Tag: Threat

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ISIS Poses ‘Acute’ Menace to U.S. Evacuation Efforts in Kabul, Sullivan Says

ISIS Poses ‘Acute’ Threat to U.S. Evacuation Efforts in Kabul, Sullivan Says

A deadly attack on American and Afghan civilians would be a disaster not only for the US but also for the Taliban, who want to consolidate control over Kabul. The Taliban and the Islamic State were enemies and fought for control of parts of the country on the battlefield.

Understanding the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan

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Who are the Taliban? The Taliban emerged in 1994 amid the unrest following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989. They used brutal public punishments, including flogging, amputation and mass executions, to enforce their rules. Here is more about their genesis and track record as rulers.

Who are the Taliban leaders? These are the top leaders of the Taliban, men who for years have been on the run, in hiding, in prison and dodged American drones. Little is known about them or how they plan to rule, including whether they will be as tolerant as they say they are.

What is happening to the women of Afghanistan? When the Taliban was last in power, they banned women and girls from most jobs or from going to school. Afghan women have gained a lot since the Taliban was overthrown, but now they fear that they are losing ground. Taliban officials are trying to reassure women that things will be different, but there are indications that they have begun to reintroduce the old order in at least some areas.

Western counter-terrorism analysts say a high-profile attack by ISIS during the evacuation would most likely add to the group’s dwindling wealth, recruitment and prestige.

A June United Nations report found that “Islamic State’s territorial losses have affected the group’s ability to recruit and generate new funds.”

Although the ISIS affiliate was believed to still have 1,500 to 2,200 fighters in small areas of Kunar and Nangarhar provinces, the report said, “It has been forced to decentralize and consists mainly of cells and small groups across the country that act autonomously ”. while they share the same ideology. “

While the group suffered military setbacks from the summer of 2018, the report concluded that since June 2020, under its ambitious new leader Shahab al-Muhajir, the subsidiary has “remained active and dangerous” and is trying to increase its ranks with disaffected Taliban fighters and other militants.

“Given that ISIS-K and the Taliban are enemies, it will be a challenge for ISIS-K,” said Clarke. “Nevertheless, the Taliban now have their hands full governing, which will consume a considerable amount of bandwidth within the organization.”

Nathan Sales, the State Department’s Counter-Terrorism Coordinator in the Trump administration, said on Sunday that if the ISIS affiliate were able to attack the Kabul airport, “it suggests that Afghanistan may be after the departure of the USA will be a permissive environment for all types of terrorist groups. even those who are hostile to the Taliban. “

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Capitol Hill bomb menace defendant Floyd Ray Roseberry in courtroom

Capitol Hill bomb threat defendant Floyd Ray Roseberry in court

A man named Floyd Ray Roseberry, who claims to be in his truck with explosives, speaks during a Facebook livestream in a still from a video that was captured in Washington on August 19, 2021.

Social media | via Reuters

The North Carolina man, who announced he had a bomb in his truck parked on Capitol Hill, was charged Friday on threats with the use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted use of an explosive device.

The man, Floyd Ray Roseberry, was arrested without bail pending a medical examination of the defendant at a hearing in the US District Court in Washington, DC.

Judge Zia Faruqui ordered the assessment after Roseberry said it was difficult to understand the trial as he had been denied blood pressure medication and “my mental medicine” since he was handed over to police on Thursday.

“My memory is not that good, sir,” said Roseberry via audio link during the remote performance.

“We don’t need to be eye to eye,” Roseberry said at one point, referring to the lack of physical presence or video. “I can tell by your voice that you are a good man … I am ready to do whatever is asked.”

Roseberry, who said he was 51 years old despite authorities said he was 49, was appointed federal defender by Faruqui.

He’s next on trial on Wednesday. Roseberry faces the highest possible life imprisonment if convicted of weapons of mass destruction.

Prosecutors said they would ask Faruqui to hold him pending trial without bail.

Roseberry’s threat resulted in the evacuation of buildings including the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, the Cannon House office building and the offices of the Republican National Committee.

Roseberry parked a pickup truck on a sidewalk in front of the library Thursday morning.

He then told police officers that he had a bomb inside, which set off an hour-long stalemate that resulted in him surrendering peacefully.

Floyd Ray Roseberry sits in his pickup truck in a standoff with the Capitol Police outside the Library of Congress in Washington DC on August 19, 2021

Photo: Sydney Bobb

Before giving up, the Grover, North Carolina man posted videos of his truck on Facebook speaking directly to President Joe Biden, whose resignation he called for when he called for a revolution.

He also called for US air strikes on the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Roseberry claimed in a video that he had a barrel of gunpowder and more than two pounds of the explosive tannerite in the truck. He also suggested that there were four more bombs in the DC area.

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Politics

Capitol Hill bomb risk: Floyd Ray Roseberry surrenders

Capitol Hill bomb threat: Floyd Ray Roseberry surrenders

A North Carolina man surrendered Thursday afternoon to police, hours after telling them he had a bomb in his truck parked outside the Library of Congress on Capitol Hill.

