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Health

Australia’s Covid restoration plans stay unsure as a result of delta variant

Australia's Covid recovery plans remain uncertain due to delta variant

A person exercises at the Sydney Opera House during a foggy start to the day on June 30, 2021 in Sydney Australia. Lockdown restrictions continue as NSW health authorities work to contain a growing Covid-19 cluster.

Brook Mitchell | Getty Images News | Getty Images

A recent spike in Covid cases has Australian authorities scrambling to contain the delta variant, which was first detected in India.

The country has handled the coronavirus pandemic relatively better than most, with fewer than 31,000 total cases due to strict social distancing rules, border restrictions, contract tracing and lockdowns.

Several major cities were locked down last week, including Sydney — the capital of Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales, and home to more than five million residents.

On Monday, New South Wales reported 35 new local cases as authorities clamp down on individuals and businesses for flouting restrictions. State Premier Gladys Berejiklian reportedly warned that the situation over the next couple of days would decide if the two-week lockdown in Sydney will be extended beyond July 9.

Last week, Australia’s national cabinet agreed to halve the number of international arrivals allowed into the country by July 14 as part of a four-phase recovery plan. Non-residents are mostly barred from entering the country, with few exceptions.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said a trial program would allow some vaccinated travelers to self-isolate at home, in an effort to reduce the pressure on Australia’s quarantine system.

Australia is still in the first phase of its plan, which emphasizes vaccines and social restrictions to minimize community transmission, according to the cabinet’s assessment. The next three phases would be post-vaccination, consolidation and, lastly, the reopening of borders.

Uncertainty remains

The federal recovery plan needs more precision, which would provide greater certainty for Australian businesses looking to reopen, according to Jennifer Westacott, CEO of the Business Council of Australia.

“We need some really clear targets. We need some really clear threshold. We need those to be realistic,” she said Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”

“Business can start planning. Airlines can start planning. Small business can start planning. We need a little bit more precision,” she added.

Many businesses, including farmers, rely on international labor. Prolonged border closures mean there’s a shortage in manpower at least until 2022, when borders are tentatively scheduled to reopen.

Westacott said Australia’s recovery plan should take a staged approach and allow more skilled international workers in to fill vacant positions as the vaccination rate increases.

“We can’t wait for 2022 to get skilled workers in the country,” she said, adding that such a delay means Australia’s “capacity to ramp up slows down, but it also means that companies just don’t do stuff here.”

Sluggish vaccine rollout

Mixed messaging around the AstraZeneca vaccine from the Australian government and the advisory board that advises the health minister on vaccine issues in the country has been “really problematic,” according to Archie Clements, pro vice-chancellor of the health sciences faculty at Curtin University.

“If you look at the vaccine rollout statistics, the rate of increase in vaccines slowed through June and I do think that’s largely down to the mixed messaging around AstraZeneca,” he told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Monday.

The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation prefers that people below 60 are given the Pfizer vaccine — which is in short supply — to avoid the risk of an extremely rare blood clotting disorder related to the use of AstraZeneca shots. The government, meanwhile, says those people can opt for AstraZeneca after consulting their doctors.

“The federal government should have backed AstraZeneca very strongly from the very beginning, really should have been promoting it. It is a very safe vaccine,” Clements said, pointing out that only a minuscule number of people have had a severe reaction to the shot.

“We should be encouraging everyone to get vaccinated and to take the vaccine that’s available to them, regardless of whether it’s AstraZeneca or Pfizer,” he said.

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Health

Asia faces ‘bumpy street’ forward as Covid instances stay excessive

Moody's Analytics on Covid outbreaks in Asia, Fed rate hikes in 2023

A woman is given a dose of Covid-19 vaccine during the mass vaccination at Tanah Abang Textile Market in Jakarta, Indonesia on June 19, 2021.

