Tag: China

U.S. to require negative COVID tests for travelers from China

Travelers from China will need to test negative for COVID-19 before boarding flights to the U.S. starting next week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday. The testing requirement will apply to travelers from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, and covers all passengers regardless of their nationality or vaccination status, the CDC said.

The move comes amid a renewed wave of infections in China since it relaxed its “zero COVID” policy in early December. The Chinese government has also begun to ease travel restrictions that were imposed years ago, early in the COVID-19 pandemic.

“CDC is announcing this step to slow the spread of COVID-19 in the United States during the surge in COVID-19 cases in the [People’s Republic of China] given the lack of adequate and transparent epidemiological and viral genomic sequence data being reported from the PRC,” the CDC said in a statement.

Beginning Jan. 5, airlines will be required to collect proof of a negative COVID-19 test from all passengers ages 2 and older before they can board flights out of China into the U.S. Both lab-based PCR tests as well as antigen self-tests will be accepted, as long as they are overseen by a health care provider.

Travelers on connecting flights will also be required to provide proof of a negative test.

People traveling to the U.S. through South Korea’s Incheon International Airport, Canada’s Toronto Pearson International Airport, and Canada’s Vancouver International Airport will be required to test negative if they have been in China over the last 10 days.

“These three transit hubs cover the overwhelming majority of passengers with travel originating in the PRC and the Special Administrative Regions. We will continue to monitor travel patterns, adjust our approach as needed, and keep Americans informed in a timely manner,” the CDC said.

Federal health authorities have not required negative COVID-19 tests from any international visitors since the requirement was scrapped in June. The U.S. continues to require that all foreign travelers prove they are fully vaccinated with the primary series of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Officials said Wednesday that they were waiting until next week to impose the measure to allow for airlines to implement the revived requirements.

“It does take some effort by the airlines to update their data systems to put this all in place. And so we have to make this announcement today, but it will take time to implement the program,” a federal health official told reporters at a briefing.

Officials first acknowledged Tuesday that they were weighing the move, citing similar measures put in place by countries like Japan. They also cited China’s own rules for arriving international travelers, which continue to require Americans and other foreign visitors to test negative.

“We’ve always believed that for all countries, COVID response measures need to be science-based and proportionate without affecting normal people-to-people exchange,” China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters Wednesday ahead of the U.S. announcement.

Concern over COVID variants

In addition to the new requirement, the CDC said it is moving to expand its current variant surveillance efforts to two new international airports in Los Angeles and Seattle.

The agency has already been tracking variants over the past few months spotted in voluntary tests collected from arriving international travelers.

A total of some 290 weekly flights from China and nearby countries will be covered by the program once expanded, the CDC said.

“We have very limited information in public databases about variants that are circulating in China presently. In the past few months, only about a hundred sequences have been uploaded,” said the federal health official.

They cited the threat the virus could pose as it infects a vast swath of “immunologically naive” people in China.

All of the current variants circulating in China are descendants of Omicron, Chinese state media have reported, quoting their country’s health officials, with BA.5.2 and BF.7 dominating infections in the country.

“What we’re concerned about is a new variant that may emerge actually in China, with so many people in China being infected in a short period of time, there is a chance or probability that a new variant will emerge,” said the official.

Scientists have voiced frustration over sparse variant sequencing released from China amid the country’s current wave of infections, aside from a handful of travelers.

All of the current variants circulating in China are descendants of Omicron, Chinese state media have reported, quoting their country’s health officials, with BA.5.2 and BF.7 dominating infections in the country.

First spotted earlier this year, these two strains have made up a fraction of circulating virus in the U.S. to date. Instead, the CDC’s estimates rank the BQ.1, BQ.1.1, and XBB strains as far outpacing them around the country.

Infections linked to XBB has surged across the Northeast in recent weeks, climbing to more than half of new infections across the region. Ahead of Christmas, federal data shows hospitalizations reaching some of the highest rates since last February in the Northeast.

Scientists believe a descendant dubbed XBB.1.5 is behind the renewed surge, with immune evasive mutations that appear to bind well to human cells.

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Alexander Tin

CBS News reporter covering public health and the pandemic.

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December 28, 2022
Rocky ride: Tesla stock on pace for worst year ever

LOS ANGELES — Owning Tesla stock this year has been anything but a smooth ride for investors.