That threat by the suspect, Floyd Ray Roseberry, led to the evacuation of the library, the Supreme Court, the Cannon House Office Building and the offices of the Republican National Committee.

It also sparked a massive police response to an area that seven months earlier saw the Capitol complex violently invaded by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.

“He got out of the vehicle and surrendered, and the tactical units that were close by took him into custody without incident,” U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said of the 49-year-old Roseberry.

“He gave up and did not resist,” Manger said. “As far as we could tell it was just his decision to surrender at that point.”

A man named Floyd Ray Roseberry who claims to be sitting in his truck with explosives speaks during a Facebook livestream in a still image from video taken in Washington, U.S. August 19, 2021.

Social Media | via Reuters

Manger said there was a propane gas container in his black pickup truck.

But, the chief added, “At this point we think that’s safe.”

Manger also said, “Right now we have no indication that he was acting with anyone else, but that is part of the ongoing investigation.”

A bomb was not found after a search of Roseberry’s vehicle but possible bomb making materials were secured from his truck, according to a statement from U.S. Capitol Police.

Roseberry, who most recently lived in Grover, North Carolina, posted several videos on Facebook from his truck in the hours before he surrendered, directly addressed remarks to President Joe Biden, whose resignation he demanded. He also called for U.S. airstrikes on the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Roseberry claimed on the video that he had a 7-pound keg of gunpowder and 2.5 pounds of the explosive tannerite in the truck, and suggested there were four other bombs in the D.C. area.

He also said his wife has cancer and that health insurance would not cover some treatment for her.

“I promised my wife I’d be home Sunday, whichever home it is. I’ve cleared my conscience with God,” Roseberry said.

The White House received updates from law enforcement during the standoff.

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Facebook removed Roseberry’s videos and his page after reporters found the messages.

Manger said that Roseberry has had some losses of family, including his mother, who “recently passed away.”

“There were other issues that he was dealing with,” the chief said.

Manger said the Capitol Police would work with the office of the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia to determine what criminal charges Roseberry will face.

The chief said that Roseberry has a criminal record in North Carolina, but nothing that appeared “serious.”

Manger earlier had told reporters that Roseberry drove his truck onto the sidewalk in front of the Library of Congress at about 9:15 a.m.

A pickup truck is parked on the sidewalk in front of the Library of Congress’ Thomas Jefferson Building, as seen from a window of the U.S. Capitol, Thursday, Aug. 19, 2021, in Washington.

Alex Brandon | AP

When Capitol Police responded to a call about the truck, “The driver of the truck told the responding officer on the scene that he had a bomb and what appeared, the officer said, appeared to be a detonator in the man’s hand,” Manger said.

“So we immediately evacuated the nearby buildings,” Manger said.

Congress and the Supreme Court are not currently in session, which reduced the number of people who normally would be working around the Capitol Hill complex.

Subways were bypassing the Capitol South station because of the incident, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority said.

People are evacuated from the James Madison Memorial Building, a Library of Congress building, in Washington on Thursday, Aug. 19, 2021, as law enforcement investigate a report of a pickup truck containing an explosive device near the U.S. Capitol.

Alex Brandon | AP

The area quickly was swarming with officers from a slew of law enforcement agencies: Capitol Police, FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and Washington, D.C., police.

Police negotiators began communicating with Roseberry, and sharpshooters took up positions in the area surrounding the truck.

A police sniper team remains in position near the Library of Congress on Capitol Hill August 19, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Win McNamee | Getty Images

Sydney Bobb, a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, told CNBC that she had been walking to a class at the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill when she saw Roseberry in his truck outside the Library of Congress.

“I look up and see a guy throwing [$1 bills] out of his truck,” said Bobb, who snapped a photo of the bizarre scene, which she posted on Twitter.

“I heard him say, like, he had a bomb on him.”

During the standoff, Roseberry communicated with authorities by writing on a dry-erase board that he had in the vehicle.

He refused to use a telephone that was sent to him with a police robot, according to Manger.

One of the explosives Roseberry claimed on his videos to have, tannerite, is popular in target shooting.

Tannerite is a binary explosive. Each part separately is not an explosive element, but when combined they are combustible.

Overuse of tannerite has been responsible for several gender reveal parties gone wrong in recent years, and was also popularized by the Netflix show “Tiger King.”

— Additional reporting by CNBC’s Amanda Macias, Bradley Howard and Brian Schwartz.

Correction: Sydney Bobb is a female student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. An earlier version misstated her gender.

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Health

The Delta Variant Is the Symptom of a Larger Menace: Vaccine Refusal

The Delta Variant Is the Symptom of a Bigger Threat: Vaccine Refusal

Of the 39 percent of unvaccinated adults, around half say they are not vaccinated at all. But even within this group, some say they would do it if asked to.

Understand the state of vaccine mandates in the United States

Some are hesitant and may come with the right conviction from people they trust, while still others plan to get vaccinated but say they just didn’t stand a chance.