Agung Kuncahya B. | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images

Asia’s fight against the coronavirus is far from over, but an expected increase in the spread of Covid vaccines in the coming months could defuse the situation, according to investment bank HSBC.

India was the hardest hit country this year, suffering from a devastating second wave that saw cases soar between February and early May. Although the daily reported numbers of infections have dropped significantly from a peak of over 414,000 cases in a day, the South Asian nation still reports an average of 50,000 cases per day.

Countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Nepal have seen a sharp surge in cases recently, while the numbers of infections in other places continue to rise. Nations like Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and China have also faced outbreaks recently.

“It’s easy to believe or tempting to think we’ve got through it all, but the reality is, if you look at Asia ex-India, we’re currently seeing record numbers of daily infections,” said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economic research at HSBC, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Wednesday.

“There are still terrible human tariffs in many parts of Southeast Asia and even in India,” he said.

Delta variant

Experts say the closely watched coronavirus mutation known as the delta variant is partly responsible for the rise in new cases in many parts of the world. First discovered in India and now present in over 80 countries, Delta is said to be more contagious than previous variants.

Although it remains unclear whether the variant is more deadly than previous strains, its increased transmissibility, especially in environments with low vaccination and minimal social distancing, means that in absolute terms it is likely to infect more people, according to analysts at political risk advisory group Eurasia Group.

“Countries with younger populations and wetter climates could therefore experience more severe outbreaks than previous waves, even if the proportion of young people with serious illnesses remains the same,” said Eurasia Group analysts in a recent statement. They added that there is a growing risk of health system overload in many emerging markets.

Asia lags far behind North America and Europe in vaccines. The data showed that just over 23% of the population received at least one Covid vaccine dose, compared to over 40% or more in the other two regions.

“We are far from finished,” said Neumann from HSBC. “That said, if we look at the third quarter, there’s still a risk that at least some glitches will get through. We just need these vaccines. We need more supply. We have to introduce them. “

Economic recovery

Neumann said that based on publicly available information, HSBC predicts that many Asian countries will not achieve herd immunity until early 2022 at the earliest.

“That means some of the restrictions, especially on travel, remain in place, and unfortunately that still means a bit of a bumpy road for the next few months,” he said.

When a country reaches herd immunity, it means that the virus can no longer spread rapidly because most of the population is either fully vaccinated or would have become immune from infection.

In a release, Neumann and other HSBC analysts said they expect local demand growth in the region to pick up pace over the next six months. It is due to a large, expected surge in vaccine distribution, they said.

According to the bank, exports remain strong despite ongoing transport disruptions and supply chain bottlenecks.

“The latter should slowly subside as demand for services recalibrates and factories make up for lost time. However, the crisis has shown that there is an urgent need for more investment in capacity – expect investment to rise as the region tiptoe out of the pandemic, ”wrote the HSBC analysts.

The investment bank forecast that Asia (excluding Australia and New Zealand) will grow 6.6% year-on-year in 2021 – compared to a 0.9% decline in the previous year – and 4.6% in 2022.

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World News

Lordstown Motors shares soar after new chairwoman says manufacturing plans stay on monitor

Lordstown Motors shares soar after new chairwoman says production plans remain on track

The Lordstown Motors Corp. Endurance electric pickup truck sits on stage during an unveiling event in Lordstown, Ohio, U.S., on Thursday, June 25, 2020.

Matthew Hatcher | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Embattled electric truck company Lordstown Motors has enough funding to operate through May 2022 and remains on track to begin limited production of its Endurance pickup in late September following an executive shake-up that ousted the start-up’s CEO and chairman, executives said Tuesday.

The company’s new chairwoman, Angela Strand, called it a “new day” for the aspiring automaker, which raised bankruptcy concerns after warning investors last week that it had “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue as a going concern in the next year.

Shares of Lordstown Motors soared Tuesday afternoon by as much as 15% before leveling off at about $10 a share, up 8%. The company’s stock price has roughly been cut in half this year, including an 18.8% decline on Monday.

