Tag: death

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Ex-husband, family charged in Hong Kong model’s death

Ex-husband, family charged in Hong Kong model’s death
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Health inequities lead to early death in many persons with disabilities

Health inequities lead to early death in many persons with disabilities

A new report by the Entire world Health Business displays evidence of a higher risk of untimely dying and disease among many individuals with disabilities in comparison to some others in the culture. 

The World report on health equity for persons with disabilities released these days shows that for the reason that of the systemic and persistent overall health inequities, lots of persons with disabilities confront the possibility of dying substantially earlier—even up to 20 decades earlier—than people with out disabilities.

They have an greater chance of building serious conditions, with up to double the hazard of asthma, despair, diabetic issues, weight problems, oral illnesses, and stroke.  Lots of of the variations in wellness outcomes can not be defined by the fundamental well being situation or impairment, but by avoidable, unfair and unjust things.

Released ahead of the Intercontinental Working day of People with Disabilities, the report demonstrates the quantity of individuals with major disabilities all over the world has risen to 1.3 billion (or 1 in 6 people).  This amount reinforces the significance of reaching full and successful participation of persons with disabilities in all aspects of modern society and embedding the concepts of inclusion, accessibility and non-discrimination in the health sector.

Unfair things: a vital lead to of disparities in wellbeing

The report stresses the have to have for urgent action to deal with the large inequities in wellness triggered by unjust and unfair factors within health and fitness techniques. These factors—which account for quite a few of the distinctions in wellbeing outcomes in between folks with and without the need of disabilities—could just take the variety of:

  • unfavorable attitudes of health care vendors,
  • wellness data in formats that can’t be comprehended, or
  • difficulties accessing a well being centre thanks to the actual physical natural environment, absence of transport or economic limitations.

“Health techniques should really be assuaging the issues that people with disabilities deal with, not including to them,” reported WHO Director-Typical, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “This report shines a light on the inequities that folks with disabilities face in trying to access the treatment they require. WHO is dedicated to supporting nations with the steerage and resources they will need to be certain all men and women with disabilities have access to top quality wellbeing services.”

With an approximated 80{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of people with disabilities dwelling in reduced- and center-earnings countries where wellbeing expert services are limited, addressing health inequities could be challenging. However even with confined assets, a great deal can be achieved.

Possibilities for a disability-inclusive health and fitness sector

Recognizing that anyone has the exact suitable to the best attainable standard of well being, the report delivers critical financial analysis of adopting a disability-inclusive method.  It reveals investing in a incapacity-inclusive well being sector is value-powerful.

WHO calculates that governments could assume a return of about US$ 10 for every US$ 1 invested on disability-inclusive noncommunicable sickness avoidance and care. In addition, spouse and children organizing and vaccination are cost–effective when applied in a disability-inclusive fashion.

Specific and detailed steps across the overall health sector

The report outlines 40 steps across the wellbeing sector for governments to consider, drawing on the most up-to-date proof from tutorial scientific tests as properly as consultations with international locations and civil culture, which includes organizations symbolizing folks with disabilities. These actions fluctuate by resource degree and variety from addressing physical infrastructure to schooling of health and fitness and treatment employees.

Making sure overall health fairness for individuals with disabilities will also have broader benefits and can progress world wellness priorities in 3 methods:

  • wellbeing equity for all is significant to attaining common wellbeing protection
  • inclusive public overall health interventions that are administered equitably throughout distinctive sectors can contribute to healthier populations and
  • advancing overall health equity for individuals with disabilities is a central component in all endeavours to guard every person in wellness emergencies.

“Addressing wellness inequities for people with disabilities advantages every person,” explained Dr Bente Mikkelsen, WHO Director for Noncommunicable Illnesses. “Older individuals, people today with noncommunicable conditions, migrants and refugees, or other usually unreached populations, can gain from strategies that goal the persistent troubles to disability inclusion in the overall health sector.”

She extra: “We urge governments, health partners and civil culture to be certain all health sector steps are inclusive of persons with disabilities so that they can love their appropriate to the best common of health and fitness.”