Politics is only a driver for some of these people, noted Dr. Richard Besser, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In New Jersey, where he lives, rates fluctuate dramatically due to socio-economic factors. In the predominantly white Princeton, 75 percent of adults are vaccinated, compared to 45 percent in Trenton, only 22 kilometers away, which is very black and Latin American.

“Both are strong democratic areas so it’s really important to break things down and address the issues that are hindering vaccination progress in every segment of the unvaccinated population,” said Dr. Better.

However, there is no doubt that the political divide is playing a role in the rising infection rates. From the start, vaccinations in counties that voted for Donald J. Trump have lagged behind those in counties that voted for Joseph R. Biden, and the gap has only widened – from two percentage points in April to now almost 12 points, according to a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

According to another poll nationwide, 86 percent of Democrats got at least one shot, compared with 52 percent of Republicans. Even the national goal of getting 70 percent of adults vaccinated by July 4th somehow became “Biden’s goal,” said Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy and Research at Boston University.

“Suddenly, even getting out of the pandemic became a left-versus-right problem.”

As of May, fewer than half of Republicans in the House of Representatives are vaccinated, compared with 100 percent of Democrats in Congress. For months, several Republican lawmakers, including Senators Ron Johnson from Wisconsin and Rand Paul from Kentucky, as well as conservative news commentators like Tucker Carlson, have voiced their skepticism about vaccines.

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U.S. Surgeon Common Calls Covid Misinformation ‘Pressing Menace’

U.S. Surgeon General Calls Covid Misinformation ‘Urgent Threat'

President Biden’s surgeon general on Thursday used his first formal advisory to the United States to warn against the dangers of health misinformation, calling it an “urgent threat to public health” and urging all Americans — and specifically tech and social media companies — to do more to curb the spread of falsehoods about Covid-19.

The official warning by Dr. Vivek Murthy is unusual; surgeons general have traditionally used their official “advisories” — short statements that call the American people’s attention to a public health issue and provide recommendations for how it can be addressed — to talk about health matters ranging from tobacco use to opioid addiction, suicide prevention and breastfeeding.

But this new advisory, contained in a 22-page report with footnotes, occurs in a more political context. Fox News hosts like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, along with their guests, are among those who have been casting doubt on Covid-19 vaccines, which studies show are highly effective at preventing death and hospitalization from the disease.

Health misinformation about social distancing, mask use, treatments and vaccines has been rampant during the coronavirus pandemic. The report is a sign that the Biden administration, faced with a steep decline in vaccination rates, is moving more forcefully to confront it. Fewer than 50 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated, and many top health experts have called for the president to do more to reach people who have yet to be get shots.

While virus numbers remain at some of the lowest levels since the beginning of the pandemic, they are once again slowly rising, fueled by the spread of the more contagious Delta variant; vaccines are effective against the variant. Counties that voted for Mr. Biden average higher vaccination levels than those that voted for Donald Trump. Conservatives tend to decline vaccination far more often than Democrats.

“Health misinformation is a serious threat to public health,” Dr. Murthy said in the report. “It can cause confusion, sow mistrust, harm people’s health, and undermine public health efforts.”

In a statement, he added, “From the tech and social media companies who must do more to address the spread on their platforms, to all of us identifying and avoiding sharing misinformation, tackling this challenge will require an all-of-society approach, but it is critical for the long-term health of our nation.”

But calling out tech and media companies is tricky business, and the White House has danced around the question of whether it would try to regulate companies like Facebook that have become platforms for health disinformation. Asked about this at her Wednesday briefing, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, was noncommittal.

“Obviously, decisions to regulate or hold to account any platform would certainly be a policy decision,” she said. “But in the interim, we’re going to continue to call out disinformation and call out where that information travels.”

The report is assiduously apolitical, and does not name any specific purveyors of misinformation. But it comes as some Republican leaders, concerned that the virus is spreading quickly through conservative swaths of the country, are beginning to promote vaccination and speak out against media figures and elected officials who are casting doubt on vaccines.

Health misinformation is not a recent phenomenon — and is not limited to news media. In the 1990s, the report notes, “a poorly designed study” — later retracted — falsely claimed the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine causes autism.

“Even after the retraction, the claim gained some traction and contributed to lower immunization rates over the next twenty years,” the report said.

Dr. Murthy is expected at Thursday’s White House briefing to discuss his report. It cites evidence of the spread of misinformation, including a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation that found, as of late May, that 67 percent of unvaccinated adults had heard at least one Covid-19 vaccine myth and either believed it to be true or were unsure of its truthfulness; and a Science Magazine analysis of millions of social media posts found that false news stories were 70 percent more likely to be shared than true stories.

Another recent study showed that even brief exposure to misinformation made people less likely to want a Covid-19 vaccine, the surgeon general said.

This is Dr. Murthy’s second turn at being surgeon general; he also served under former President Barack Obama. The position, often referred to as the “nation’s doctor,” offers little formal policymaking authority, but derives its strength from the surgeon general’s bully pulpit, and past surgeons general have made powerful impacts on the nation’s health.

Dr. Murthy’s advisory drew immediate plaudits from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, an organization that is particularly concerned about false information suggesting Covid-19 vaccines might be harmful to pregnant women. There is no evidence of that.