“It’s a new day at Lordstown and there are no disruptions, and there will be no disruptions, to our day-to-day operations,” Strand said during a webcast for the Automotive Press Association. “We remain committed to inspiring, building and maintaining confidence and transparency in our relationships with each other at Lordstown and, very importantly, with our customers, our partners, our suppliers and our shareholders.”

The comments come a day after Lordstown’s chairman and CEO, Steve Burns, and CFO Julio Rodriguez resigned from the company after the board released a summary of an internal investigation into claims made by short seller Hindenburg Research that Lordstown misled investors.

The company said the internal investigation found Hindenburg’s report “is, in significant respects, false and misleading.” The probe, however, did identify “issues regarding the accuracy of certain statements regarding” Lordstown’s preorders, specifically the seriousness of the orders and who was making them.

Read more about electric vehicles from CNBC Pro

President Rich Schmidt said the company needs more experienced leadership. And while Lordstown didn’t say the investigation led to Burns’ and Rodriguez’s resignations, he indicated the findings contributed, at least in part, to their abrupt departures. “It was a little bit of both,” he said.

Hindenburg accused Lordstown in March of using “fake” orders to raise capital for its Endurance electric pickup. The short seller said the pickup was years away from production, but Lordstown has maintained it’s on track to start making the vehicle in September. The company on Monday said customer deliveries are scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2022.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an inquiry looking at Hindenburg’s claims as well as the company’s merger with SPAC DiamondPeak Holdings. Schmidt declined to comment on inquiry.

Lordstown Motors Corp Chief Executive Steve Burns poses with a prototype of the electric vehicle start-up’s Endurance pickup truck, which it will begin building in the second half of 2021, at the company’s plant in Lordstown, Ohio, U.S. June 25, 2020.

Lordstown Motors | Reuters

Strand, who was Lordstown’s lead independent director, is overseeing its transition until a permanent CEO is identified, according to the company.

Schmidt reconfirmed Lordstown is actively raising additional capital, which the company announced plans to do in May. He also said Lordstown is no longer working with Camping World on EV products and solutions for the RV marketplace, citing a need to focus on the Endurance.

“We’re just focused currently on the Endurance truck,” he said. “That’s our next goal for the next three months is to make sure we hit our production targets and stay within our budgets and drive forward to getting the vehicles ready for the market.”

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Health

Instances rise however stay under Could 7 peak

What we know about the B.1.617 variant

Health workers with personal protective equipment care for Covid-19 patients in a banquet room that was temporarily converted into a Covid care center in New Delhi on May 7, 2021.

Prakash Singh | AFP | Getty Images

India’s total Covid-19 cases surpassed 24 million as the country battled a devastating second wave of infections that overwhelmed its healthcare system.

Government data released on Friday showed that 343,144 new cases were reported within 24 hours, killing at least 4,000 people. It was the third day in a row that the official death toll was 4,000 or more.

Even so, daily cases have remained below the record high of 414,188 reported on May 7, but the pressure in hospitals has not yet eased. Reports also suggest the virus is making the rounds in rural India, where experts have said the health system was not designed to handle a surge in cases.

A professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, said Friday that daily cases in India may have peaked.

“According to our model, the number of new cases occurring every day has peaked and we are on our way down,” Manindra Agrawal, professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, told CNBC’s Street Signs Asia. He added that India’s number of active cases is also “very close to its peak” and that this could happen in the next few days, after which the situation is likely to improve.

Together with two scientists, Agrawal wrote a mathematical model for pandemics called SUTRA (Susceptible, Undetected, Tested (Positive) and Removed Approach) to predict the spread of the coronavirus.

Previously, the model predicted that India’s second wave would peak in the third week of April and that daily cases would likely stay at 100,000. April was India’s worst month yet, with nearly 7 million officially reported cases while more than 48,000 people died. Experts have said the real number is likely much higher.