 

———————————————–

Note to editors

To observe the start party on Friday, 2 December at 14:00 to 15:30 CET/Geneva time, remember to register at https://who.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_S8sIa08GQS-mbkuwQuGGMA.

Beneath intercontinental human rights regulation and lots of countries’ domestic laws, governments have an obligation to tackle overall health inequities so that people with disabilities have an equal right to realise their best attainable regular of overall health.

The Conference on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which has 185 events, commits countries to deliver people with disabilities with the same vary, top quality and typical of reasonably priced overall health care as furnished to other persons on an equal basis with other individuals.

WHO is doing work with Member States, world companions, disability and well being actors, which includes agent corporations of people with disabilities, in translating the recommendations in this report into motion in international locations. This consists of acquiring a Information for motion on incapacity inclusion in the health and fitness sector, which is a national strategic planning tool to assistance nations around the world to make the variations essential to realize health equity for folks with disabilities.

 

 

 

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Ultra-processed foods linked to premature, preventable death

Ultra-processed foods linked to premature, preventable death

Packaged biscuits on an assembly line in a factoryShare on Pinterest
A​ new review adds to a expanding physique of exploration displaying that extremely-processed foodstuff can guide to untimely, preventable loss of life. Monty Rakusen/Getty Photos
  • Dietary styles can have an huge affect on health and fitness outcomes.
  • Extremely-processed foodstuff that go via huge amounts of processing can eliminate nutritional benefit and consist of unhealthy aspects.
  • A​ new examine adds to a increasing physique of research showing that extremely-processed food items consumption may perhaps bring about premature, preventable loss of life.

People today have to have vitamins and minerals to survive, but not all food items are the very same or supply the similar dietary price.

Remarkably processed meals are a more prevalent part of diet plans in latest many years, and researchers are nonetheless operating to have an understanding of the complete effects of these nutritional shifts.

A​ current review printed in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine studied how the intake of extremely-processed foodstuff was involved with untimely, preventable dying.

Scientists identified that extremely-processed food items usage may be the attributable bring about of death in a major percentage of fatalities in the Brazillian population.

The conclusions reveal the relevance of reducing the ingestion of ultra-processed meals to reduce health challenges.

Quite a few meals go via a sure quantity of processing so that they do not spoil.

Kimberly Gomer, MS, LDN, a registered dietitian and nourishment specialist, not associated in the review, explained a handful of of the fundamentals of processed food items to Medical Information Nowadays:

“Processing requires a foodstuff in its normal (dwelling-developed) point out and modifications it by introducing salt, sugar, oil, and additives like chemical substances, shades, flavorings, stabilizers, and preservatives. That is why they have an extremely extended shelf everyday living which is beautiful to both equally people and sector.

Extremely-processed foodstuff, nevertheless, go by means of vigorous processing. A number of illustrations of ultra-processed foodstuff include:

  • sodas
  • sweet or savory packaged treats like chips or cookies
  • electricity bars and power drinks
  • prompt soups and other prepared-to-warmth items like pizza or hen nuggets

“Most of these meals have a lengthy record of components located on the ingredient listing of the foodstuff label,” Gomer claimed. “These food items contain — but are not limited to — frozen meals, cakes, cookies, rapid meals, packaged meals, and treats.”

The comprehensive health and fitness implications of ultra-processed food stuff ingestion are however remaining analyzed.

Some research indicates that taking in processed foods decreases diet program quality and boosts the threat for health challenges like significant blood pressure (hypertension), being overweight, and coronary heart sickness.

The new research looked at the variety of deaths in the Brazillian inhabitants and their romantic relationship to the consumption of extremely-processed foods.

Initial, scientists looked at countrywide meals use in Brazil from 2017 to 2018. They then appeared at this data in light of facts on demographics and mortality from 2019.

Depending on age demographics, Brazilians were being obtaining among 13 and 21{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of their overall electricity intake from ultra-processed foods. Researchers seemed at the 541,160 men and women among the ages of 30 and 69 that died in 2019.

Their analysis exhibits that consuming extremely-processed foods was responsible for 10.5{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of all premature deaths in this age demographic.