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Fauci declares delta variant ‘best risk’ to the nation’s efforts to get rid of Covid

Fauci declares delta variant 'greatest threat' to the nation's efforts to eliminate Covid

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, listens during a press conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, DC on Tuesday, April 13, 2021.

Leigh Vogel | Bloomberg | Getty Images

White House senior medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday the highly contagious Delta variant is the “greatest threat” to the nation’s attempt to eradicate Covid-19.

Delta, which was first identified in India, now accounts for about 20% of all new cases in the United States, up from 10% about two weeks ago, Fauci said during a White House press conference on the pandemic.

He said Delta appears to be “following the same pattern” as Alpha, the variant first found in the UK, with infections doubling in the US about every two weeks.

“Similar to the UK, the Delta variant is currently the biggest threat in the US to our attempt to eliminate Covid-19,” he said.

Fauci’s comments come after CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky on Friday urged Americans to get vaccinated against Covid and said she expected Delta to become the dominant coronavirus variant in the United States

Studies suggest that it is about 60% more transmissible than alpha, which was more contagious than the original strain that emerged from Wuhan, China, in late 2019

“As worrying as this Delta strain is about its hypertransmittance, our vaccines are working,” Walensky told ABC’s Good Morning America. If you get vaccinated, “you will be protected against this Delta variant,” she added.

In the UK, the Delta variety recently became the dominant variety there, surpassing Alpha, which was first discovered in the country last fall. The Delta variant now accounts for more than 60% of new cases in the UK

Health officials say there are reports that the Delta variant also causes more severe symptoms, but that more research is needed to confirm these conclusions. However, there is evidence that the Delta strain may cause different symptoms than other variants.

Fauci said Tuesday the US had “the tools” to defeat the variant and urged more Americans to get fully vaccinated against Covid and “destroy the outbreak.”

The Biden administration said Tuesday that it is unlikely to meet President Joe Biden’s goal of getting 70% of American adults to receive one or more vaccinations by July 4th.

“In this case, two weeks after the second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech, the effectiveness of the vaccines was 88% effective against Delta and 93% effective against Alpha when it comes to symptomatic diseases,” said Fauci, citing a study.

The World Health Organization said Friday that Delta is becoming the predominant variant of the disease worldwide.

On Monday, WHO officials warned that the variant was the fastest and strongest coronavirus strain to date and that it would “pick up” the most vulnerable people, especially in places with low Covid-19 vaccination rates.

It has the potential to be “more deadly because it is more efficient in the way it is transmitted between people, and it will eventually find those at risk who will become seriously ill, hospitalized and possibly die”, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Emergency Health Program, said during a news conference.

Delta has now spread to 92 countries, said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical director for Covid, on Monday. She said, “Unfortunately, we still don’t have the vaccines in the right places to protect people’s lives.”

WHO has urged wealthy nations, including the US, to donate cans. The Biden government detailed early Monday where it will be sending 55 million doses of vaccine, most of which will be distributed through COVAX, the WHO-supported immunization program.

“These vaccines are highly effective against serious illness and death. That is what they are intended for and that is what they must be used for,” said Van Kerkhove. “This is what COVAX and WHO and all of our partners have worked to ensure that these vaccines reach the most vulnerable people.”

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With Vaccination Aim in Doubt, Biden Warns of Variant’s Risk

With Vaccination Goal in Doubt, Biden Warns of Variant’s Threat

WASHINGTON – With the United States failing to meet its self-imposed deadline of 70 percent of adults being partially vaccinated against the coronavirus by July 4th, President Biden stepped up efforts to inject Americans on Friday, warning that those who refuse to risk becoming infected with a highly contagious and potentially fatal variant.

In an afternoon appearance at the White House, Biden avoided mentioning the 70 percent target he set in early May and instead trumpeted about another milestone: 300 million shots in his first 150 days in office. But even as he was celebrating the success of the vaccination campaign, he sounded gloomy about the worrying Delta variant, which is spreading in states with low vaccination rates.

“The best way to protect yourself against these variants is to get vaccinated,” said the president.

His remarks came as his government made one final push over the next two weeks to meet the July 4th goal. Vice President Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra, Minister of Health and Human Resources, were both out on Friday to inspire enthusiasm for the vaccine. Ms. Harris went to Atlanta, where she found that less than half of the people in Fulton County, where the city is located, had at least one chance, and Mr. Becerra went to Colorado.

Mr Biden took office in January warning of a “dark winter” as deaths were near the peak and vaccinations barely underway, and he has generally tried to portray the virus as a withdrawal while he was out for six months approaching in office.

A leaflet distributed by the White House ahead of Friday’s statements found that in 15 states and the District of Columbia, 70 percent or more of adults had received at least one injection. “The results are clear: America is starting to look like America again and is entering a summer of joy and freedom,” the document reads.

But vaccination and infection rates are inconsistent across the country.