Shares in the electric vehicle maker are down nearly 70% since the start of the year, on pace to finish in the bottom five biggest decliners among S&P 500 stocks. By comparison, the benchmark index is down about 20%.

While Tesla has continued to grow its profits, signs of softening demand and heightened competition have investors increasingly worried. And then there’s CEO Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Some of Musk’s actions since taking over the social media company, including doing away with a content moderation structure created to address hate speech and other problems on the platform, have unnerved Twitter’s advertisers and turned off some users.

That’s stoked concerns on Wall Street that Twitter is taking too much of the billionaire’s attention, and possibly offending loyal Tesla customers.

Musk’s acquisition of Twitter opened up a political firestorm and has caused Musk and Tesla’s brand to deteriorate, leading to a “complete debacle for the stock,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a research note this week.

Musk has said that he plans to remain as Twitter’s CEO until he can find someone willing to replace him in the job.

Despite Musk’s focus on Twitter, Tesla’s results have been solid this year. The Austin, Texas, company posted year-over-year profit and revenue growth through the first three quarters of 2022, including more than doubling its third-quarter profit from a year earlier.

Still, electric vehicle models from other automakers are starting to chip away at Tesla’s dominance of the U.S. EV market. From 2018 through 2020, Tesla had about 80% of the EV market. Its share dropped to 71% in 2021 and has continued to decline, according to data from S&P Global Mobility.

This month, in a rare move, Tesla began offering discounts through the end of the year on its two top-selling models, a sign that demand is slowing for its electric vehicles.

Ives predicts that Tesla will likely miss Wall Street’s estimates when the company reports its fourth-quarter results, citing higher inventory levels, the recent price cuts and overall production slowdowns in China. He also expects a “softer trajectory for 2023.”

“The reality is that after a Cinderella story demand environment since 2018, Tesla is facing some serious macro and company specific EV competitive headwinds into 2023 that are starting to emerge both in the U.S. and China,” Ives wrote.

Still, Ives is optimistic that Tesla’s long-term prospects remain solid as the global market for electric vehicles grows — and Musk refocuses on Tesla.

“However, any further Musk strategic missteps will be carefully scrutinized by the Street and further weigh on shares,” he wrote.

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December 28, 2022
One dead in China highway pile-up involving hundreds of cars

This aerial photo taken on December 28, 2022 shows a multi-vehicle collision on Zhengxin Yellow River Bridge in Zhengzhou, in China’s central Henan province.

STR/AFP via Getty

Beijing —One person died during a highway pile-up involving hundreds of vehicles in central China, state broadcaster CCTV reported Wednesday, with images of the accident showing scenes of chaos. Aerial pictures showed hundreds of passenger cars, vans and trucks — any of which had smashed into one another — led up on one section of the highway in dense fog.

Other viral videos posted online showed the mangled remains of several vehicles that had crashed into others.

The accident occurred due to low visibility from fog near the city of Zhengzhou, Henan province, and involved at least 200 vehicles, state media reported.

“On Wednesday morning, a sudden build-up of fog occurred at the Zhengxin Yellow River Bridge in Zhengzhou, which caused a traffic accident involving the collision of multiple vehicles,” CCTV cited Zhengzhou authorities as saying, adding that one person died as a result.

This aerial photo taken on December 28, 2022 shows a multi-vehicle collision on Zhengxin Yellow River Bridge in Zhengzhou, in China’s central Henan province.

STR/AFP via Getty

Zhengzhou traffic police said on their official social media account that traffic on the flyover had resumed as of Wednesday afternoon.

Emergency rescue efforts were carried out soon after the accident occurred, the CCTV report said.

Road accidents are common in China due to a lack of strict safety controls. In September, 27 passengers died after a bus transporting them to quarantine facilities in southwestern Guizhou province flipped over on a motorway.

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December 28, 2022
U.S. weighs new COVID restrictions on travelers from China

The Biden administration is weighing the possibility of imposing new requirements on arriving travelers from China, officials say, citing “mounting concerns” about the country’s ongoing COVID-19 surge and “the lack of transparent data” from Chinese officials.

The move comes as the Chinese government has begun to ease travel restrictions that were imposed years ago early during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite a renewed wave of cases since it relaxed its “zero COVID” policy.

