Tag: Exchange

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Health

Dr. Scott Gottlieb on Fauci, Paul alternate on face masks

Dr. Scott Gottlieb on Fauci, Paul exchange on face masks

Americans should continue to wear face masks at this point in the pandemic to protect themselves from coronavirus transmission, said Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Friday.

Hopefully the guidelines should change in the coming months.

“We have to be careful this month. I don’t think this is the time to start lifting … the simpler remedies like wearing masks, things like that,” said the former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration on ” Squawk Box “. “”

Gottlieb’s comments came in response to a heated exchange between the White House Medical Director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and GOP Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky. In a Senate committee hearing, Paul, an ophthalmologist before going into politics, suggested to Fauci that it was “theater” to advise people to wear masks even after vaccinating against Covid.

“You want to get rid of the hesitation about the vaccine? Tell them they can stop wearing their mask after they get the vaccine,” Paul said, claiming there was a “practically 0% chance” that someone would was vaccinated, could get Covid-19. The senator had Covid a year ago.

Fauci forcibly pushes back against Paul and says: “I have a completely different opinion than you.” The nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases stressed that the presence of new variants of the virus makes it important to wear face masks in public, even for those who have been vaccinated.

Gottlieb, who headed the FDA in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2019, said March was a “difficult” month in the pandemic battle. New infections have declined dramatically since their peak in January, but he said the downward trend has started to plateau despite more Americans receiving Covid shots.

“In April and May things may look a lot clearer, and it’s obvious we can take our masks off,” said Gottlieb, who serves on Pfizer’s board of directors and one of the EU-approved two-shot Covid vaccines manufactures US for emergencies. “It’s not that obvious right now.”

At the same time, Gottlieb agreed with Paul’s view that there was something to give Americans to look forward to when they were vaccinated. Paul said to Fauci, “Give them a reward instead of telling them that Nanny State will be there for three more years and that you will have to wear a mask forever.”

Gottlieb said he’s not sure if public health experts, including Fauci, are suggesting that people wear masks for eternity. However, Gottlieb emphasized: “There must be light at the end of the tunnel.”

“I think we need to recognize that if the population is vaccinated and the general vulnerability of the population decreases, we can take more risks. This includes going out without masks and doing things in congregation environments,” said the ex-FDA- Boss said.

Nearly 23% of the US population have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Just over 12% of the population is fully vaccinated. Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two doses for complete protection, while the vaccine recently approved by Johnson & Johnson is a single shot.

A number of states have lifted or eased restrictions on businesses in the pandemic in the past few weeks. Some governors, like Tate Reeves, governor of Mississippi, and Greg Abbott, governor of Texas, both Republicans, have also given up their state’s mask mandates.

While Gottlieb has previously said that mask requirements should be the final measure to mitigate Covid, the doctor said he sees a scenario in the not-too-distant future where Americans won’t need them in public.

“If infection rates go low this summer, which I think they will, and we have fully vaccinated 50% or 60% of the adult population, we won’t be wearing masks on the beach on July 4th. We won’t.” probably wearing masks indoors when we don’t want to, “said Gottlieb.

As the fall and winter roll around bringing in colder weather, coronavirus cases could increase, Gottlieb said, adding that “we may get some of the mitigation back on track”. However, he said, “I think a lot of people will still be wearing masks, probably me too, when I travel this winter.”

Categories
Health

‘I completely disagree with you,’ Fauci tells GOP senator in fiery change over masks

'I totally disagree with you,' Fauci tells GOP senator in fiery exchange over masks

The Chief Medical Officer of the White House, Dr. Anthony Fauci, urged Republican Senator Rand Paul back on Thursday that people are not at risk for Covid after their recovery or vaccination.

In a fiery exchange during a Senate hearing examining the country’s efforts to respond to coronavirus, Paul told Fauci that Americans should not wear masks after vaccination due to the likelihood of getting Covid-19 is “practically 0%”.

“Isn’t it just theater?” The Kentucky junior senator, an ophthalmologist, asked during a hearing on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

“You’ve been vaccinated and you hit around in two masks for the show. You can’t get it back,” Paul said. “There’s practically a 0% chance you’ll get it, and you tell people who had the vaccine have immunity – you defy everything we know about immunity by telling people they are wearing vaccinated masks should.”

In response, Fauci said: “Here we go again with the theater.”

“”All I can say is that masks are no theater, “said Fauci.” I totally disagree with you. “

The emergence of new, highly contagious variants poses a threat to people who have recovered from Covid or have been vaccinated, he said.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) speaks during a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing on the federal response to the coronavirus March 18, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Susan Walsh | Pool | Getty Images

It has been shown that new variants, especially the strain B.1.351 identified for the first time in South Africa, escape the protection of vaccines.

“In the South African study of [Johnson & Johnson]They found that people who were wild-type infected and exposed to variant 351 in South Africa felt like they had never been infected before, they had no protection, “Fauci said.