And while those who have taken a “wait and see” stance are becoming more open to vaccination, 20 percent of American adults still say they definitely won’t get the vaccine or will only get vaccinated when needed, according to a poll published last month by Kaiser Family Foundation.

State health officials are trying to convince the hesitation. In West Virginia, where just over a third of the population is fully vaccinated, Dr. Clay Marsh, the state’s coronavirus tsar, said that young people are particularly difficult to attract.

“Back in the pandemic there was a narrative that really haunts us, namely that young people are really protected,” he said. “There is a false belief that many young people who are otherwise healthy still have relatively free travel and that if they get infected they are fine.”

In Louisiana, where only 34 percent of the population is fully vaccinated and only 37 percent are receiving at least a single dose, state officials on Thursday announced a new lottery for anyone in the state who received a dose, with a grand prize of $ 1 million.

And in Wyoming, with vaccination rates almost identical to Louisiana, Kim Deti, a health department spokeswoman, said “politicization is a problem” as officials try to increase the number of people vaccinated. But she said there were other reasons for the rate slowdown in her state as well.

“We have had relatively low Covid 19 illnesses nationwide for some time, which has an impact on the perception of threats,” Ms. Deti wrote in an email. “Since schools are open all school year and most companies have almost everything open for the past year, some people may find it more difficult to identify the personal need for a vaccination.”

Speaking to students at a vaccination mobilization event at Clark Atlanta University in Georgia on Friday, Ms. Harris warned of the dangers of misinformation and formulated the decision to get vaccinated to regain power from the virus.

Updated

June 20, 2021, 4:23 p.m. ET

“Let’s arm ourselves with the truth,” she said. “When people say that it looks like this vaccine was made overnight – no, it didn’t. It is the result of many years of research. “

When setting the July 4th goal in early May, Mr Biden said the meeting would show that the United States has taken “a serious step towards a return to normal,” and for many people it already seems to be to be. This week California and New York lifted virtually all of their pandemic restrictions on businesses and social gatherings.

But the time frame is tight. Analysis by the New York Times shows that if the adult vaccination rate continues at the seven-day average, as 67.6 percent of American adults have at least one vaccination, the country will just miss Mr. Biden’s 70 percent target received by July 4th.

According to the CDC, 65 percent of adults had received at least one injection by Friday. But the number of Americans getting their first injection has steadily declined to about 200,000 a day since Mr. Biden announced that June would be a “month of action” to achieve his goal.

“I don’t see any intervention that could really bring back an exponential increase in demand to get the kind of numbers we probably need to get to 70 percent,” said Dr. Marcus Plescia, the Association of State’s chief medical officer and area health officer.

Experts say the difference between 67 percent and 70 percent is insignificant from a disease control perspective. But from a political point of view, it would be the first time that Mr Biden has set a pandemic-related goal that he has not achieved. He has always set and exceeded relatively modest goals, including his pledge to have 100 million shots in the arms of Americans by his 100th day in office.

“The 70 percent target is not a fixed number; not getting it right doesn’t mean the sky is falling, ”said Jen Kates, director of global health and HIV policy for the Kaiser Family Foundation. “On the other hand, it has symbolic meaning. Much effort has been put into reaching this point and not hitting it, a reminder of how difficult the remaining distance will be. “

In the White House, Mr Biden’s aides are now saying they are less concerned with meeting the 70 percent target than they are in making the nation feel the sense of normalcy the president promised. Just a few months ago he was talking about small family barbecues on July 4th, and now large gatherings are possible.

To prove it, the White House is also planning a grand celebration of “independence from the virus” on July 4th with fireworks on the National Mall here in Washington and a gathering of more than 1,000 military personnel and key workers who will join Mr. Biden . Ms. Harris and her spouses watch the festivities from the South Lawn.

When the 70 percent target was announced on May 4th, Mr Biden made a personal appeal to all those who had not been vaccinated: “That is your decision. It’s about life and death.”

A month later, in early June, he attempted to win the nation over by proclaiming a “Month of Action” and suggesting incentives, including offering free childcare for parents and carers while they receive their shots. He also promised a national advertising campaign that resembled an election campaign.

Since then, White House officials say, nonprofit and community groups across the country have held testing and vaccination events, particularly in black churches. Planned Parenthood has invested in paid phone banking, and the Service Employees International Union has partnered with the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials to run vaccination clinics and promotions.

When asked about the July 4th deadline this week, Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House’s Coronavirus Response Coordinator, specifically avoided saying the nation would break the 70 percent threshold by that date would achieve.

“We have made tremendous progress,” he said. “Hundreds of thousands of people continue to get their first shots every day, and we’re going to get 70 percent, and we’re going to go beyond 70 percent in the summer months.”

Annie Karni contributed the coverage from Washington and Amy Schoenfeld Walker from Trumbull, Conn.

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Covid Delta variant not speedy risk to U.S.

Covid Delta variant not immediate threat to U.S.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Wednesday he believes enough Americans are fully vaccinated to delay the risk presented by the Delta Covid variant.

“The question is: Are there enough unvaccinated people that this could get into the population and start spreading more widely? I happen to think it’s unlikely that this is going to be a threat until the fall, perhaps,” the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner said on “Squawk Box.”