Starting this weekend, Japan says it plans to begin requiring a negative COVID-19 test for visitors from China. Malaysia has also “announced new tracking and surveillance measures,” U.S. officials said.

“The U.S. is following the science and advice of public health experts, consulting with partners, and considering taking similar steps we can take to protect the American people,” the officials said in a statement.

Bloomberg first reported that U.S. officials were weighing new restrictions.

Federal health authorities have not required negative COVID-19 tests from any international visitors since the requirement was scrapped in June. The U.S. continues to require that foreign travelers prove they are fully vaccinated with the primary series of a COVID-19 vaccine.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does conduct voluntary tests collected at a handful of major airports to try to monitor for COVID variants among arriving international travelers.

Spokespeople for the CDC and Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment on the possibility of new measures.

In response to Japan’s decision to impose the new restrictions, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson called Tuesday for a “science-based response approach and joint effort” for safe travel.

“We’ve always believed that for all countries, COVID response measures need to be science-based and proportionate without affecting normal people-to-people exchange,” China’s Wang Wenbin told reporters.

Concern over COVID variants

Scientists have voiced frustration over sparse variant sequencing released from China amid the country’s current wave of infections, aside from a handful of travelers.

In their statement, Biden officials echoed those concerns over the lack of “viral genomic sequence data” from China, saying they are in talks with other countries over steps to “identify any potential variants of concern.”

“Without this data, it is becoming increasingly difficult for public health officials to ensure that they will be able to identify any potential new variants and take prompt measures to reduce the spread,” they said.

All of the current variants circulating in China are descendants of Omicron, Chinese state media have reported, quoting their country’s health officials, with BA.5.2 and BF.7 dominating infections in the country.

First spotted earlier this year, these two strains have made up a fraction of circulating virus in the U.S. to date. Instead, the CDC’s estimates rank the BQ.1, BQ.1.1, and XBB strains as far outpacing them around the country.

Infections linked to XBB has surged across the Northeast in recent weeks, climbing to more than half of new infections across the region. Ahead of Christmas, federal data shows hospitalizations reaching some of the highest rates since last February.

Scientists suspect a descendant dubbed XBB.1.5 is behind the renewed surge, with mutations that could offer a growth rate “head and shoulders” above all other strains.

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Alexander Tin

CBS News reporter covering public health and the pandemic.

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December 28, 2022
Asian shares mixed after tech-led decline on Wall Street

BANGKOK — Shares were mixed in Asia on Wednesday after a post-holiday retreat on Wall Street, as markets count down to the end of a painful year for investors.

Shares fell in Tokyo, Shanghai and Seoul but rose in Hong Kong as the Chinese government took further steps to reopen to foreign travel after relaxing its stringent “zero-COVID” policies.

Oil prices rose and U.S. futures inched higher.

The Chinese government announced it will start issuing new passports in another major step away from anti-virus travel barriers. That sets up a potential flood of tourists out of China for next month’s Lunar New Year holiday, taking free-spending Chinese visitors to Asia, Europe and other destinations during what usually is the country’s busiest travel season.

But governments in India and Japan have said they will impose extra precautions on those arriving from China due to widespread virus outbreaks there. U.S. officials also expressed concern and said they were considering taking similar steps.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 2% to 20,011.99. The Shanghai Composite index gave up early gains, losing 0.2% to 3,000.23.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 lost 0.6% to 26,301.69 after the government reported that Japan’s industrial production fell for a third straight month in November and said it was likely to fall further in December. The Kospi in Seoul declined 2.2% to 2,282.26.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 dropped 0.3% to 7,086.50.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell 0.4% to 3,829.25 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average eked out a 0.1% gain, closing at 33,241.56. The Nasdaq dropped 1.4% to 10,353.23.

The Russell 2000 index dropped 0.7% to 1,749.52.

Technology and communication services companies accounted for a big share of the decliners in the S&P 500. Apple fell 1.4% and Netflix lost 3.7%.

Airlines stocks fell broadly. A massive winter storm caused widespread delays and forced several carriers to cancel flights over the weekend. Delta Air Lines closed 0.8% lower, American Airlines dropped 1.4% and JetBlue slid 1.1%.

Southwest Airlines slid 6% after the company had to cancel roughly two-thirds of its flights over the last couple of days, which it blamed on problems related to staffing and weather. The federal government said it would investigate why the company lagged so far behind other carriers.

