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Tag: booster

  • Massive Home Depot crime ring pulled off more than 600 SoCal thefts, D.A. says

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    For years, a sophisticated retail crime ring plundered Home Depots across Southern California, pulling off more than 600 thefts and netting an estimated $10 million worth of merchandise without consequences — until now, authorities said.

    On Tuesday, the Ventura County district attorney’s office announced the filing of a 48-count criminal complaint against nine alleged key players in what Home Depot says is the largest targeted theft ring in the business’ history.

    The retail crime ring targeted 71 Home Depot locations in Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, sometimes hitting the same stores multiple times a day, prosecutors allege.

    Goods that were stolen from Home Depot locations were allegedly fenced by David Ahl through Arya Wholesale, his Tarzana business.

    (Ventura County district attorney’s office)

    Several law enforcement agencies worked together to take down the theft crew through “Operation Kill Switch,” which arrested 14 people on Aug. 14, nine of whom have since been charged, authorities said.

    The criminal enterprise was allegedly led by David Ahl of Woodland Hills, who faces 45 felony counts, including conspiracy, organized retail theft, grand theft, receiving stolen property and money laundering, prosecutors said. If convicted as charged, he faces up to 32 years in prison.

    Ahl is accused of directing theft crews to seize high-value items at Home Depots — such as breakers, dimmers, switches and outlets — that he would then resell through his electronics storefront in Tarzana in a technique known as fencing.

    “His crews of thieves, known as boosters, stole merchandise from the Home Depot’s stores, sometimes hitting every Home Depot in Ventura County in a single day,” said Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff at Tuesday’s news conference. “Then the boosters would deliver the stolen items in trash bags or Home Depot boxes to his business or to his home, where he paid them in cash.”

    The crime ring was, in part, a family affair, prosecutors said.

    Ahl’s brother-in-law, Omid Abrishamkar of Calabasas, is accused of helping sell the stolen merchandise through EBay and faces 11 felony counts related to money laundering and reselling stolen property.

    Ahl’s ex-wife, Lorena Solis of Downey, is accused of getting in on the action by running a nearly identical fencing business in the Los Angeles area alongside her partner, Enrique Neira Moreno of Downey. They each face eight felony counts.

    Five prolific boosters in the ring were also arrested and face felony charges, authorities said.

    They include Jose Banuelos Guerrero of South Gate, Edwin Rivera of Los Angeles and Eber Bonilla Lopez of Pomona, who are accused of working together to commit thefts on a daily basis, often stealing $6,000 to $10,000 in merchandise at a time, prosecutors said.

    Piles of cable and boxes in a warehouse.

    The Ventura County Sheriff’s Office said it had seized at least $3.7 million in stolen Home Depot property and more than $800,000 in suspected illicit money from suspects’ accounts.

    (Ventura County district attorney’s office)

    Surveillance camera footage released by the district attorney’s office shows Bonilla-Lopez filling his jacket pockets with electric breakers from a Home Depot and using a pole to swipe boxes full of electrical components from the top shelves.

    A second alleged boosting crew consisting of Erlin Hernandez Lopez and Denny Gomez, both of Pomona, are charged with three felony counts of conspiracy to commit retail theft.

    Home Depot estimates that the crew is collectively responsible for more than $10 million in stolen merchandise. Since the Aug. 14 arrests, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office has seized at least $3.7 million in stolen Home Depot property and more than $800,000 in suspected illicit money from accounts belonging to Ahl and Abrishamkar.

    During Tuesday’s news conference, Fryhoff praised Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin (D-Thousand Oaks) for authoring Assembly Bill 1779, which was signed into law last year and allows retail crimes that occur across multiple counties to be consolidated into a single criminal filing.

    “Without this law, we would be prosecuting common crimes by the same defendants in multiple jurisdictions, a costly and time-consuming undertaking,” he said. “However, because of this legislation, Ventura County has consolidated the Los Angeles Home Depot theft charges into the 48-count criminal complaint.

    L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman also praised the bill and said that cracking down on retail crime is a top priority for his office.

    “This is the start of efforts to go after these large crews,” he said. “They thought they were sophisticated, they thought they could hide. Today’s announcement of these charges shows vastly differently.”