Gottlieb’s comments come as speculation grows that the U.K. could delay the lifting of all lockdown measures in England, set for June 21, due to the increasing prevalence of the Delta variant, which was first discovered in India.

The most severe cases involving the Delta variant appear to be in unvaccinated people or those who are only partially vaccinated, Gottlieb said. “It does seem to be a more dangerous variant. That said, two doses of the vaccine seem to be very protective.” 

“People who are fully vaccinated, I think, are pretty well protected against this new variant based on the accruing evidence,” added Gottlieb, who led the FDA in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2019. He’s now on the board of vaccine maker Pfizer.

On Tuesday, the White House’s chief medical advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, stressed the importance of Americans becoming fully vaccinated to protect against the Delta variant. Currently, Fauci said it accounts for more than 6% of the U.S. coronavirus infections that scientists have genetically sequenced.

The Delta variant, meanwhile, is becoming the dominant variant in the United Kingdom. The U.S. and U.K. now have around 53% of adults fully vaccinated against Covid. However, Gottlieb said England’s decision to delay the administration of second doses in order to give more people initial shots “probably opened the door to this spreading a little bit more widely.” 

At a White House briefing Tuesday, Fauci called out as examples Covid vaccines from Pfizer and AstraZeneca — which is used in the U.K. but not the U.S. — saying they were around 33% effective in protecting against the Delta variant after one dose. For Pfizer, that rose to 88% efficacy after the second shot, Fauci said, while AstraZeneca’s vaccine was 60% effective, according to the National Institutes of Health.

“It does appear that two doses of the vaccine are more important against these variants than they were against the old strain of the virus,” Gottlieb said.

Despite vaccination progress in the U.S., Gottlieb acknowledged there could be worrisome situations in the country involving the Delta variant. “If you have a community where there’s a lot of unvaccinated people and you have a super-spreading event with Delta … you could get an outbreak here.”

Covid cases in the U.S. continue to fall. The country’s seven-day average of daily new coronavirus infections is around 14,400, according to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins University data. That’s about 17% lower than it was a week ago. It also represents an over 60% decline from roughly a month ago. The highest single day of new cases in the U.S. was 300,462 on Jan. 2.

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic testing start-up Tempus, health-care tech company Aetion and biotech company Illumina. He also serves as co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings’ and Royal Caribbean’s “Healthy Sail Panel.”

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Amazon health-care menace? Teladoc CEO says it is ‘overrated’

Amazon health-care threat? Teladoc CEO says it's ‘overrated'

The Amazon Pharmacy home screen on a smartphone arranged in the Brooklyn Borough of New York, U.S., on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020.

Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Ask a sports star before a game whether their team is going to win and they’re likely to say yes with confidence. And then cue the headlines that will sensationalize the hubris. But would you expect an athlete to say — would you want them to think — they’re about to lose?

The heads of companies sometimes talk about the competition in a similar way, and they shouldn’t be in the CEO hot seat without confidence in their company’s ability to win.

Take Teladoc Health CEO Jason Gorevic, recently asked at the CNBC Healthy Returns Summit about the threat Amazon poses in health care.

“Based on the fact that it has one enterprise client of 385 employees, it is overrated,” Gorevic said, answering a question about Amazon Care, the retail and tech giant’s app-based primary care entry in Teladoc’s market, which signed up its first client, Peloton-owned fitness equipment company Precor, in May.

Should the Teladoc CEO be more worried? Even after Amazon’s deal with Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan to take on the status quo with its health care joint effort, Haven, fell apart, the merchandising giant still has a big market to exploit.

Amazon Care is expected to expand to its own employees in all 50 states this summer. It has been adding workers faster than any company in history, more than 500,000 in 2020. It also has had a deal with employer health provider Crossover Health for in-person employee health clinics that continues to expand across states with a goal of putting these clinics within a few miles of all Amazon employees, especially in light of the attention its workplace injury rates have received.

J.P. Morgan is moving on and deeper into health care after Haven, recently announcing it will move ahead with its own effort to invest in new health-care ideas, to be offered among its 165,000 employees and families.

Virtual health here to stay

As society has moved rapidly from the awareness phase of virtual care to the expectation phase, those expectations have increased, and Teladoc has added services like mental health treatment as part of what Gorevic tells CNBC is the future “unified experience” with patients.

“Virtual care is not a stay at home phenomenon,” Gorevic said. “The utilization we are seeing across multiple conditions all indicate it is here to stay.”

He cited first quarter 2021 results during which visit volume was up 69% year over year in spite of the fact that seasonal flu-related visits were down 90%.

Nevertheless, Teladoc shares have cratered, down from a peak earlier this year above $290 to roughly half that level, ending trading last week slightly above $146. But Gorevic says investors are missing the bigger picture, and overlooking improving numbers. The biggest quarterly number he cites: revenue per member, per month, which in Q1 2021 was $2.25, versus 87 cents a year ago.

Others cite the rapid M&A taking place in Teladoc’s market as reason to worry.