The scientists behind SUTRA then said the model’s shortcomings were due to the changed nature of the Covid-19 virus.

Agrawal told CNBC that the SUTRA model had predicted that the second wave would be of similar intensity to the first and would peak in late April.

“This is the feedback we’ve given the government,” he said, adding, “We’ve got the location or timing of the summit more or less right, but we haven’t adjusted the intensity right.”

“Nobody could really measure the intensity of the wave and that surprised us all,” added Agrawal.

Indian officials are already observing a possible third wave as the government seeks to ramp up its massive vaccination program by increasing vaccine production.

Chief Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, K. VijayRaghavan, said earlier this month a third wave was “inevitable given the higher number of viruses circulating”.

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Health

Political ideology is actual cause folks stay unvaccinated, says Dr. Peter Hotez

Pfizer and BioNTech begin the process of seeking full U.S. approval for their Covid vaccine

Dr. Peter Hotez argued that the real reason some Americans don’t get vaccinated is because of their political ideology.

“They unfortunately tie their political loyalty to the political right. And we see this in the bottom ten states in terms of vaccination rates,” which is half the coverage in the top ten states, said Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital.

The ten states with the highest rate of residents receiving at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine also voted for President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Polls show that more than 40% of Republicans don’t plan to be vaccinated.

Hotez told CNBC’s The News with Shepard Smith that regional summer flare-ups in states with lower vaccination rates could lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to urge Americans to wear masks again.

The CDC on Thursday relaxed mask guidelines for the US, saying that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a face mask or stay 6 feet away from others in most environments, whether outdoors or indoors.

The updated guidelines have received widespread criticism, but Hotez said this was because the new guidelines arrived earlier than expected.

“I was expecting it sometime in June, so it’s a couple of weeks early,” said Hoetz. “I think it will be fine. But I think the shops, the corporations and the universities need a little time to get information and have internal discussions.”

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Business

Newell Manufacturers CEO Ravi Saligram says residence will stay the hub post-Covid

Newell Brands CEO Ravi Saligram says home will remain the hub post-Covid

Even if students return to school and workers return to the office, changes in consumer spending will survive the pandemic.

“The house has become the center,” Ravi Saligram, CEO of Newell Brands, told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Monday.

As companies become more flexible and their employees work remotely in a post-pandemic world, Saligram expects the increase in sales to continue longer than this year.

“We believe some of these trends are going to continue and we’re pretty innovative,” he said. “We believe that we will continue to grow in the future.”

The owner of brands like Papermate, Rubbermaid and Sharpie reported better-than-expected earnings and sales on Friday that rose 21% year over year to $ 2.29 billion.

“All eight of our companies have done well and grown. And seven out of eight companies grew double-digit worldwide,” said Saligram.

Newell raised his forecast for this year, citing students returning to school in person as a factor that contributed to his optimistic outlook.

“We had a feeling with our forecasts that we would do better than 2019, and much of it has to do with the continuation of consumer trends,” said Saligram. “A big part of [the positive outlook] is that we believe that most of the students will be back in school. We’re going to have a normal back to school season and that’s a big factor for us. “

Newell estimates that adjusted earnings will be between $ 1.63 and $ 1.73 per share this year. Revenue is expected to grow between $ 9.9 billion and $ 10.1 billion.

Newell Brands shares rose nearly 2% on Monday. The stock is up nearly 29% that year, valued at more than $ 11.7 billion.

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Business

Bids for Kansas Metropolis Southern present bargains stay in market

Bids for Kansas City Southern show bargains remain in market

The bidding war for railroad operator Kansas City Southern shows that investors can still find undervalued stocks in the market, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Wednesday.

The “Mad Money” host said it understood those concerned about a generally frothy environment and noted the exploding interest in cryptocurrency Dogecoin, NFTs and SPACs in recent months.