Scientists further more famous that ultra-processed meals intake was dependable for 21.8{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of all preventable fatalities from non-communicable health conditions.

Examine writer Eduardo A.F. Nilson, ScD, a researcher at the Heart for Epidemiological Investigation in Nourishment and Overall health, University of São Paulo, and Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil, famous the adhering to highlights of the analysis to MNT:

“It is the initial research that has in fact modeled the overall impression of UPF [ultra-processed food] consumption on fatalities that we are knowledgeable of. The outcomes are substantial firstly simply because the attributable fatalities symbolize a enormous load in conditions of premature deaths from all triggers (57 thousand fatalities depict 21.8{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of the untimely fatalities from preventable non-communicable disorders in Brazil). Additionally, if UPF consumption was kept at the ranges we had a ten years in the past, 21{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of the attributable fatalities could be prevented.”

Based on this details, researchers approximated that reducing down strength consumption from ultra-processed foodstuff by 10-50{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of latest amounts could enormously assist decrease these mortality fees.

“Clinically, the benefits ensure a alter in the paradigm of dietary suggestions toward stopping and managing non-communicable illnesses and to advertising and marketing healthier meal plans in standard,” Dr. Nilson stated.

The analyze provides to a growing body of evidence about the hazards of ultra-processed foods — but it does have some limits that also need to have to be dealt with.

Initial, gurus can’t flawlessly identify the number of fatalities brought on by extremely-processed foodstuff.

The model and examination experienced selected restrictions, such as the danger of confounding and the incapability to account for each and every variable.

Researchers also admit that there is a threat for reverse causation. This was also knowledge collected from just one place, this means that the results may be slightly different in other nations around the world, for greater or even worse.

Eduardo Nilson pointed out that they could operate to apply the facts they collected in other places and other nations around the world:

“We appear ahead to estimating the effect of UPF in other countries, modeling the impacts of different insurance policies and interventions (dietary counseling, UPF taxation, entrance-of-deal labeling, regulation of foods publicity, and many others.), producing designs for particular wellness outcomes (such as cardiovascular illnesses, diabetes, being overweight), incorporating health and fitness financial analyses to the versions and improving upon the models to forecast the impacts of policy interventions.”

It’s unidentified how specifically changes to meals guidelines and tips at nationwide and international degrees could influence the wellbeing of overall populations.

In the meantime, persons can perform with their health professionals and nutrition professionals to reduce down on particular consumption of ultra-processed foods as proper.

“Start by minimizing (inevitably removing) sodas, chips, cookies, fried foods, and junk,” Gomer claimed.

“Replacing junk foodstuff with full food items is important. [Sit] down to foods as an alternative of feeding on on the operate and make the time and energy to get ready healthful foods at household. Problem your self to modest variations. Switch a handful of harmful meals with healthier types.”

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Study links air pollution to higher risk of stroke and related death

Study links air pollution to higher risk of stroke and related death

Black and white image of cars and a bus in heavy trafficShare on Pinterest
According to a long-term study, air pollution increases the risk of having a first stroke, additional strokes, and death. Fairfax Media Archives/Getty Images
  • A new study tracked the effect of air pollution on the risk of having a first and subsequent stroke and of dying from resulting cardiovascular issues.
  • Researchers tracked the health records of a large number of people and their exposure to air pollutants.
  • The study focuses on PM 2.5 pollution, tiny air particles that are hazardous to human health.

New research from the Sun Yat-sen University School of Public Health in Guangzhou, China, amplifies how air pollution could affect the trajectory of health from stroke to subsequent death.

The study, recently published in Neurology, focused on the health impacts of PM 2.5 granules. This fine particulate matter (PM) is harmful to human health and has a diameter of fewer than 2.5 microns, about 30 times smaller than a single human hair.

Researchers also looked at nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and nitrogen oxides (NO𝑥) levels in polluted air and measured air pollutant levels by their weight in micrograms — 1-millionth of a gram — per 1 cubic meter of air, expressed as μg/m3.