Fauci agreed that it was unlikely that anyone would become infected with the original strain for at least six months. “But we in our country now have variants.”

The exchange took place a little over a week after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published new guidelines that those who are fully vaccinated can safely visit other vaccinated people indoors without a mask or social distance.

However, the CDC also recommended that vaccinated individuals should continue to wear masks in public settings, when meeting with unvaccinated individuals from more than one different household, and with individuals at increased risk of developing serious illnesses.

While growing body of evidence suggests that people vaccinated against Covid are less likely to spread the disease to others, it is still not known how long a person’s protection could last or how effective the shots are against emerging variants said the CDC on March 8th.

Categories
World News

China response on delisting of Chinese language firms on New York Inventory Trade

China response on delisting of Chinese companies on New York Stock Exchange

A woman adjusts a Chinese flag near US flags.

Ng Han Guan | AFP | Getty Images

We’ll have to see if the Chinese government will retaliate against the US. But I think the actual things to be done won’t matter …

Ronald Wan

non-executive chairman at Partners Financial Holdings

When asked if more Chinese companies could be delisted, Brendan Ahern, chief investment officer of the investment firm KraneShares, said: “I don’t see any expansion of these three specific names just because it was really driven by this executive order.”

Speaking to CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia on Monday, he said the order could “reverse course” after President-elect Joe Biden was sworn in on Jan. 20.

He added that on the Chinese side, Beijing “wants the Biden government to really start the relationship over.”

Ronald Wan, non-executive chairman of Partners Financial Holdings, added that the measures Beijing is taking are unlikely to be “significant”.

“We’ll have to see if the Chinese government will retaliate against the US. But I think the actual actions won’t matter, which may restrict some type of US government-affiliated company, activity in China or Hong Kong. But I think the government is still welcoming US capital and funds to get into the Asian and Hong Kong markets, “he told CNBC’s Street Signs Asia on Monday.

Ahern said investors in the three US-listed stocks – China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom – will be able to convert them into their Hong Kong-listed stocks.

Categories
Business

New York Inventory Trade to Delist China Cell, Amongst Others

New York Stock Exchange to Delist China Mobile, Among Others

The New York Stock Exchange announced that it would delist the three major state-owned telecommunications companies in China by order of the Trump administration in order to symbolically end the longstanding relationship between the Chinese business community and Wall Street.

The exchange said in a statement late Thursday that it would cease trading shares in China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom until Jan. 11. She cited an executive order issued in November by the Trump administration that prevented Americans from investing in companies with ties to the Chinese military.

The U.S. Department of Defense had previously listed the three companies as having significant ties to Chinese military and security forces.

The company’s Hong Kong offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday, New Year’s Day.

The delistings were generally expected after the executive order was issued in November. The order was part of a broader effort by American officials to weaken the broad economic ties between the United States and China, including Chinese access to money on Wall Street.

The move is likely to have little impact on China’s military or security ambitions, which are generously funded by Beijing, or on the companies themselves, which can raise money from international investors by selling shares in Hong Kong.

The delisting of the three telecommunications giants, however, reflects China’s rise in power and prosperity, as well as growing alienation between the world’s two largest economies. It also underscores the hesitation in long-standing business ties between the United States and China, built over decades as China attempted to internationalize and reform its state corporate sizes.

All three companies are under the firm control of Beijing. They are ultimately owned by a government agency, the State Assets Monitoring and Management Commission, and are often directed to pursue Beijing’s goals. China’s ruling Communist Party sometimes mixes executives between the three companies.

They are the only three companies in China allowed to provide broad telecommunications network services, which Beijing regards as a strategic industry that must remain under state control.

Such large, state-controlled corporations have long been viewed by economists and even some Chinese officials as a drag on the country’s growth.

China Mobile, the largest of the three companies, first listed its shares in New York in 1997, at a crucial time for the Chinese economy. Reform-minded officials in Beijing sought to restart economic growth after China’s crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 deterred foreign investors and delayed overhauls officials deemed necessary.

One such overhaul had to do with bloated state-owned companies. China’s leaders forced them to lay off workers and focus on profit and productivity. Listing stocks in the United States, it was said, would make them more responsive to investors and more focused on the bottom line.

China Mobile was one of the first large Chinese state-owned companies to sell shares in New York. The other telecommunications companies followed, as did state banks, oil companies and airlines. Large private Chinese companies have also sold stocks there, including Alibaba, the online shopping giant that held the world’s largest IPO in New York in 2014.

Today, China’s need for money and expertise has diminished from Wall Street. The stock exchanges in Shanghai and Hong Kong are among the largest in the world. Alibaba underscored the shift, last year listing shares in Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese city where investors, unlike the mainland, can move money freely across its borders.

The Chinese leaders’ view of state-owned companies has also changed. Xi Jinping, China’s leading politician, spoke about making state-owned companies bigger and stronger than leaner. This has raised concerns among some economists and entrepreneurs that the Chinese government is playing a bigger role in private companies.