Tesla fell 11.4% for the biggest decline among S&P 500 stocks. The electric vehicle maker temporarily suspended production at a factory in Shanghai, according to published reports.

Treasury yields mostly rose as the U.S. bond market reopened from Christmas holidays. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which influences mortgage rates, rose to 3.85% from 3.75% late Friday.

Trading on Wall Street is expected to be relatively light this holiday-shortened week as investors look ahead to 2023 after a dismal year for stocks.

Uncertainty about how far the Federal Reserve and other central banks would go to fight the highest inflation in decades has kept investors on edge. The Fed raised its key interest rate seven times this year and has signaled more hikes to come in 2023, even though the pace of price increases has been easing.

The high rates, which weigh heavily on prices for stocks and other investments, have fueled concerns that the economy could slow too much and slip into a recession next year.

The benchmark S&P 500 index set an all-time high at the beginning of January, but is now down nearly 20% for the year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is down nearly 34%.

In other trading Wednesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil added 5 cents to $79.58 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It lost 3 cents on Tuesday to $79.53 per barrel.

Brent crude, the pricing basis for international trading, gained 14 cents to $84.82 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar rose to 134.09 Japanese yen from 133.43 yen. The euro was trading at $1.0643, up from $1.0640.

———

AP Business Writer Alex Veiga contributed.

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December 28, 2022
World shares mostly lower after tech-led fall on Wall Street

BANGKOK — Shares were mostly lower in Europe and Asia on Wednesday as markets were counting down to the end of a painful year for investors, with no end in sight to uncertainties stemming from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

Shares fell in Frankfurt, Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai and Seoul but rose in London and Hong Kong as the Chinese government took further steps to reopen to foreign travel after relaxing its stringent “zero-COVID” policies.

Oil prices fell back and U.S. futures inched higher.

Not all world markets have ended the year on low notes. Britain’s FTSE 100 is at about the level it started 2022. Early Wednesday it was up 0.7% at 7,525.42.

But most other markets have suffered as interest rate increases, waves of coronavirus infections, the war, supply chain disruptions and surging inflation took a toll on businesses and investments.

Germany’s DAX lost 0.3% to 13,952.83. It’s down about 13% from the start of the year. The CAC 40 in Paris, which is about 9% below where it began the year, edged 0.1% lower, to 6,541.50.

The future for the S&P 500 was barely changed, down 1 point. The future for the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.1% higher.

On Tuesday, the S&P 500 fell 0.4% and the Dow industrials eked out a 0.1% gain. The Nasdaq dropped 1.4%, while the Russell 2000 index dropped 0.7%.

The benchmark S&P 500 index set an all-time high at the beginning of January, but is now down nearly 20% for the year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is down nearly 34%.

The Chinese government announced late Tuesday that it will start issuing new passports, a major step away from anti-virus travel barriers that likely will bring a flood of tourists out of China for next month’s Lunar New Year holiday.

The return of free-spending Chinese visitors to Asia, Europe and other destinations during what usually is the country’s busiest travel season will be a welcome relief for countries like Thailand that depend heavily on tourism.

But some governments have said they will impose extra precautions on people arriving from China given the widespread virus outbreaks there. U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to convey internal discussions, also expressed concern and said they were considering taking similar steps.

With China in the midst of its most severe COVID wave so far, disruptions to manufacturing and transport will likely linger until the worst is past.

“Investors are enthusiastic about China re-opening its economy. However, there are plenty of reports which suggest that COVID cases are on the rise in China, which really threatens the supply chain,” Naeem Aslam of Avatrade.com said in a commentary.

In Asian trading, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng climbed 1.6% to 19,898.91 while the Shanghai Composite index dropped 0.3% to 3,087.40. Hong Kong’s benchmark is down 14% for the year, while Shanghai’s has lost slightly more so far, at 14.2%.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225, which has given up 8.6% this year, fell 0.4% to 26,340.50 after the government reported that Japan’s industrial production fell for a third straight month in November and was likely to fall further in December.

The Kospi in Seoul declined 2.2% to 2,280.45, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dropped 0.3% to 7,086.40. Bangkok’s SET gained 0.3%.

Trading on Wall Street is expected to be relatively light this holiday-shortened week as investors look ahead to 2023 after a dismal year for stocks.