The study shows that for every PM 2.5 increase of 5 μg/m3, the risk of a first stroke rose by 24{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}, and the risk of a first fatal stroke increased by 30{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}.

Each increase of 5 μg/m3 of NO₂ and NO𝑥 was associated with a small risk of a first stroke — 0.2{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} and 0.1{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}, respectively.

The pollutants also caused a slight increase in the risk of cardiovascular mortality for people who have already had a stroke. This was especially true of NO₂, which increased mortality risk by 0.04{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}, although this effect tapered off with time.

Dr. Franco Folino, Ph.D., research cardiologist in the department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences at the University of Padova in Italy, not involved in the study, told Medical News Today:

“Despite the many studies that have shown the harmful effects of pollution on health, there still seems to be little awareness on the need to take adequate measures to reduce exposure to pollutants, particularly in populations at greater risk.”

“Just like climate change still fails to induce significant changes in environmental policies, the effects of air pollution on health are largely underestimated.”

– Dr. Franco Folino, Ph.D., research cardiologist

The observational study is based on an analysis of the health records of 318,752 people in the UKBiobank and several years of UKBiobank air pollution data.

The researchers tracked the health progress of these individuals for 3,765,630 person-years of follow-up. During that time, 5,967 people experienced first or incident strokes. In addition, 2,985 individuals had post-stroke cardiovascular effects, and there were 1,020 subsequent deaths.

The researchers also used 1 year of air pollution data to estimate exposure based on where people lived. They modeled each individual’s exposure to pollutants based on land use, traffic, population, and topography data.

The data show that people who had strokes during the study had an average exposure of 10.03 µg/m3 of PM 2.5. For people who did not have a stroke, the exposure was 9.97 µg/m3.

“This new study tries to evaluate the ‘dynamic’ effects of pollution on stroke risk and mortality in a large population during a very long follow-up period,” Dr. Folino said.

“In essence, this is another demonstration of the long-term harmful effects of pollution, and in particular of fine particles and nitrogen oxides, on [the] cardiovascular system.”

Outdoors, PM 2.5 comes mostly from fossil-fuel-burning vehicles such as cars, trucks, buses, traditional trains, snowmobiles, and construction equipment. Any process involving burning wood, oil, gasoline, or coal may also contribute, including power plants.

In addition, these small yet dangerous particles can travel in the air, so natural events such as forest fires and volcanos distribute them over long distances.

Inside the home, PM 2.5 may come from cigarettes, burning candles, cooking on a stove or in an oven, fireplaces, and space heaters that burn fuel.

“When we consider air pollution, we do not have to think only of the quality of air we breathe outdoors. Very often, pollution can be greater at home,” Dr. Folino said, adding that people could also consume PM 2.5 in water and food.

“PM 2.5 seems particularly harmful because its small size allows it to enter more deeply into the smallest bronchi, where it can induce the inflammatory phenomena that seem to be largely responsible for the harmful effects of particulate matter.”

– Dr. Franco Folino, Ph.D., research cardiologist

Dr. Adi Iyer, a neurosurgeon at the Pacific Neuroscience Institute at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA, told MNT that PM 2.5 could become lodged in the lungs’ alveoli. This could “cause blockage of the oxygenation process of blood, which can lead to all sorts of other issues, from having low oxygen levels, they can lead to pneumonia [or] respiratory infections,” he explained.

Dr. Folino added that “a particulate with greater size is more easily intercepted in the large airways, in the nose, and in the trachea, and is then eliminated with the mucus.”

In the United States, websites such as the federal government’s AirNow provide an assessment of current local air quality. If you have an iPhone, you may be able to view a general assessment of your area’s air quality in the Weather app.

On days when air quality reaches moderate to dangerous levels, the study authors suggest that people should reduce their outside activities, including exercise, and consider wearing masks and using HEPA air purifiers.

“All people, but especially those with a high cardiovascular risk, should avoid exposure to high pollution levels,” Dr. Folino said. “We have to carry out physical activities in healthy areas and pay attention to the possible polluting sources inside [the] home.”

Of course, Dr. Iyer noted that people living in densely populated urban areas aren’t necessarily able to avoid air pollution.