“But every time I worry about the craziness, it reminds us that stocks may be a lot cheaper than you think, at least for other companies willing to pay for the whole company, even if you are do not do.” “Said Cramer.

Take a look at the competing bids for Kansas City Southern, he said.

On Tuesday, the Canadian National Railway announced its offer to acquire Kansas City Southern in a deal in which the company was valued at $ 325 per share.

That’s more than a planned deal announced by rival Canadian Pacific late last month. Back then, there was a stock and cash agreement with Kansas City Southern that valued the Missouri-based company at $ 275 per share.

While Canadian Pacific has criticized Canadian Nation’s “unsolicited offer”, Cramer said the situation teaches equity investors to study the market.

A Kansas City Southern (KSC) Railway locomotive travels through Knoche Yard in Kansas City, Missouri on Tuesday, January 7, 2020.

Whitney Curtis | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Kansas City Southern, with its exposure to Mexico and the country’s auto industry, has a really important business that has apparently been overlooked, Cramer said.

“The market was clearly completely wrong about this – otherwise you would have received not one but two large tender offers,” said Cramer. “That shows you that before the first offer from the Canadian Pacific, Kansas City Southern was massively undervalued. And yes, I think the other railroad operators have a better understanding of what KSU is worth than Wall Street.”

It’s important not to extrapolate too much, warned Cramer. “That doesn’t mean every company is a bargain. Some of them are too big to buy, others are really too expensive,” he said, while adding antitrust concerns will get in the way of other deals.

At the same time he claimed, “There are many companies like Kansas City Southern.”

“This deal makes you think about it the next time you hear someone whine about how expensive stocks are,” said Cramer. “Sometimes companies in the same industry are willing to pay a lot more for a stock than the market. I think that’s a very encouraging sign. So don’t be discouraged when so many people insist on buying what you believe.” that they have it. ” no value at all. “

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Business

United Airways’ shares slip as enterprise and worldwide journey stay depressed

United Airlines' shares slip as business and international travel remain depressed

A United Airlines plane seen at the gate at Chicago OHare International Airport (ORD) on October 5, 2020 in Chicago, Illinois.

Daniel Slim | AFP | Getty Images

United Airlines shares fell more than 5% Tuesday morning after the airline reported its fifth straight quarterly loss, and its CEO was unsure about when two key parts of the business would recover from the pandemic.

CEO Scott Kirby said the demand for long-haul and business international travel had declined by about 80% compared to 2019, depriving the airline of high-paying customers it relied on before the pandemic.

“The big question is when those two things will come back and we’re not sure when that is,” Kirby said in an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box. He said both segments are expected to recover in the summer and the second half of the year.

The airline reported a $ 1.4 billion loss for the first quarter on Monday and said it could achieve profitability even if demand for long-haul and business international travel returns to 35% of 2019 levels.

Demand for domestic vacation travel in popular vacation destinations like beaches has surpassed 2019 levels, Kirby said.

Vacationers flying within the US have spearheaded the recovery of travel as more people are vaccinated, governments relax travel restrictions, and tourist attractions reopen. But companies still haven’t got many of their employees back on the streets, and international travel bans or quarantine requirements continue to keep many travelers closer to where they live.

“I don’t know how people find hotels,” said Kirby.

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Business

Fed Chief Says U.S. Financial system Is at an ‘Inflection Level’ as Dangers Stay

Fed Chief Says U.S. Economy Is at an ‘Inflection Point’ as Risks Remain

WASHINGTON – The economy is at a “turning point” and on the verge of faster growth, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. Powell said in an interview that aired Sunday night. But he warned that the crisis was not over yet.

In the interview with “60 Minutes” on CBS, Powell said the American economy “brightened significantly” as more people were vaccinated and businesses reopened. But he warned that “there are really risks out there,” especially coronavirus flare-ups, if Americans return to normal life too quickly.