Uncertainty about how far the Federal Reserve and other central banks would go to fight the highest inflation in decades has kept investors on edge, even as price increases have eased. The Fed raised its key interest rate seven times this year and has signaled more hikes to come in 2023.

The high rates weigh heavily on prices for stocks and other investments and have raised worries they might slow the economy too much, tipping it into a recession.

In other trading, U.S. benchmark crude oil shed 54 cents to $78.99 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It lost 3 cents on Tuesday to $79.53 per barrel.

Brent crude, the pricing basis for international trading, declined 39 cents to $84.29 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar rose to 134.01 Japanese yen from 133.43 yen. The euro was unchanged at $1.0641.

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December 28, 2022
U.S. weighs new measures for travelers from China as Japan says it will require negative Covid tests

For more than two years, overseas travelers have had to quarantine upon arrival in China because of Covid restrictions. Pictured here at Beijing International Airport on June 18, 2022, are passengers waiting to be taken to quarantine-designated destinations.

Leo Ramirez | Afp | Getty Images

The U.S. government is considering imposing new Covid rules for travelers from China, officials said, citing concerns over virus-related data released by the Chinese government.

“There are mounting concerns in the international community on the ongoing COVID-19 surges in China and the lack of transparent data, including viral genomic sequence data, being reported from the PRC,” officials said in a statement late Tuesday.

“Without this data, it is becoming increasingly difficult for public health officials to ensure that they will be able to identify any potential new variants and take prompt measures to reduce the spread,” the officials said.

The officials pointed to Japan’s recent measures which require a negative Covid test for travelers arriving from mainland China from Dec. 30 – as China faces a sharp surge in infections nationwide following an abrupt reopening.

Travelers from China without a valid vaccination certificate will also be required to take a pre-departure test, the notice from Japan’s health ministry added. The measures will not apply to those traveling from Hong Kong and Macao, according to the notice.

Read more about China from CNBC Pro

When asked for comment on Japan’s measures, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized a need for a “science-based” measures, without elaborating further.

“The current COVID situation in the world continues to call for a science-based response approach and joint effort to ensure safe cross-border travel, keep global industrial and supply chains stable, and restore world economic growth,” deputy director-general Wang Wenbin told reporters in a Tuesday briefing.

The U.S. officials mentioned Malaysia is also taking measures while India and the World Health Organization have expressed their concern about the situation in China.

“The U.S. is following the science and advice of public health experts, consulting with partners, and considering taking similar steps we can take to protect the American people,” the officials said.

— CNBC’s Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.

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December 27, 2022
Hong Kong leader aims to reopen border with China next month

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s leader said Saturday that China has agreed to a reopening of the city’s border with the mainland, which has been largely closed by pandemic restrictions, and that he is aiming for a mid-January start.

Chief Executive John Lee, returning from a trip to Beijing where he met President Xi Jinping and other officials, told reporters at the Hong Kong airport that the two sides would develop a plan to reopen the border in a gradual and orderly manner.

The announcement came as China is easing a “zero-COVID” policy that has restricted entry to the country, isolated infected people and locked down areas with outbreaks.

Hong Kong is a semi-autonomous Chinese territory that borders Guangdong province in southeast China. People must pass through immigration to cross between the two, and most land and sea entry points have been closed and controls tightened because of the pandemic.

Lee has made a full reopening of the border a priority to boost the city’s flagging economy. The issue was one of several on his agenda for this week’s trip to Beijing to deliver an annual report to the central government, his first such report since taking office on July 1.

He offered no details on how the border might be reopened, and whether it would include an elimination of the five days of hotel quarantine required for people entering mainland China.

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December 27, 2022
Taiwan extends compulsory military service to 1 year

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan will extend its compulsory military service from four months to a year starting in 2024, President Tsai Ing-wen said Tuesday, as the self-ruled island faces China‘s military, diplomatic and trade pressure.

Taiwan, which split from the mainland in 1949 during a civil war, is claimed by China. The decades-old threat of invasion by China has sharpened since Beijing cut off communications with Taiwan‘s government after the 2016 election of Tsai, who is seen as pro-independence.

China’s People’s Liberation Army in particular has stepped up its military harassment, sending fighter planes and navy vessels toward Taiwan on a near-daily basis in recent years. In response, the island’s military actively tracks those movements, which often serves as training for its own military personnel.