“Take care of your health in other ways to make sure that you have strong lungs by exercising, staying physically fit, having a good diet, and not smoking. Those are all things to mitigate and offset the exposure to particulate matter, air pollution.”

– Dr. Adi Iyer, neurosurgeon

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Facebook scrambles to escape death spiral as users flee, sales drop

Facebook scrambles to escape death spiral as users flee, sales drop

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives to testify following a break during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee joint hearing about Facebook on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

A year ago, before Facebook had turned Meta, the social media company was sporting a market cap of $1 trillion, putting it in rarefied territory with a handful of U.S. technology giants.

Today the view looks much different. Meta has lost about two-thirds of its value since peaking in September 2021. The stock is trading at its lowest since January 2019 and is about to close out its third straight quarter of double-digit percentage losses. Only four stocks in the S&P 500 are having a worse year.

Facebook’s business was built on network effects — users brought their friends and family members, who told their colleagues, who invited their buddies. Suddenly everyone was convening in one place. Advertisers followed, and the company’s ensuing profits — and they were plentiful — provided the capital to recruit the best and brightest engineers to keep the cycle going.

But in 2022, the cycle has reversed. Users are jumping ship and advertisers are reducing their spending, leaving Meta poised to report its second straight drop in quarterly revenue. Businesses are removing Facebook’s once-ubiquitous social login button from their websites. Recruiting is an emerging challenge, especially as founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg spends much of his time proselytizing the metaverse, which may be the company’s future but accounts for virtually none of its near-term revenue and is costing billions of dollars a year to build.

Zuckerberg said he hopes that within the next decade, the metaverse “will reach a billion people” and “host hundreds of billions of dollars of digital commerce.” He told CNBC’s Jim Cramer in June that the “North Star” is to reach those sorts of figures by the end of the decade and create a “massive economy” around digital goods.

Meta's Mark Zuckerberg on seeing a 'massive economy' around the metaverse

Investors aren’t enthusiastic about it, and the way they’re dumping the stock has some observers questioning if the downward pressure is actually a death spiral from which Meta can’t recover.

“I’m not sure there’s a core business that works anymore at Facebook,” said Laura Martin of Needham, the only analyst among the 45 tracked by FactSet with a sell rating on the stock.

Nobody is suggesting that Facebook is at risk of going out of business. The company still has a dominant position in mobile advertising and has one of the most profitable business models on the planet. Even with a 36{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} drop in net income in the latest quarter from the prior year, Meta generated $6.7 billion in profit and ended the period with over $40 billion in cash and marketable securities.

The Wall Street problem for Facebook is that it’s no longer a growth story. Up until this year, that’s the only thing it’s known. The company’s slowest year for revenue growth was the pandemic year of 2020, when it still expanded 22{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}. Analysts this year are predicting a revenue drop.

The number of daily active users in the U.S. and Canada has fallen in the past two years, from 198 million in mid-2020 to 197 million in the second quarter of this year. Globally, user numbers are up about 10{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} over that stretch and are expected to increase 3{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} a year through 2024, according to FactSet estimates.

“I don’t see it spiraling in terms of cash flows in the next few years, but I’m just worried that they’re not winning the next generation,” said Jeremy Bondy, CEO of app marketing firm Liftoff.

Sales growth is expected to hover in the single digits for the first half of 2023, before ticking back up. But even that bet carries risks. The next generation, as Bondy describes it, is now moving over to TikTok, where users can create and view short, viral videos rather than scrolling past political rants from distant relatives with whom they mistakenly connected on Facebook.

Meta has been trying to mimic TikTok’s success with its short video offering called Reels, which has been a major focus across Facebook and Instagram. Meta plans to increase the amount of algorithmically recommended short videos in users’ Instagram feeds from 15{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} to 30{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}, and Bondy speculates the company will likely “get tremendous revenue flow from that” algorithmic shift.

However, Facebook acknowledges it’s early days for monetizing Reels, and it’s not yet clear how well the format works for advertisers. TikTok’s business remains opaque because the company is privately held and owned by China’s ByteDance.