“The main risk to our economy right now is that the disease will spread faster,” he said. “And that’s worrying. It will be wise if people can continue to distance themselves socially and wear masks. “

The Fed has kept interest rates close to zero since March 2020 and buys around $ 120 billion worth of government bonds every month. This policy is designed to boost spending by keeping borrowing cheap. Fed officials knew they would continue to support the economy until it gets closer to its goals of maximum employment and stable inflation – and that while the situation is improving, it is not there.

Mr Powell reiterated that approach on Sunday, saying that the central bank would “consider a rate hike when the labor market recovery is essentially complete and we return to maximum employment and inflation returns to our 2 percent target and on the right track is to move over 2 percent for some time. “

But he said it would “be a while before we get to this place”.

On inflation, Mr. Powell reiterated that the Fed wanted “sustainable” price increases before adjusting monetary policy.

“Inflation was below 2 percent,” he said. “We want it to be only moderately over 2 percent. This is what we are looking for. ”

“And when we get that,” he added, “we’ll raise interest rates.”

Some celebrity viewers have warned that the economy may overheat as the federal government pumps out trillions of dollars in stimulus and other spending, and re-opens the economy so consumers can spend more.

So far there has been no sustained rise in inflation.

Figures show that the economy is recovering, albeit slowly. Employers hired more than 900,000 workers last month, but the country is still lacking millions of jobs compared to February 2020, and state unemployment claims only increased last week.

Mr Powell stressed Sunday that while some workers were doing fine, others had not yet returned to where they were before the Covid-19 lockdown. This phenomenon will affect when the Fed reduces or removes policy support.

“What you are seeing is that some parts of the economy are doing very well, having recovered fully and in some cases even more than fully recovered,” Powell said. “And some parts haven’t recovered very much. So you see real differences between different parts of the economy. This is unusual for an economy like ours. “

Mr Powell also pointed to data showing that the hardest hit is those who are least able to bear it: lower-income service workers who are heavily colored and female have been hit hard by job losses.

While he expects these workers to get back to work faster when the economy recovers, the Fed needs to “stay with these people and support them as they try to get back to where they were in life, which worked,” he said adding, “You were in Jobs just a year ago.”

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Business

Chipotle’s digital gross sales stay sturdy as eating rooms reopen: CFO

Chipotle's digital sales remain strong as dining rooms reopen: CFO

Chipotle Mexican Grill is encouraged by the strength of its digital sales even with its dining rooms open due to coronavirus-related closures, CFO Jack Hartung told CNBC on Friday.

“The pandemic has really put some turbochargers behind our digital business, of course, but as we start to see Covid behind us – and we still have a long way to go – we keep most of that digital business, around 80%,” said Hartung in an interview on “Closing Bell”.

“Then when the restaurants reopened … we regained about 60% of what we lost when the pandemic started,” added Hartung, who joined Chipotle nearly two decades ago. “So, really, we’ll be ahead of the game in the end, though [the] The pandemic is completely behind us. We are very optimistic about where we are going from here. “

During the Covid crisis, customers flocked to Chipotle’s online ordering options. The fast casual chain saw digital sales jump 174% year over year in 2020, resulting in a 7.1% increase in total sales. Digital sales accounted for 46.2% of the California-based company’s sales last year, compared to 18% of sales in 2019.

In November, Chipotle opened its first restaurant entirely digital. More recently, quesadillas have been added to the menu, but the long-awaited addition is only available for online orders.

Earlier this week, Chipotle announced an expansion of its debt-free college degree for employees. It now includes degrees in agriculture, food and hospitality.

According to Hartung, Chipotle has seen positive results since the educational initiative was launched almost two years ago.

“When our employees use these debt-free programs, they are three and a half times more likely to stay with us and seven times more likely to be in leadership positions. We see this as an investment in our people.” Said Hartung.

Chipotle’s shares closed the session modestly on Friday at around $ 1,531 apiece. The stock is up 10.4% since the start of the year and nearly 100% over the past 12 months.