Walmart acquired MeMD in May; two other telemedicine competitors, Doctor on Demand and Grand Rounds, recently merged.

“Everyone feels like they have to have a press release that says something about telehealth to be relevant,” Gorevic told CNBC Healthy Returns. “I’m not surprised by any of these moves.”

“This pandemic has thrown the whole market into motion. As we looked at the market, we said we needed to be bold, and we see where it’s going,” the Teladoc CEO said, citing its $18 billion acquisition of chronic disease management company Livongo, which is focused on diabetes, and its expanding mental health services.

Gorevic says health-care consumers are overwhelmed by health-care websites and apps and want a unified experience, and the company is seeing that in multi-product bookings, which in 2020 represented two-thirds of bookings.

Amazon and the fear of disruption

Amazon’s ability to upend, or at least send waves of terror, through the health care industry has already been seen in the launch of its online pharmacy, which led to shares of Goodrx dropping from over $52 to roughly $33 after the announcement last October.

Wall Street analysts who cover Teladoc see Amazon’s presence as significant, yet not all agree it is an acute threat to Teladoc currently.

“Leery of Amazon’s initiatives here,” wrote Sean Wieland, managing director and a senior research analyst focusing on health-care information technology and health-care services at Piper Sandler, in response to an email.

“Even Amazon would have to get the enterprise market on board one employer at a time, as it’s a highly fragmented market and that would take years. Also, it’s a significant lift to go from offering urgent care visits on demand to whole person health care.”

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Charles Rhyee, managing director and senior research analyst covering health-care technology and distribution at Cowen & Co., said Goodrx is a good example of how Amazon can disrupt health care, and it would be a mistake to ignore Amazon’s potential. But he thinks the threat in pharmacy is more direct than in telehealth.

“It’s is a mature market. There are tons of pharmacies out there and it is not a growth sector. In the truest sense, more of zero sum game,” Rhyee said, and that is something Amazon can afford to win at the expense of CVS or Goodrx.

Telehealth visits still a fraction of the market

Telehealth is still a nascent field and that may play to Teladoc’s favor in the years ahead.

“We are all talking about it because of Covid forcing everyone to seek virtual care, but if you think about how many visits Teladoc will do this year, it’s 12 million to 13 million visits,” Rhyee said.

That compares to a U.S. market in which there are one billion visits or more, annually, including mental health care.

Whether a Teladoc or American Well is growing in the telemedicine market, Rhyee says that amounts to about 2% to 3% of visits, a small fraction of what can be virtualized and an indicator that the market is going to expand.

“I’m not concerned,” Rhyee said. “Where Teladoc sits is not what Amazon is doing. It’s not just basic video visits to speak to a doctor for a minor thing. It is increasingly in multiple specialities and second opinions and Livongo. You can argue right now very few, if any, have that broad capabilities, and that’s why Doctor on Demand is merging with Grand Rounds.”

He looks at Amazon in basic care and pharmacy in a similar way to his analysis of Walmart’s health care after its acquisition of MeMD. “They want to provide some basic connectivity and prescriptions that can be dispensed at Walmart.”  

Why Teladoc shares have been volatile

Stocks move up and down in discrete periods of time, and that doesn’t always correspond to the longer-term trend. That’s part of the challenge for investors with Teladoc right now, trying to figure out what its growth looks like post-Covid.

Membership growth guidance for this year may not be as strong as some investors wanted coming out of Covid, and app tracking firms have shown slowing momentum in daily usage. Yet people using Teladoc less now than April of last year does not mean they are using it less than they were in 2019. And last year was unusual.

“We don’t know what virtual will look like in the end,” Rhyee said. 

The Cowen analyst has a $240 price target on the stock and says at $140 it is trading at roughly 8 times forward revenue, which is up from where it traded before Covid, but that was when “people didn’t believe it was a real business.”

Rhyee says he will worry more about Amazon if it starts stringing together acquisitions in health care, including in the chronic condition management space. “That would tell me they are much more serious about it,” he said.

As long as Amazon Care is one enterprise client and its own employees, the Teladoc outlook will be based elsewhere.

The idea of competition between Teladoc and Amazon may be missing the real threat Amazon poses in health care, according to David Grossman, research manager director at Stifel. That includes disrupting the legacy providers in insurance and pharmacy benefits managers.

Teladoc is disrupting traditional providers by creating a virtual 24/7 network on demand that can offer a potentially lower-cost alternative. Those traditional providers now forced to offer telemedicine are more of a near-term threat to Teladoc, in Grossman’s view, as they evolve from starting telehealth “literally overnight” to incorporating virtual care as a permanent feature of their care delivery models.

“Virtual care is now table stakes for providers, while 15 months ago it was barely on the radar screen,” he said.

Setting up appointments online and having telehealth as an option may be one of the features Amazon offers, but that is a shortsighted way to view what Amazon is after in the health care system.

Amazon is saying we take over everything. It’s not lets go after Teladoc. That’s incidental.