Sheryl Sandberg, who’s leaving the company Friday after more than 14 years as chief operating officer, said in her final earnings call in July that videos are harder than photos in terms of ads and measurement, and that Facebook has to show businesses how to use the ad tools for Reels.

“I think it’s very promising,” Sandberg said, “but we’ve got some hard work ahead of us.”

Skeptics such as Martin see Facebook pushing users away from the core news feed, where it makes tons of cash, and toward Reels, where the model is unproven. Martin says Zuckerberg must know something important about where the business is headed.

“He wouldn’t be hurting its revenue at the same time he needs more money, unless he felt like the core business wasn’t strong enough to stand alone,” Martin said. “He must feel he has to try to move his viewership to Reels to compete with TikTok.”

A Facebook spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

Zuckerberg has at least one major reason for concern beyond just stalled user growth and a slowing economy: Apple.

The 2021 iOS privacy update, called App Tracking Transparency, undermined Facebook’s ability to target users with ads, costing the company an estimated $10 billion in revenue this year. Meta is counting on artificial intelligence-powered advertising to eventually make up for Apple’s changes.

That may amount to little more than a Band-Aid. Chris Curtis, an online marketing expert and consultant, has seen social networks rise and fall as trends change and users move along. And that problem isn’t solvable with AI.

“I’m old enough, and I was there when MySpace was a thing,” said Curtis, who previously worked at Anheuser-Busch and McKinsey. “Social networks are switchable, right?”

When you look at Meta’s user numbers, Curtis said, they suggest the company is “not in a good position.”

‘Force for good or evil’

The last time Facebook’s market cap was this low, it was early 2019 and the company was dealing with the continued fallout of the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal. Since then, Facebook has suffered further reputational damage, most notably from the documents leaked last year by whistleblower and former employee Frances Haugen.

The main takeaway from the Haugen saga, which preceded the name change to Meta, was that Facebook knew of many of the harms its products caused kids and was unwilling or unable to do anything about them. Some U.S. senators compared the company to Big Tobacco.

Former Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen testifies during a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing entitled ‘Protecting Kids Online: Testimony from a Facebook Whistleblower’ on Capitol Hill, in Washington, U.S., October 5, 2021.

Jabin Botsford | Reuters

Denise Lee Yohn, author of brand-building books including “What Great Brands Do” and “Fusion,” said there’s little evidence to suggest that Facebook’s rebranding to Meta late last year has changed public perception of the company.

“I think the company still suffers from a lot of criticism and skepticism about whether they are a force for good or evil,” Yohn said.

Rehabilitating a damaged brand is difficult but not impossible, Yohn said. She noted that in 2009, Domino’s Pizza was able to successfully come back from a crisis. In April of that year, a video made as a prank by two restaurant employees went viral, showing one of them doing disgusting acts with food while cooking in one of the company’s kitchens. Both employees were arrested and charged with food contamination.

In December 2009, Domino’s launched a marketing blitz called the “Pizza Turnaround.” The stock climbed 63{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} in the first quarter of 2010.

Yohn said the company’s approach was, “We’ve been told our pizzas suck, and so we’re actually going to make substantive changes to what we are offering and change people’s perceptions.” While it sounded initially like “just marketing speak,” Yohn said, “they actually really did change.”

Zuckerberg, on the other hand, is not “coming across as a leader who is serious about changing his culture and about changing himself and about kind of creating a company that will be able to step into the future that he’s envisioning,” she said.

Meta’s reputational hit could also harm the company’s ability to recruit top-tier talent, a stark contrast to a decade ago, when there was no more prized landing spot for a hotshot engineer.

A former Facebook ad executive, who spoke on condition that his name not be used, told CNBC that even though TikTok is owned by a Chinese parent, it now has an edge over Meta when it comes to recruiting because it’s viewed as having less “moral downside.”

Ben Zhao, a computer science professor at University of Chicago, said he’s seeing that play out on the ground as an increasing number of students in his department are showing interest in working for TikTok and ByteDance.

In order to stay competitive, given how the market has punished tech stocks this year, Zhao said, Meta and Google are “having to pay more and are having certainly to hand out more lucrative stock options and packages.”