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    Clara Harter

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  • SpaceX Starship’s second uncrewed launch ends in explosion

    SpaceX Starship’s second uncrewed launch ends in explosion

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    SpaceX’s Starship Mars rocket and spacecraft launched for the second time early Saturday morning, making it through lift-off and a planned separation of the uncrewed ship and rocket booster before both ended up exploding.

    The massive Starship rocket launched around 5:03 a.m. Pacific from SpaceX’s launch facility near Boca Chica, Texas. On a livestream of the launch, SpaceX employees tempered viewers’ expectations, warning that the company didn’t expect to recover any hardware for future re-flight from either rocket booster or launch, even in the best case scenario.

    The stated goal, employees said, was to make it to separation of the rocket booster and the Starship craft.

    The Hawthorne company has added a new, hot-stage separation system into the rocket, in which the rocket booster keeps a few engines burning while the spaceship ignites all of its engines to get more boost. Though it puts more pressure on the booster, the complicated procedure is intended to increase the carrying capacity for the ship.

    About three minutes after lift-off, the booster and ship did successfully separate, but the booster broke apart shortly after. The Starship craft continued to ascend, but about nine minutes after lift-off, the company said it lost data from the craft.

    The company said it believes the automated flight termination system on the ship was triggered “very late in the burn” as it headed over the Gulf of Mexico, said John Insprucker, a longtime SpaceX employee who frequently appears on the company’s livestream to give technical updates and explanations. The automated flight termination system is a safety mechanism embedded in the rocket’s software that destroys the vehicle if it senses that its course or performance is awry or unsafe.

    Though the flight did not reach completion, company employees on the livestream called it “an incredibly successful day” that would yield data for future improvements.

    It did mark progress compared with the last test seven months ago, which ended in an explosion a few minutes after lift-off, raining debris over the nearby area and destroying its launch pad.

    That explosion, too, was triggered by the rocket’s autonomous flight termination system.

    SpaceX said at the time that Starship started going off course during that flight due to a propellant leak in the rocket’s booster, which affected the main flight computer and resulted in a loss of communications. That led to the majority of the booster’s engines going out.

    After that test flight, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered SpaceX to make fixes to the rocket, including redesigning its hardware to prevent leaks and fires. On Wednesday, the FAA said it authorized Starship’s second test flight. The company said it has put into place “leak mitigations” and improved its engine and rocket booster testing.

    SpaceX also said it made “significant reinforcements” of the launch pad’s foundation and added a flame deflector intended to prevent future launch pad damage.

    SpaceX Starship is poised for its launch attempt.

    (Scott Schilke / Associated Press)

    Starship is key to SpaceX’s future business plans and the U.S.’s return to the moon. SpaceX is under contract with NASA to develop the Starship spacecraft into a lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis program.

    The company also plans to eventually phase out its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket in favor of the much larger Starship, which it also envisions for use in missions to Mars.

    SpaceX also intends to expand its Starlink broadband internet network through Starship launches, which will be able to carry many more satellites than the Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy rockets.

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    Samantha Masunaga

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  • 5 things to know about the new COVID-19 vaccine

    5 things to know about the new COVID-19 vaccine

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    It may be time to get your COVID-19 vaccine again.

    There’s a new booster that’s coming out to guard against the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday that it was recommending the vaccine, which is being produced in versions by Moderna
    MRNA,
    +3.18%
    and Pfizer
    PFE,
    -0.20%
    -BioNTech
    BNTX,
    -2.06%    ,
    for people 6 months of age and older.

    Here are answers to some common questions about the shot — and what you may need to know before you receive it.

    Why are we seeing another booster?

    Boosters are all about maintaining protection against the virus as new COVID-19 variants emerge. The CDC said: “The updated vaccines should work well against currently circulating variants of COVID-19, including BA.2.86, and continue to be the best way to protect yourself against severe disease.” The CDC also noted that “protection from COVID-19 vaccines and infection decline over time. An updated COVID-19 vaccine provides enhanced protection against the variants currently responsible for most hospitalizations in the United States.”

    So, everyone who is 6 months or older should receive it?

    That’s the CDC’s recommendation, but not everyone sees this booster as a firm requirement, depending on various medical and other factors.

