circles back to the heterogeneity that underlies human risk perception. As one example, it could be embraced by having business hours designated for different customer segments. Some businesses maintained shopping hours reserved only for older customers during the Covid peak.Small also said business owners should not lose focus on one forced change that has worked very well: conducting business outdoors. Some of the best innovations she has seen among small businesses where she lives related to figuring out more way to do things outdoors. “It’s better for safety and lower risk … so when possible that’s great. Why didn’t we think of it before?”4. Ask your customers what they want.The best way to learn what customers want? Ask them.For big companies, that can mean market research, a science that includes in-depth tools to measure concerns and preferences. And can be expensive.Small said it is not necessary for a small business to give up on the effort because it can’t afford proper market research. There are plenty of good alternatives, from do-it-yourself Google Trends analysis to creating surveys using free online tools or Instagram for quick polling.”Asking customers questions is the key thing” she said.And it is important, because another side of human nature that often trips us up is overconfidence.”We think we know customers well. Oftentimes our intuitions aren’t correct,” she said. “So it is really useful to ask them. … not just assume. Ask them those questions.”And she says people tend to tell the truth.”As a general rule … if they are your customers and you have some relationship … they want you to do well, so it is in their interest to be honest,” Small said.Right now, they also probably have a lot of information to share that is valuable.”We’ve all had a lot of time to reflect in the last year and they have opinions. … listen to customers,” the Wharton professor said. “Don’t go with intuition. Talk to customers, seek feedback from them, and try to understand what they care about.”While assumptions are bad, and intuition can be wrong, Small also stressed that business owners should not be overwhelmed by the challenges, and should start by reflecting on what they’ve learned from so much having changed, the innovations they’ve come up with, and the extent to which they’ve been adaptive. “Trust yourself. If you have adapted before you can adapt again, and can you learn from the way you adapted before and apply it going forward.” More

Elmont, N.Y.: Manuel Franco riding Tiz the Law wins first place during the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York on June 20, 2020.Steve Pfost | Newsday | Getty ImagesKevin Richardson grew up in West Baltimore and credits horse racing with keeping him out of trouble. He started out cleaning stalls and worked his way up to be an assistant trainer. His love of the sport made him want to be an owner and today he brags of owning shares in 25 horses.”To start on the bottom and end up becoming an owner or part-owner of a great racehorse, it’s everybody’s dream,” said Richardson as he stood in front of the horse stalls at the Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.Businesses such as SportBLX and Myracehorse.com are offering shares of racehorses to investors. For less than $100 a share, people can own a fraction of race winnings, stud fees and other revenue. It also opens doors to opportunities to attend events.The offerings are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which requires investors to hold shares for at least one year. Currently, there isn’t enough of a market for investors to sell these shares. Instead, the holding company is liquidated when the horse is finished and investors are paid any remaining returns.Richardson has invested through both SportBLX and MyRaceHorse.com.”I want to make money like anybody else. But, you know, you can’t come on in for that reason,” he said.SportBLX co-founder Joe De Perio acknowledged that it’s tough to make money investing in racehorses.”You shouldn’t go in thinking that you’re going to make a lot of money because the numbers … don’t bear that out,” said De Perio.When a horse is racing, there can be a lot of volatility. A win can increase the value of prizes, along with stud fees and leasing opportunities, but an injury can wipe out value. That makes pricing racehorses risky and adds to the challenge of what’s known as a Regulation A offering. Under that security, each horse offering has to be approved and the timeline for getting that done can take several months.”What’s happened is we’ve just had to stay away from horses of racing age. And we’ve kind of gone into buy babies, yearlings, two year olds, and they don’t have that kind of volatility,” said Michael Behrens, CEO MyRaceHorse.com.Rep. Andy Barr, a Republican whose Lexington, Kentucky district is located in what’s known as the “Horse Capital of the World,” is pushing the SEC to make it easier for retail investors to own a stake in a racehorse.”Innovative companies are democratizing the exciting business of horse ownership by selling securities of these horses, allowing retail investors to own part of the racehorses they see in the Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes and other races nationwide. Unfortunately, regulatory red tape is slowing the growth of this innovation,” said Barr.Owners get the most excitement from horses that are actively racing. The platforms cater to investors’ desire for the perks of ownership. Along with shares, ownership provides opportunities to meet with trainers, visit stables and even have a photo taken in the winner’s circle.”A lot of our investors have been very desirous of being participatory in horse racing,” said Behrens, who added that it’s a “fun part of the game.”MyRaceHorse.com sold shares in Authentic before it won the Kentucky Derby in 2020. Investors got to be a part of the excitement of owning a winner, but the prize money for that race wasn’t a big payoff for investors. Performance bonuses to the original owners and expenses got the bulk of that upfront cash, even as the horse gained value in stud fees.Investor Elliot Levine said he might break even on the four shares in Authentic that he bought off of MyRaceHorse.com.”Boy, it was the biggest thrill just being part owner of a horse in the Derby,” said Levine.The disclosures required by the SEC make it clear the risk is high for these investments.”These risks include holding your investment for periods of months or years with limited or no ability to resell and losing your entire investment; you must have the ability to bear a total loss of your investment without a change in your lifestyle,” the MyRaceHorse.com prospectus reads.”People are really doing it for this idea of joining a community getting access to a world, getting to go to physical events that allow you to kind of get closer to this, you know, the horse and the asset you’ve invested in,” said Behrens.Risks could turn into rewards if investment in racehorses generates enthusiasm in the sport, which has seen a sharp decline in popularity over the last 20 years.Barr, who sponsored the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, which was signed into law last year, said he hopes that investment interest combined with a drug safety program and standards of competition “can strengthen the sport’s future for generations to come.”That’s a bet horse racing fans hope will pay off. More

Dr. Scott Gottlieb pointed on Friday to the highly transmissible Covid-19 variants as a potential cause behind an increase in adolescents being hospitalized with the virus in March and April. “It’s concerning, the trends on hospitalizations” among teenagers, said Gottlieb, the former Food and Drug Administration chief during the Trump administration. “I think it’s a reflection of the new, more contagious variants.””We are seeing that these variants are more contagious across all age groups, so they’re affecting adults more, but they’re also affecting kids more, so you’re seeing more kids contract symptomatic Covid and more kids get hospitalized, as a consequence of that, particularly B. 117,” Gottlieb told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith.”  The B. 117 variant is currently the most prevalent strain in the U.S., with 20,915 reported cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.In the first three months of the year, CDC researchers found that nearly one-third of adolescents hospitalized with Covid required admission into an intensive care unit. Meanwhile, 5% needed invasive mechanical ventilation. To be sure, CDC data shows no teenagers in the U.S. died of Covid in the first quarter of 2021. CDC director Rochelle Walensky on Friday urged parents to vaccinate their teenagers against Covid, citing more teenagers being hospitalized with Covid. Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic testing start-up Tempus, health-care tech company Aetion Inc. and biotech company Illumina. More