The bull case

Still, Zuckerberg has a history of proving his doubters wrong, said Jake Dollarhide, the CEO of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Dollarhide remembers when investors ran from Facebook not long after its 2012 IPO, scoffing at the company’s ability to move “from the PC to the mobile world.” Facebook’s mobile business quickly caught fire and by late 2013, the stock was off to the races.

Zuckerberg’s success in pivoting to mobile gives Dollarhide confidence that Meta can cash in on its bet-the-farm move to the metaverse. In the second quarter, Meta’s Reality Labs division, which houses its virtual reality headsets and related technologies, generated $452 million in revenue, about 1.5{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of total Meta sales, and lost $2.8 billion.

“I think Zuckerberg is very bright and very ambitious,” said Dollarhide. “I wouldn’t bet against Zuckerberg just like I wouldn’t bet against Elon Musk.”

Dollarhide’s firm hasn’t owned Facebook shares, though, since 2014, preferring the trajectory of tech companies such as Apple and Amazon, two of his top holdings.

“The reality is they can be perceived as a value company and not a growth company,” Dollarhide said, regarding Meta.

No matter what happens in the next year or two or even three, Zuckerberg has made clear that the future of the company is in the metaverse, where he’s banking on new businesses forming around virtual reality.

Meta could grow the metaverse, but there's a long road ahead, says Jefferies' Brent Thill

Zhao, from University of Chicago, says there’s immense uncertainty surrounding the metaverse’s prospects.

“The real question is — are daily users ready for the metaverse yet?” Zhao said. “Is the underlying technology ready and mature enough to make that transition seamless? That’s a real question and that may not be all up to Facebook or Meta at this point.”

If Zuckerberg is right, perhaps 10 years from now Meta’s stock price from the depths of 2022 will look like the discount of the decade. And if that happens, predictions of a death spiral will be mocked like a 2012 cover story from Barron’s, headlined “Facebook is worth $15” with a thumb pointing down. Four years later, it was trading near $130.

WATCH: Needham’s Martin is a Meta skeptic

I'm not sure there's a core business at Meta that works anymore, says Needham's Martin

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Covid will be a leading cause of death indefinitely in the U.S.

Covid will be a leading cause of death indefinitely in the U.S.

Right after President Joe Biden said the coronavirus pandemic was “around” in an interview Sunday, quite a few folks ended up still left asking yourself how to reconcile his comment with the simple fact that the U.S. is even now averaging about 500 Covid fatalities each day.

But sickness industry experts reported debating whether or not the pandemic is about overshadows a far more important problem: the actuality that Covid will continue being a top cause of loss of life in the U.S. indefinitely.

“It is probable, when we assume of the results in of death in our culture, that Covid’s on the listing probably forever,” mentioned Dr. Bob Wachter, the chair of the College of California, San Francisco’s section of medication.

“Regardless of whether we simply call it a pandemic or not, it’s continue to an vital threat to people,” he added.

Covid was the third-leading cause of dying in the U.S. in 2020, soon after coronary heart ailment and most cancers, in accordance to the Facilities for Ailment Command and Avoidance. The very same was genuine final 12 months, provisional CDC details shows. Since April, Covid deaths have stayed rather flat, at a weekly average of all over 300 to 500 per day. If the pattern continues, the U.S. could expect 113,000 to 188,000 fatalities a 12 months from Covid, placing it on par with Alzheimer’s, serious lessen respiratory ailments and stroke.

Flu, by comparison, kills about 12,000 to 52,000 individuals on a yearly basis. Flu and pneumonia blended were being the ninth-foremost cause of death in 2020 they fell out of the top 10 past calendar year.

“As we have figured out how we’re likely to dwell with this illness in perpetuity, it can make perception to contextualize it as a further sickness that Americans have to facial area,” claimed Dr. Leana Wen, an crisis medical professional and professor at George Washington College.

Authorities reported Covid is probable to stay among the the U.S.’s 10 leading triggers of death for the foreseeable long run, regardless of new vaccines, boosters or remedies that may become offered.