    Dr. Paul A. Offit, a pediatrician with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who specializes in infectious diseases, told MarketWatch that the new vaccine is a must for some who are at higher risk for developing serious illness, such as people who are over 75, people who have certain health problems (including diabetes, obesity or chronic lung or heart disease) and people who are immune compromised.

    And what about the others? Offit said it can be a case of “low risk, low reward.” Meaning there’s little harm in getting the booster and it may buy “a few months protection against mild disease,” Offit said. But he stops short of saying the booster is an absolute necessity for such people.

    Still, CDC director Dr. Mandy K. Cohen counters such an argument. In a column for the New York Times, Cohen noted that all the members of her family, including her 9- and 11-year-old daughters, would be getting the booster. “Some viruses…change over time. This coronavirus is one of them. It finds ways to evade our immune systems by constantly evolving. That’s why our vaccines need to be updated to match the changed virus,” Cohen explained.

    What if you recently had COVID? Or have just gotten the previous COVID booster?

    Offit said you should wait at least two months — and possibly as long as four months — before receiving the new vaccine.

    The CDC said, “You should get a COVID-19 vaccine even if you already had COVID-19,” adding “you may consider delaying your next vaccine by 3 months from when your [COVID] symptoms started or, if you had no symptoms, when you received a positive test.”

    When and where can you get the new booster?

    The CDC said the vaccine “will be available by the end of this week at most places you would normally go to get your vaccines.”

    How much will it cost?

    The new shots are expected to have list prices of $110 to $130, but the CDC said, “Most Americans can still get a COVID-19 vaccine for free.” That is, most health-insurance plans will cover the cost.

    As for those without insurance, the CDC said there are still plenty of free options, including programs run by local health centers and health departments as well as pharmacies participating in the CDC’s Bridge Access Program. For more information about where to get the booster, go to Vaccines.gov.

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  • FDA Panel Backs Shift Toward One-Dose COVID Shot

    FDA Panel Backs Shift Toward One-Dose COVID Shot

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    Jan. 26, 2023 – A panel of advisers to the FDA unanimously supported an effort today to simplify COVID-19 vaccinations, with the aim of developing a one-dose approach — perhaps annually — for the general population.

    The FDA is looking to give clearer direction to vaccine makers about future development of COVID-19 vaccines. The plan is to narrow down the current complex landscape of options for vaccinations, and thus help increase use of these shots. 

    COVID remains a threat, causing about 4,000 deaths a week recently, according to the CDC. 

    The 21 Members of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) voted unanimously “yes” on a single question posed by the FDA: 

    “Does the committee recommend harmonizing the vaccine strain composition of primary series and booster doses in the U.S. to a single composition, e.g., the composition for all vaccines administered currently would be a bivalent vaccine (Original plus Omicron BA.4/BA.5)?”

    In other words, would it be better to have one vaccine potentially combining multiple strains of the virus, instead of multiple vaccines – such as a two-shot primary series then a booster containing different combinations of viral strains.

    The FDA will consider the panel’s advice as it outlines new strategies for keeping ahead of the evolving virus.

    In explaining their support for the FDA plan, panel members said they hoped that a simpler regime would aid in persuading more people to get COVID vaccines.

    Pamela McInnes, DDS, MSc, noted that it’s difficult to explain to many people that the vaccine worked to protect them from more severe illness if they contract COVID after getting vaccinated. 

    “That is a real challenge,” said McInness, a retired deputy director of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the National Institutes of Health.

    “The message that you would have gotten more sick and landed in the hospital resonates with me, but I’m not sure if it resonates with” many people who become infected, she said.

    The Plan

    In the briefing document for the meeting, the FDA outlined a plan for transitioning from the current complex landscape of COVID-19 vaccines to a single vaccine- composition for the primary series and booster vaccination. 

    This would require:

    • Harmonizing the strain composition of all COVID-19 vaccines;

    • Simplifying the immunization schedule for future vaccination campaigns to administer a two-dose series in certain young children and in older adults and persons with compromised immunity, and only one dose in all other individuals;

    • Establishing a process for vaccine strain selection recommendations, similar in many ways to that used for seasonal influenza vaccines, based on prevailing and predicted variants that would take place by June to allow for vaccine production by September.