The longer military service applies to men born after 2005, and will start Jan. 1, 2024. Those born before 2005 will continue to serve four months, but under a revamped training curriculum aimed at strengthening the island’s reserves forces.

“No one wants war,” Tsai said. “This is true of Taiwan’s government and people, and the global community, but peace does not come from the sky, and Taiwan is at the front lines of the expansion of authoritarianism.”

The White House welcomed the announcement on conscription reform, saying it underscores Taiwan’s commitment to self-defense and strengthens deterrence.

“We will continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability in line with our commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act and our one-China policy,” the White House said, adding it continues to oppose any unilateral changes in the status quo by either China or Taiwan.

Beijing has often used military exercises to respond to moves it views as challenging its claims to sovereignty.

In August, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, and China responded with the largest-scale military exercises it’s held in decades, because it saw Pelosi’s visit as an official diplomatic exchange. Although the U.S. is the island’s largest unofficial ally, the two governments technically do not have diplomatic relations, as Washington does not formally recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state.

The plan sets Taiwan up for increasing its defense capabilities but what remains to be seen is how well the Defense Ministry will carry out the reforms, said Arthur Zhin-Sheng Wang, a defense expert at Taiwan’s Central Police University.

Taiwan’s current 4-month-long military conscription requirement was widely panned by the public as being too short and not providing the training that professional soldiers actually need. The government had slashed it down from a year to four months in 2017 as it was transitioning the army into an all-volunteer corps.

Of Taiwan’s 188,000-person military, 90% are volunteers and 10% are men doing their required four months of service.

A poll from the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation in December found that among Taiwanese adults, 73.2% said they would support a one-year military service. That support was across party lines, the survey found, spanning the Democratic Progressive Party and the more China-friendly Nationalist Party.

“This is one of the basic steps that should have been done a long time ago,” said Paul Huang, a research fellow at the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation. Huang said the implementation period in 2024, when Taiwan will elect a new president, meant that Tsai was “passing the buck” to her successor.

Among the youngest demographic group of 20-24, however, 37.2% said they opposed extending the military service, and only 35.6% said they would support an extension.

———

AP White House Correspondent Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

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December 27, 2022
What Is Temu, And Is It Legit?

The Chinese bargain shopping app has been downloaded more than 10 million times in the U.S. in less than four months.

Madeline Garfinkle

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December 27, 2022
Southwest, NIO, AMC, Tesla, and More Stock Market Movers Tuesday
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https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-tesla-alibaba-southwest-51671810917
Updated Dec. 27, 2022 10:10 am ET / Original Dec. 27, 2022 4:48 am ET

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December 27, 2022
5 things to know for Dec. 27: Snowstorm, Ukraine, China, Extreme weather, Immigration | CNN

CNN
—

After taking a few days off to celebrate the holidays, 5 Things is back! And speaking of the holidays, inflation forced Americans to shell out more money for retail goods and dining experiences this season.

Here’s what else you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day.

(You can get “5 Things You Need to Know Today” delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up here.)

Days into a deadly winter storm that disrupted travel nationwide, officials in Buffalo, New York, are plowing roads to get to stranded drivers and make way for emergency services. At least 27 people have died as a result of the storm in New York’s Erie County, many of them in Buffalo, which was buried under 43 inches of snow and slammed with severe blizzard conditions. Last week’s winter weather travel mess continues to linger into this week, with more than 3,900 flights within, into or out of the US canceled as of Monday night – a majority of them operated by Southwest Airlines, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. Frustrated travelers complained about long wait times to speak with representatives and problems with lost bags. One passenger told CNN her family was on the phone for 10 hours with Southwest.

Repeated attacks by Russia on Ukraine’s power grid have left the capital of Kyiv in the dark, a potentially deadly risk to people who use lifesaving medical devices. Russia’s persistent assault on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has, at least temporarily, left millions of civilians without electricity, heat, water and other critical services in the freezing winter months. Russian President Vladimir Putin is now calling for negotiations in his war – even as his own foreign minister gave Ukraine an ultimatum over four occupied regions, according to Russian state media. A Ukrainian presidential adviser fired back in a tweet, saying, “Putin needs to come back to reality.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Russia will try to make the last few days of the year “dark and difficult.”

