In the past few days information from Atlanta CDC has indicated some disturbing facts about the new Delta variant. Namely:

It is almost as contagious as chicken pox.

People who are double vaccinated can still get the virus.

The viral load (the number of viruses) in vaccinated and unvaccinated people are the same and it is much higher than the previous strains. Some say a thousand times!

Vaccinated people can still transmit the disease and get serious illness.

More likely to cause more severe Covid-19 illness.

They are saying that one person with the Delta variant will spread it to eight or nine others. Previously the original virus was said to spread it to 2 others. So instead of progressing from 1 to 2 to 4 to 8 to 16. This is going from 1 to 9 to 81 to 729 to 6,561… If you assume that it takes a week to spread it to 9 others. It would only take 8 weeks to infect 43M people. Which is close to the population of Canada. And it would take just another week to infect 387M people, more than the entire population of the US. Of course, distances and geography will prevent such an uncontrolled spread, but this shows how much faster this new variant is.

Previously the idea was that the vaccinated will form a sort of buffer to slow down the infection and protect the unvaccinated but now that the vaccinated can transmit this disease, the herd immunity strategy is out the window. Nevertheless, vaccinated people are 3 times less likely to get infected and greatly reduced the chance of serious health complications.

Considering the fact that this variant results in more cases of serious illness, this new variant will cause major disruption especially in areas with low vaccination rate. You can see the number of patients in ICU in the US is going exponential. This will surely dampen economic growth, affect the stock market and slow the central banks from raising interest rates.

Keep an eye on the hospitalization and death numbers to predict whether the states will take more tightening measures and thus, slow down the recovery. The infection rate will become less and less relevant as policy makers shift their focus to economic recovery.

The post The Covid-19 Delta Variant and your Mortgage first appeared on John Chan Mortgages.

In trying to take advantage of all the benefits the cards are offering, some consumer apply for too many credit cards. Depending on the frequency of the applications, it can lower your credit score, as each application will result in a credit inquiry. Also lenders may view this as a scenario for possible irresponsible use of credit.

However, this is not the worse scenario. Some families will have one primary card and have everyone else added as authorized users. This will pool the points and benefits into one account and reduce the time it takes to get to certain point thresholds. This allows the points and benefits to be utilized faster; however, everyone of the authorized users will not have a credit history because credit record is only reported to the primary user’s name.

Without credit history, it very difficult to get a loan whether to buy a car or a house. Some lenders will use alternate proof of credit by reviewing rent, utility and cable payment records. Not all lenders will and for the ones that do, their rates and terms might not be the best.

The best thing to do is to eventually get two credit cards with limits of $5000 or higher and use them regularly and responsibly. Keep the balance below 50% of the limit. This will give you a strong credit score and allow you access to the best possible terms and rates.

The post How Credit Card Incentive Programs can Negatively Affect Your Credit first appeared on John Chan Mortgages.