David Gross, Stifel analyst

Grossman, who is concerned about Teladoc’s ability to grow revenue and margins, says Gorevic is a smart guy building a reasonable model. Now they can pitch health plans on using a provider network they have created at lower cost for employers, if employees agree to access services virtually as a first stop. That disintermediates the traditional provider network, but he does not see Amazon stopping there or even thinking in those terms specifically.

“Amazon is saying we take over everything,” Grossman said, looking at traditional health care market that is flawed in delivery and pricing and adds little value. “It’s not lets go after Teladoc. That’s incidental.”

Taking cost out of the system is what Amazon already has proven to be great at, squeezing out players that don’t offer value and shouldn’t be there. “I’m rooting for them in that sense,” the Stifel analyst said.

But whether it is Amazon’s or Walmart’s efforts that are emerging in health care, the models to watch do not exclude Teladoc. “There is no indication we should write it off,” Grossman said.

Teladoc shares are down for a lot of reasons, starting with the market rotation out of growth names and the market acknowledging that traditional providers are ramping up their own telemedicine products.

“Everyone points to Amazon, and let’s be fair, it was a high multiple stock and the market is getting out of the stay at home trade and pricing how high can utilization translate into pricing” Grossman said. He added that Teladoc has struggled to convince the street of its pricing power. “They have been opaque.”

The company is growing monthly revenue per member, as Gorevic noted, but the Stifel analyst was quick to point out the recent Q1 growth relied on the acquisition of Livongo. Livongo is the largest provider of virtual chronic care and that is top of mind for employers, but Teladoc has a lot of work left to do to prove demand for it is a secular driver of its business growth.

Behavioral health, meanwhile, is the fastest- growing incremental service but there is only so much that can be delivered on an automated basis, so it becomes a staffing platform to match supply and demand and help sole mental health practice proprietors fill their book of business like an Uber or Lyft.

While the 8 times revenue the company is trading at might seem less than rich, double-digit revenue multiple companies tend to be in sectors like software, where scalability comes fast and at high margins. Teladoc’s subscription-heavy sales model means a majority of revenue is fixed while the costs remain variable.

“Their claim all along has been as utilization goes up it’s good for them, but there is no pricing algorithm around that. We don’t know how to calculate that,” Grossman said.

Companies like Teladoc and American Well can grow members, and grow utilization among members, but how either of those growth measures factor into pricing power remains unpredictable. Utilization can go up, but revenue not match it. And that contributes to investor concerns about its scalability.

“It is factually correct they can get more per member with more services and there are lots of opportunities, but lots of competition for each module and booking,” Grossman said. The company’s scale and visibility give it an advantage, “but lots remains uncertain,” he said.

Gorevic told CNBC this is not a pandemic story. “Something else is going on here. People are reaching out for other things.”

Mental health, dermatology, and chronic conditions including diabetes, and health issues linked to it such as weight loss. “Not one and done things, and that’s why I am convinced,” the Teladoc CEO said.

Building the virtual primary care model and convincing payers and employers that it is most cost-effective to choose this option, and agree to have members enter the health system virtually as the first step, is the bigger opportunity to drive higher revenue per member, Grossman said, and longer-term it is the more sustainable way to disrupt the traditional provider network.

In that sense, Teladoc is taking market share just like Amazon would, and they can grow for a longer period of time. That may be a discrete disruption in health care that becomes permanent. The biggest disruption in health care, though, is not about telemedicine.

“All roads lead into the payers,” Grossman said. “That’s where the level of satisfaction is low and the control they have is high.”

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Politics

White Supremacists Prime Home Terror Risk, Officers Say

White Supremacists Top Domestic Terror Threat, Officials Say

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas told Senators on Wednesday that the greatest domestic threat to the United States comes from what they both describe as “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists”.

“Especially those who advocate the superiority of the white race,” Garland told the Senate Committee on Funds.

Cabinet secretaries’ appearances represented a dramatic change from the tone of the Trump administration, as the threat posed by white supremacists and similar groups was deliberately downplayed, in part to raise the profile of what former President Donald J. Trump posed as violent threats Radical denoted left groups.

Last year, the former head of Homeland Security’s Intelligence Department filed a whistleblower complaint accusing the department of blocking an intelligence report on the threat of violent racism and describing white supremacists as “exceptionally fatal in their heinous targeted attacks in recent years. “The official accused

“The department is taking a new approach to combating domestic violent extremism, both internally and externally,” Mayorkas told the senators on Wednesday.

While Justice and Homeland Security have long been involved in fighting violent extremism in the country, Biden government officials have stated that the January 6 pro-Trump riots in the Capitol created an urgent need to get stronger focus on domestic extremism.

But the Senate Republicans didn’t share that focus. Top Republican on the committee, Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, said the Democrats politicized the issue by calling domestic violent extremists right-wing extremists. He equated the riots with the protests against police violence in the summer of 2020.

Other republicans on the committee grilled the attorney general and the chief of homeland security over border security and other immigration issues.

The Justice Department is investigating the January 6 riot and has arrested more than 430 people nationwide, Garland said. Only last week did prosecutors start informally negotiating plea agreements. Some of the defendants fought the charges.