    During the discussion, though, questions arose about the June target date. Given the production schedule for some vaccines, that date might need to shift, said Jerry Weir, PhD, director of the division of viral products at FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. 

    “We’re all just going to have to maintain flexibility,” Weir said, adding that there is not yet a “good pattern” established for updating these vaccines. 

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  • Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent booster shows higher immune response, but new COVID cases climb back above 40,000 a day

    Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent booster shows higher immune response, but new COVID cases climb back above 40,000 a day

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    First the good news: Pfizer Inc. and Germany-based partner BioNTech SE said updated trial data for their omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent booster showed a “substantially higher” immune response in adults than the original COVID-19 vaccine.

    The companies said the Phase 2/3 clinical-trial data, collected one month after the boosters were given, also demonstrated that safety and tolerability profiles were similar to those of the original vaccine.

    The news sent Pfizer’s stock
    PFE,
    +0.51%
    rallying 1.7% and BioNTech’s U.S.-listed shares
    BNTX,
    +4.97%

    22UA,
    +4.11%
    surging 7.2% in morning trading.

    “As we head into the holiday season, we hope these updated data will encourage people to seek out a COVID-19 bivalent booster as soon as they are eligible in order to maintain high levels of protection against the widely circulating Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages,” said Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla.

    Only 8.4% of eligible Americans have received updated COVID booster shots, while 68.5% of the total population have completed the original primary series of vaccinations, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    The bivalent booster has been authorized for emergency use in the U.S. by the Food and Drug Administration for people age 5 and older and has also been granted marketing authorization in the European Union for those age 12 and older.

    In another piece of good news, Pfizer and BioNTech shares were also lifted by a report in The Wall Street Journal that the Chinese government has agreed to approve the companies’ COVID-19 vaccines for foreign residents in China and has also held talks to approve those vaccines for the broader population.

    Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that China was working on a plan to end the practice of penalizing airlines that bring COVID-infected people into the country.

    Both reports boost hopes that China is slowly moving toward ending its zero-COVID policy, which has crimped China’s economy and acted as a drag on global growth.

    Now for the bad news.

    The seven-day average of new COVID cases topped 40,000 for the first time in a month and hospitalizations have also ticked higher, with more than half of U.S. states showing increases over the past two weeks.

    According to a New York Times tracker, the daily average of new cases rose to 40,101 on Thursday from 38,208 on Wednesday, and was up 6% from 14 days ago.


    The New York Times

    Nevada has seen a 96% jump in daily cases, followed by Tennessee with a 69% increase and Louisiana with a 68% rise, leading the 28 states that saw cases increase over the past two weeks.

    Still, daily cases were less than one-third of the summer high of more than 130,000 reached during the surge of the BA.5 variant, the data show.

    Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

    The daily average of COVID-related hospitalizations rose 2% to 27,252, while the number of people with COVID in intensive-care units (ICUs) fell 2% to 3,110.

    The daily average of COVID-related deaths fell 6% to a four-month low of 339.

    On a global basis, the total number of COVID cases has increased to 631.91 million, while deaths have reached 6,598,197, according to data provided by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. has seen a total of 97.69 million cases and 1,072,245 deaths.

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  • Biden to get updated COVID booster on Tuesday; less than 10% of eligible Americans have had the shot so far

    Biden to get updated COVID booster on Tuesday; less than 10% of eligible Americans have had the shot so far

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    President Joe Biden will receive his updated COVID booster on Tuesday and will urge Americans to get the shot, which targets both the original virus and omicron variants that have been dominant in the U.S. and elsewhere this year.

    The news, first reported by NBC News, was confirmed by a tweet from White House assistant press secretary Kevin Munoz and by an emailed statement, in which the White House said, “The President will receive his updated COVID-19 vaccine and will deliver remarks on the ongoing fight against the virus.”

    Biden tested positive for COVID-19 in July, then did so again three days after he had been cleared from isolation in a rare rebound case after receiving the anti-viral drug Paxlovid. The president was fully vaccinated and boosted and suffered only mild symptoms. Health officials recommend that people who have contracted COVID wait at least three months after infection to get the booster.

    The bivalent booster has been available to adults and older children since early September, and its use was expanded to children as young as 5 in October. But data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show fewer than 20 million Americans have received it so far — less than 10% of those eligible.

