There was a lot of interest in my post about heart cell implants. Bill McGowan, founder and CEO of MCI was the oldest recipient of a heart transplant when he got his in the late 1980’s. The surgery was done in Pittsburgh at UPMC. Mr. McGowan and his wife donated $1 million the following year to build the William McGowan Center for Regenerative Medicine. Interesting article about this is here.
The amount of information about Covid-19 is overwhelming. One thing clear to me is experts do not all agree on various aspects of the virus and the disease it causes. This is because there is much not yet well understood. For example, is the coronavirus airborne or droplets? Or both? A friend forwarded me an article by Dr. Erin Bromage titled, “The Risks – Know Them – Avoid Them“. Dr. Bromage is a Comparative Immunologist and Professor of Biology (specializing in Immunology) at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. His article is easy to read and offers practical explanations of the risks specific to different environments such as restaurants, workplaces, churches, birthday parties, and indoor sports. He also explains in practical terms the differences between droplets and aerosols and the effects of various encounters with fellow citizens. A very good read. Another not to miss article is “Amid the Coronavirus Crisis, a Regimen for Reëntry” in the New Yorker by Dr. Atul Gawande. He distills all the issues into four basic steps to take to stay safe.
The How We Feel app continues to gain momentum. States are hiring people to be contact tracers. However, if we all donate our non-personally-identifiable data to help scientists track the virus, it may prove a digital approach can work, or at least help. The app is completely private. No login required. If you don’t have the app yet, get it here for Apple or here for Android.
As of mid-afternoon Friday, Tesla market capitalization is up $20+ billion to $148 billion. The five giant tech company market caps climbed another couple of hundred billion for the week. Quite a bit higher than at the end of February. All five companies are global, but to put their massive valuation into perspective, it now represents 23% of the market cap of the U.S. S&P 500. Shareholders are happy but government regulators and politicians are gearing up for new regulations. I believe pressure on big tech will continue to mount.
MAGFA Market Cap (05/15/20 4:15 PM) | ||
Microsoft | $1.389 | Trillion |
Apple | $1.334 | Trillion |
$0.938 | Trillion | |
$0.601 | Trillion | |
Amazon | $1.202 | Trillion |
Total | $5.463 | Trillion |
S&P 500 4/30/20 | $24.140 | Trillion |
MAGFA | 23% |
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