Predicting Covid’s potential dying toll

The Institute for Wellness Metrics and Analysis, or IHME, a research business at the University of Washington that regularly styles Covid fatalities, predicts a decline in Covid deaths over the up coming two months.

So some professionals are hopeful that Covid could drop in the U.S. trigger-of-dying rankings in excess of time.

“It would not shock me if we have a very similar magnitude of fatalities from Covid as we do from flu,” reported Dr. Chris Murray, the director of the IHME.

Covid demise figures could also drop if hospitals halt routinely testing men and women for the virus. Which is mainly because the present-day dying counts may well involve some people who analyzed beneficial for Covid when they ended up hospitalized but died of other diseases.

“Acquiring loaded out hundreds of demise certificates in my existence, I know that some of these deaths are ‘with’ relatively than ‘from’ Covid,” Wachter reported.

Murray estimated that fifty percent of yearly Covid deaths may perhaps slide into that class.

The IHME product predicts a steeper fall in fatalities this calendar year if 80{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of the community wears masks. Wachter mentioned the region could also decreased the death rely to “half of what it is these days” if additional people today took edge of vaccines, boosters or treatment options.

The White Home coronavirus response coordinator, Dr. Ashish Jha, has reported he thinks those people measures could lead the quantity to fall even more: “We now have all of the capacity to reduce, I imagine, essentially all of all those deaths,” he mentioned at a briefing this thirty day period.

But at this position, Murray claimed, “most people have moved on” in phrases of their behavior.

But … is the pandemic about or not?

Lots of illness experts think it’s time, or virtually time, to declare an close to the pandemic, given the common availability of Covid vaccines and remedies, the simple fact that no variant has overtaken omicron since December and the somewhat steady U.S. situation and loss of life counts above the very last few months.

Image: Funeral homes in NYC overwhelmed by COVID-19 death
Caskets holding the bodies of men and women who died from Covid-19 at the Gerard J. Neufeld funeral property in Queens, N.Y., on April 29, 2020.Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu Agency through Getty Images

“If you consider, as I do, that we have reached a new phase of balance, to go on to call it a pandemic purely for the purpose of striving to scare men and women into performing stuff doesn’t appear right to me,” Wachter said.

Planet Wellness Organization Director-Typical Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus struck a very similar chord very last 7 days, suggesting that the stop of the pandemic was “in sight.”

White Property officers, too, stated this month that the new omicron-particular boosters marked a change in the pandemic. Covid photographs are possible to come to be yearly affairs, with a schedule resembling that of flu shots, the officers claimed.

“They are sensation like we have to change our frame of mind to the very long match right here,” Wachter explained of the White House’s response. “This is no extended an acute threat in the exact same way it was.”

But other authorities consider the pandemic period is quite much ongoing.

“If we had been to see the range of fatalities from Covid down to what we see on an annual basis for flu — someplace in the 20,000-a-year selection — we’ll then say that the pandemic is clearly in excess of,” said Dr. Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Well being Security at the Bloomberg School of General public Well being.

Rachael Piltch-Loeb, a analysis associate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of General public Overall health, reported that in declaring the pandemic more than now, it “appears to be like we are endorsing this amount of disorder load and mortality related with the virus.”

And Dr. Kavita Patel, a primary treatment doctor who was a plan adviser through the Obama administration, said the virus has to grow to be a lot more predictable right before the pandemic can be regarded as about.

“We want to have some normal patterns, sort of like the flu, so that we can be expecting sure timing for sickness, certain timing for hospitalizations,” she mentioned. Supplied that is not the scenario, Patel explained, she identified Biden’s declaration “a bit disturbing to hear.”

Right after Biden’s remarks, a White Home formal reported that the president was talking about the pandemic in a plain way and that his remarks mirrored what several folks consider about Covid nowadays. 

Whether the remarks discourage individuals from receiving the current bivalent booster shots remains to be witnessed. Piltch-Loeb does not anticipate Biden’s statement to transform lots of minds.

“Individuals who never want to get this booster by now imagine that the pandemic is more than,” she claimed.