    That’s a slow start given expectations for a wave of new cases in the winter months.

    As immunity from previous shots wanes and new variants spread, health officials are urging people, especially those over 65, to get the updated booster. A study earlier this month by the Commonwealth Fund concluded that a strong booster campaign this fall could save 90,000 American lives and prevent more than 936,000 COVID hospitalizations in the U.S.

    CDC data released Friday showed the two new COVID variants dubbed BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 continued to gain traction in the U.S. in the latest week, accounting for 16.6% of all cases, up from 11.4% a week ago.

    The two variants are lineages of BA.5, the omicron subvariant that remains dominant but has shrunk to account for 62.2% of circulating variants, the agency said, down from 67.9% a week ago. The CDC had previously combined data about BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 with BA.5 cases, because the number of cases caused by the new variants was so small. BQ.1 was first identified by researchers in early September and has been found in the U.K. and Germany, among other places. The New York area, which includes New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, has the highest number of cases involving those variants, at 28.4%, the data show.

    U.S. known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since mid-April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people overall are testing at home, where data are not being collected.

    The daily average for new cases stood at 37,741 on Sunday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 7% from two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations was down 1% to 26,798, while the daily average for deaths was down 6% to 361.

    Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

    Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

    • The head of the CDC has tested positive for COVID, the Associated Press reported. Rochelle Walensky, who is up to date on her vaccinations, tested positive Friday night and had mild symptoms, the CDC said in a statement. “Consistent with CDC guidelines, she is isolating at home and will participate in her planned meetings virtually,” the agency said. Senior staff and close contacts have been informed of her positive test and are monitoring their health.

    • The pandemic caused historic learning setbacks for America’s children, erasing decades of academic progress and widening racial disparities, according to results of a national test that provide the sharpest look yet at the scale of the crisis, the AP reported separately. Across the country, math scores saw their largest decreases ever. Reading scores dropped to 1992 levels. Nearly 4 in 10 eighth-graders failed to grasp basic math concepts. Not a single state saw a notable improvement in average test scores, with some treading water at best. Those are the findings from the National Assessment of Educational Progress — known as the “nation’s report card” — which tested hundreds of thousands of fourth- and eighth-graders across the country this year.

    The FDA has authorized modified COVID-19 boosters to target the latest versions of the omicron variant. But as WSJ’s Daniela Hernandez explains, a key part of the decision-making process was changed with these new shots. Photo: Laura Kammermann

    • The Chinese economy grew 3.9% over a year earlier in the third quarter, quickening from the 0.4% expansion recorded in the second quarter, Dow Jones Newswires reported. The reading topped the 3.5% economic growth expected by economists polled by The Wall Street Journal. For the first nine months of the year, China’s GDP expanded 3.0% over a year earlier, well below the 5.5% annual growth target set by the government. Growth has been crimped all year by China’s zero-COVID policy, which has led to repeated lockdowns of commercial and residential areas.

    • The pandemic interrupted measles-vaccine campaigns globally in 2020 and 2021, leaving millions of children unprotected against one of the world’s most contagious diseases, whose complications include blindness, pneumonia and death, Reuters reported. After what health experts call the biggest backslide in a generation, 26 large or disruptive measles outbreaks have occurred worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. A devastating outbreak in Zimbabwe has killed more than 700 children this year, chiefly among religious sects that do not believe in vaccinations.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 627.6 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.57 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 97.2 million cases and 1,067,686 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 226.6 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.2% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 111.4 million have had a booster, equal to 49.1% of the vaccinated population, and 26.8 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 40.6% of those who received a first booster.

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  • CDC identifies new COVID variants that accounted for 11.4% of new cases in week ending Oct. 15

    CDC identifies new COVID variants that accounted for 11.4% of new cases in week ending Oct. 15

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    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said a new COVID variant dubbed BQ.1 and a descendant called BQ.1.1 have gained traction in the U.S., accounting for 11.4% of new cases across the nation in the week ending Oct. 15.

    The two variants are lineages of BA.5, the omicron subvariant that remains dominant but has shrunk to account for just 67.9% of circulating variants, the agency said in a Friday update. The CDC had previously combined BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 with BA.5 cases because the numbers of the new variants were so small. BQ.1 was first identified by researchers in early September and has been found in the U.K. and Germany, among other places.

    New York and New Jersey currently have the highest proportion of BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 infections, at about 20% of overall cases, according to CDC estimates.

    “When you get variants like that, you look at what their rate of increase is as a relative proportion of the variants, and this has a pretty troublesome doubling time,” Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, said in an interview with CBS News. 

    Adding to concerns, the variant seems “to elude important monoclonal antibodies,” he added.

    Fauci is confident that Moderna
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    +3.92%    ,
    as well as Pfizer
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    +1.84%
    and German partner BioNTech
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    +2.45%    ,
    will be able to update boosters to target the new subvariant. “The somewhat encouraging news is that it’s a BA.5 sublineage, so there are almost certainly going to be some cross-protections that you can boost up,” he said.

    So far, only 14.8 million people living in the U.S. have taken advantage of the new bivalent boosters that were authorized by the Food and Drug Administration in late August. That’s equal to about 7% of the 209 million who were initially eligible.

    The FDA authorized the Pfizer booster for use in people aged 12 and older and the Moderna booster for adults aged 18 and older. Last week, the FDA added children aged 5 to 11 to the Pfizer program and children aged 6 through 17 to the Moderna one.

    Experts are concerned that the low number of vaccinations is due to a sense that the pandemic is over and no longer poses a major risk for most people. U.S. cases are steadily declining and now stand at their lowest level since mid-April; however, the true tally is likely higher than the official count, because many people are testing at home, where data are not being collected.

    The daily average for new cases stood at 37,649 on Sunday, down 19% from two weeks ago, according to a New York Times tracker.

    The daily average for hospitalizations was down 5% to 26,475, while the daily average for deaths was down 8% to 374.

    But cold weather is expected to bring a new wave of cases, and hospitalizations are rising again in much of the Northeast, the Times tracker is showing.

    “That’s the thing that’s so frustrating for me and for my colleagues who are involved in this, is that we have the capability of mitigating against this. And the uptake of the new bivalent vaccine is not nearly as high as we would like it to be,” said Fauci.

    Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

    Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

    • Moderna and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which is supplying vaccines to low- and middle-income countries, have agreed to cancel remaining orders under their 2022 COVID-19 vaccine agreement given “sufficient supply.” The biotechnology company has supplied Gavi with nearly 70 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, in addition to facilitating the donation of more than 100 million doses. Moderna and Gavi said they will create a new framework that enables Gavi to buy up to 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in 2023. 

    • The World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the United Nations Environment Program and the World Organization for Animal Health on Monday launched a new initiative that aims to address health threats to humans, animals, plants and the environment. The One Health Joint Plan of Action “aims to create a framework to integrate systems and capacity so that we can collectively better prevent, predict, detect, and respond to health threats,” the four agencies said in a statement.

    • China is doubling down on its zero-COVID strategy as a historic Communist Party congress opens in Beijing, BBC News reported. Zero COVID was a “people’s war to stop the spread of the virus,” said President Xi Jinping as he kicked off the meeting. There is increasing public fatigue over lockdowns and travel restrictions, and Beijing has come under strict security measures ahead of the congress, sparking frustration in the city, including a rare and dramatic public protest on Thursday criticizing Xi and his strategy.

    In a rare display of defiance, two banners were unfurled from a highway overpass in Beijing condemning Chinese President Xi Jinping and his strict COVID-19 policies. The protest took place days before the expected extension of Xi’s tenure.

    • Airline stocks rallied Monday after data showed that on Sunday, more people flew than on any other day since before the pandemic. Data from the Transportation Security Administration showed that 2.495 million travelers went through TSA checkpoints on Sunday, which is just above the previous 2022 high of 2.490 million on July 1 and the most since Feb. 11, 2020, which was exactly one month before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. In comparison, the day with the fewest travelers since the start of the pandemic was April 12, 2022, with 87,534 people traveling. And in 2019, there were 116 days of more travelers than Sunday, while the average for that year was 2.306 million. The U.S. Global Jets ETF
    JETS,
    +2.02%
     was up 2.2%.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 624.7 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.56 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 96.9 million cases and 1,065,118 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 226.2 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.1% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 110.8 million have had a booster, equal to 49% of the vaccinated population, and 25.6 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 39% of those who received a first booster.

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  • Large number of U.S. COVID deaths could be prevented if patients would take Pfizer’s Paxlovid, White House coordinator warns

    Large number of U.S. COVID deaths could be prevented if patients would take Pfizer’s Paxlovid, White House coordinator warns

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    A large number of U.S. COVID deaths could be prevented if patients would take Paxlovid, the antiviral developed by Pfizer
    PFE,
    -1.79%
    that helps reduce the risk of hospitalization and death, according to White House COVID coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha.

    Jha told the New York Times that the average daily death count could be reduced to about 50 a day from 400 currently, if every American aged 50 and above that tests positive for the virus took a course of either Paxlovid or used monoclonal antibodies.

     “The public doesn’t seem to understand that the evidence around hospitalization and deaths is really powerful,” Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of medicine at the University of California in San Francisco told the paper.

    The issue seems to be a combination of worry about certain issues that Paxlovid can cause, including a strange metallic taste and the potential for “rebound COVID,” where patients quickly become reinfected after the five-day course of pills has been completed. That happened to both President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden recently.

    The second reason is that many Americans — and Republicans, in particular — have refused to take COVID seriously and are not willing to take steps to reduce its impact. Trials have found Paxlovid to be effective across all age groups, but mostly among older patients. But as the COVID death rate for people under 50 is already close to zero, reducing it in a statistically significant way is difficult.

    See now: CDC scraps travel health notices as countries slow testing, and study confirms Republican-leaning counties suffered more COVID deaths than Democrat-leaning ones

    “I think almost everybody benefits from Paxlovid,” Jha said. “For some people, the benefit is tiny. For others, the benefit is massive.” 

    Yet a smaller share of 80-year-olds with COVID in the U.S. is taking it than 45-year-olds, Jha said citing data he has seen.

    From the CDC: Stay Up to Date with COVID-19 Vaccines Including Boosters

    The news comes as U.S. known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since late April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people are testing at home, with data generally not being collected.

    The daily average for new cases stood at 41,605 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 25% from two weeks ago. Cases are declining in northeastern states including New York and New Jersey, while cases are rising in the western states Montana, Washington and Oregon.

    The daily average for hospitalizations was down 11% at 27,021, while the daily average for deaths is down 8% to 391.

    Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

    Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

    • Molnupiravir, the COVID pill developed by Merck
    MRK,
    +0.18%
    and privately held Ridgeback Therapeutics, produced mixed results in two recent studies, the companies said Thursday. Early data from a trial conducted in the U.K. by the University of Oxford found no evidence of a difference when molnupiravir was added to usual care in reducing hospitalizations and death. A second study conducted in Israel found a benefit in patients who were 65 and older, but no benefit for 40- to 60-year-olds.

    • Homelessness is surging in the U.S. again as pandemic programs that halted evictions are being phased out, the Associated Press reported. The overall number of homeless people in a federal report to be released in the coming months is expected to be higher than the 580,000 unhoused before the coronavirus outbreak, the National Alliance to End Homelessness said. The AP tallied results from city-by-city surveys conducted earlier this year and found the number of people without homes is up overall compared with 2020 in areas reporting results so far.

    • The idea was to have China in stable and tip-top shape when thousands of delegates gather in Beijing to usher in a historic third term in power for Xi Jinping, BBC News reported. However, the coronavirus is not playing nicely. In recent weeks, tens of millions of people have again been confined to their homes in lockdowns across 60 towns and cities, and this is bringing political pressure on the man who has become the most powerful Chinese figure since the first communist-era leader, Mao Zedong.

    Covid-19 lockdowns, corruption crackdowns and more have put China’s economy on a potential crash course. WSJ’s Dion Rabouin explains how China’s economic downturn could harm the U.S. and the rest of the world. Illustration: David Fang

    • A new COVID-19 wave appears to be brewing in Europe as cooler weather arrives, with public health experts warning that vaccine fatigue and confusion over types of available vaccines will likely limit booster uptake, Reuters reported. The omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 that dominated this summer are still behind the majority of infections, but newer omicron subvariants are gaining ground. Hundreds of new forms of omicron are being tracked by scientists, the World Health Organization said this week.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 620.5 million on Friday, while the death toll rose above 6.55 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 96.6 million cases and 1,062,130 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 225.8 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 110.5 million have had a booster, equal to 48.9% of the vaccinated population, and 24.8 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 37.9% of those who received a first booster.

    Some 11.5 million people have had a shot of the new bivalent booster that targets the new omicron subvariants.

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  • U.S. risks prolonging pandemic if it doesn’t back WTO push to get vaccines and treatments to lower-income countries, lawmakers warn

    U.S. risks prolonging pandemic if it doesn’t back WTO push to get vaccines and treatments to lower-income countries, lawmakers warn

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    The U.S. is at risk of prolonging the COVID pandemic if it fails to back an initiative that aims to get vaccines, diagnostics and treatments to lower-income countries, a congressional group has told President Joe Biden.

    In a letter to Biden from the group led by Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, the group urged him to back the World Trade Organization’s agreement in June to ease exports of lifesaving therapies.

    “With more than 600 million shots in arms, 21,500 free testing sites, the ability to order at-home tests for free, and more treatments available now than at any point in the pandemic, the outlook in the United States is better than ever. Unfortunately, however, the prospect for many low-income countries is not so positive — putting the United States’ own success in jeopardy,” the lawmakers wrote.

    The letter was sent ahead of a meeting of the WTO council for trade-related aspects of IP rights that is due to kick off Thursday.

    The group noted that lower-income countries are facing a higher risk of severe illness, hospitalization and death as only a small percentage of their populations are vaccinated. Just 19% of people in those countries are vaccinated, compared with about 75% in high-income countries, according to the Multilateral Leaders Taskforce on COVID-19, a joint initiative of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Health Organization and the WTO.

    U.S. known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since late April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people are testing at home, where the data are not being collected.

    The daily average for new cases stood at 43,149 on Wednesday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 23% from two weeks ago. Cases are rising in most northeastern states by 10% of more, while cases in the western states Montana, Washington and Oregon are rising.

    The daily average for hospitalizations was down 11% at 27,184, while the daily average for deaths is down 8% to 391. 

    The new bivalent vaccine might be the first step in developing annual Covid shots, which could follow a similar process to the one used to update flu vaccines every year. Here’s what that process looks like, and why applying it to Covid could be challenging. Illustration: Ryan Trefes

    Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

    Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

    • China’s huge Xinjiang region has been hit with sweeping COVID travel restrictions ahead of a key Communist Party congress later this month, the Associated Press reported. Trains and buses in and out of the region of 22 million people have been suspended, and passenger numbers on flights have been reduced to 75% of capacity in recent days, according to Chinese media reports. The region is home to minorities who have been forced into prison-like re-education centers to force them to renounce their religion, typically Islam, and allegedly subjected to human-rights abuses.

    • Five current or former Internal Revenue Service workers have been charged with fraud for illegally getting money from federal COVID-19 relief programs and using a total of $1 million for luxury items and personal trips, prosecutors said, the AP reported. The U.S. attorney’s office in Memphis said Tuesday that the five have been charged with wire fraud after they filed fake applications for the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, which were part of a federal stimulus package tied to the pandemic response in 2020.

    • Peloton Interactive Inc.
    PTON,
    +3.84%
    said it plans to cut about 500 jobs, roughly 12% of its remaining workforce, in the company’s fourth round of layoffs this year as the connected fitness-equipment maker tries to reverse mounting losses, the Wall Street Journal reported. After enjoying a strong run early on in the pandemic, Peloton has struggled since the start of the U.S. recovery, and CEO Barry McCarthy, who took over in February, said he is giving the unprofitable company another six months or so to significantly turn itself around and, if it fails, Peloton likely isn’t viable as a stand-alone company.

    Don’t miss: Peloton CEO says ‘naysayers’ are looking at the company’s $1.2 billion quarterly loss all wrong.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 619.9 million on Wednesday, while the death toll rose above 6.55 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 96.6 million cases and 1,061,490 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 225.3 million people living in the U.S., equal to 67.9% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 109.9 million have had a booster, equal to 48.8% of the vaccinated population, and 23.9 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 36.6% of those who received a first booster.

    Some 7.6 million people have had a shot of one of the new bivalent boosters that target the new omicron subvariants that have become dominant around the world.

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