12-year-old boy needs breathing treatments to survive. Blackouts make them nearly impossible

China will drop Covid-19 quarantine requirements for international arrivals beginning on January 8 – a major step toward reopening its borders that have shut off the country from the rest of the world for nearly three years. Inbound travelers will only be required to show a negative Covid test result obtained within 48 hours before departure, China’s National Health Commission announced late Monday. Currently, travelers are subject to five days of hotel quarantine and three days of self-isolation at home. Restrictions on airlines over the number of international flights and passenger capacity will also be removed, according to the announcement. China has sealed its borders since March 2020 to prevent the spread of the virus, keeping itself in global isolation even as the rest of the world reopened and moved on from the pandemic.

Scenes in major Beijing crematorium tell a different story from official Covid death numbers

Weather-related tragedies have not been limited to the US. In northern Japan and in other parts of the country, heavy snow has left at least 17 people dead and more than 90 others injured over the Christmas weekend, authorities said. Japan has seen increasingly adverse weather conditions in recent years, including a heat wave this summer. And in the Philippines, floods triggered by heavy rains killed at least eight people in the southern provinces and forced thousands of residents to evacuate, disrupting Christmas celebrations. Nearly 46,000 people sought shelter in evacuation centers, according to data from the Social Welfare Ministry.

There are nearly 1.6 million asylum applications pending in US immigration courts and at US Citizenship and Immigration Services – the largest number of pending cases on record, according to a recent analysis of federal data. Immigration courts have seen a massive increase in asylum cases from fiscal year 2012, when there were 100,000 pending cases. The asylum seekers are from 219 countries and speak 418 different languages, according to the group that conducted the analysis. About three out of 10 are minors and the leading countries of origin include Guatemala, Venezuela, Cuba and Brazil. Meanwhile, some state officials remain at odds with President Joe Biden’s administration over the country’s immigration policy. In the latest sign of the dispute, several busloads of migrants were dropped off outside of the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington, DC, in freezing weather on Christmas Eve.

2022 left some of our favorite foods in the garbage heap of history

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Lizzo broke down in tears after flutist James Galway sent her a message

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A meteorite that crashed in Somalia had two new minerals in it

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It’s called “pig butchering,” and it has nothing to do with farm animals.

Kathy Whitworth, the winningest golfer in history, died at age 83 while celebrating Christmas Eve with family and friends, her longtime partner said. Whitworth is considered one of the greatest golfers of all time. She had 88 wins on the LPGA Tour, including six major championships. Her 88 wins are six more than Sam Snead and Tiger Woods, who hold the record for the men’s tour.

$1.2 billion

That’s the amount of money spent by personal injury lawyers to advertise their legal services on TV so far this year.

“I’m not going to make excuses for this, but a lot of people overstate in their resumes, or twist a little bit … I’m not saying I’m not guilty of that.”

– GOP Rep.-elect George Santos of New York, while admitting to lying about parts of his resume.

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National Fruitcake Day on December 27

An ode to the fruitcake

Today is National Fruitcake Day. Though this dessert made of dried fruit, nuts, and spices has its critics, it’s also a fixture in a lot of holiday spreads. (Click here to view)

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December 27, 2022
China scrapping mandatory quarantining for people arriving from abroad

People in China reacted with joy and rushed to plan trips overseas Tuesday after Beijing said it would scrap mandatory COVIDquarantining for overseas arrivals, ending almost three years of self-imposed isolation.

In a snap move late Monday, China said from January 8 on, inbound travelers would no longer be required to quarantine on arrival — in a further unwinding of hardline coronavirus controls that had that torpedoed its economy and sparked nationwide protests.

The new policy will make it much easier for people who go abroad to return home, the Reuters news agency points out.

Cases have surged nationwide as key pillars of the containment policy have fallen away, with authorities acknowledging the outbreak is “impossible” to track and doing away with much-maligned official case tallies.

Beijing also narrowed the criteria by which COVID fatalities are counted last week, a move experts said would suppress the number of deaths attributable to the virus.

Still, many Chinese reacted with joy to the end of restrictions that have kept the country largely closed off to the outside world since March 2020.

“I felt like the epidemic is finally over,” said Beijing office worker Fan Chengcheng, 27. “The travel plans I made three years ago may now become a reality.”

Travellers walk with their luggage at Beijing Capital International Airport amid the COVID-19 outbreak in Beijing on Dec. 27, 2022.

TINGSHU WANG / REUTERS

Shanghai resident Ji Weihe said the move would make China “benefit the economy, peoples’ lives and their desires to go out and travel”.

Another Shanghai local, surnamed Du, said a swifter reopening may help the country reach herd immunity more quickly, adding that there was “no way to avoid” the virus now circulating in the eastern megacity.

Online searches for flights abroad surged on the news, with travel platform Tongcheng seeing an 850 percent jump in searches and a ten-fold jump in enquiries about visas, according to state media reports.

Rival platform Trip.com Group said the volume of searches for popular overseas destinations rose by 10 times year-over-year within half an hour of the announcement.

Users were particularly keen on trips to Macau, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand and South Korea, it added.

But some Chinese may face hurdles when they do go abroad, with Japan announcing that it would require COVID-19 tests on arrival for travellers from mainland China beginning on Friday.

Rising cases in China, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said, were “causing growing concern in Japan.”

The announcement effectively brought the curtain down on a zero-COVID regime of mass testing, strict lockdowns and long quarantines that has roiled supply chains and buffeted business engagement with the world’s second-largest economy.

“The overwhelming view is just relief,” said Tom Simpson, managing director for China at the China-Britain Business Council. “It brings an end to three years of very significant disruption.”

An uptick in international trade missions is now expected for next year, he told AFP, although the full resumption of business operations is likely to be “gradual” as airlines slowly bring more flights online and companies tweak their China strategies for 2023.

All passengers arriving in China have had to undergo mandatory centraliZed quarantine since March 2020. That decreased from three weeks to one week in June, and to five days last month.

The end of those rules in January will also see COVID-19 downgraded to a Class B infectious disease from Class A, a formal distinction that allows authorities to adopt looser controls.

Some entry restrictions remain in place, with China still largely suspending the issuance of visas for overseas tourists and students.

The Chinese government and state media have sought to portray an image of measured calm as COVID has finally washed across the country.

But officials in several major cities have said hundreds of thousands of people are estimated to have been infected in recent weeks.

Hospitals and crematoriums across the country have also been full with COVID patients and victims, according to independent reporting by AFP and other media.

Some studies have estimated around one million people could die in China from COVID over the next few months.

The Chinese government announced last week that it would effectively stop recording the number of people who were dying of COVID.

And Beijing’s National Health Commission (NHC) said Saturday it would no longer publish daily case figures.

The winter surge comes ahead of two major public holidays next month in which hundreds of millions of people are expected to travel to their hometowns to reunite with relatives.

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December 27, 2022
Shares gain in Asia after China relaxes more COVID rules

BANGKOK — Shares advanced Tuesday in Asia after China announced it would relax more of its pandemic restrictions despite widespread outbreaks of COVID-19 that are straining its medical systems and disrupting business.

China’s National Health Commission said Monday that passengers arriving from abroad will no longer have to observe a quarantine, starting Jan. 8. They will still need a negative virus test within 48 hours of their departure and to wear masks on their flights.

But it was the latest step toward dropping once-strict virus-control measures that have severely limited travel to and from the world’s No. 2 economy.

China has joined other countries in treating cases instead of trying to stamp out infections, dropping or easing rules on testing, quarantines and movement as it tries to reverse an economic slump. But the shift has flooded hospitals with feverish, wheezing patients, and authorities are going door to door and paying people older than 60 to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

The Shanghai Composite index jumped 0.8% to 3,089.39. Hong Kong’s markets were closed for a holiday, as were those in Australia.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 added 0.3% to 26,476.27 and the Kospi in Seoul also gained 0.3%, to 2,323.52.

In Bangkok, the SET index rose 0.6%, while the Sensex in Mumbai surged 1.2%.

Markets in the U.S. and Europe were closed Monday for holidays and Asian markets were mostly higher.

On Friday, the S&P 500 closed 0.6% higher. It is down 19.3% for the year, just on the cusp of a bear market.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq edged 0.2% higher. The Russell 2000 index picked up 0.4%.

Solid U.S. consumer spending and a strong jobs market have kept the economy growing, but they also raise the risk that the Federal Reserve will need to persist in raising interest rates and keeping them high to crush inflation.

After last week’s updates, the last big reports of the year, investors will be watching for corporate earnings that may provide insights into how the economy is faring.

The pace of price increases has eased, but the Fed has said it will keep raising interest rates to tame inflation. