SWC’s Fast Five

COVID long haulers get some attention, it’s a question if we’re covered when cybercriminals steal our retirement savings, NFTs are explained for you speculators, summer school is welcomed while new species of mosquitos bring diseases that are not.

So, here’s this week’s Fast Five:

1 Congress funds $1 billion to study COVID long haulers

With $1 billion from Congress, the National Institutes of Health is designing and soliciting studies that aim to follow at least 20,000 people who’ve had COVID-19 as they try to understand this condition which affects an unknown number of survivors in myriad ways.

2 Do you know if you are protected should cyber theft come for your retirement savings?

The federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, which governs 401(k) plans, was enacted before the internet. As a result, questions including who bears the risk for losses associated with cyber theft remain ill-defined.

3 Summer school is ringing a lot of bells

After a dreary year spent largely at home in front of the computer, many U.S. children could be looking at summer school, just what many parents want.

4 An NFT explainer – real money for intangibles

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, refer to pieces of digital content linked to the blockchain, the digital ledger system underpinning cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. Each NFT is unique and can take different forms, such as virtual trading cards and other collectibles, tweets and even physical objects.

5 Newly arriving mosquitos bring a smorgasbord of disease

According to a University of Florida research scientist, 10 new species of non-native mosquitoes have been found in Florida since 2000, and more are on the way including the Aedes vittatus. Originally from India, the mosquito “is kind of a vector for pretty much everything we’re worried about: dengue, chikungunya, Zika.”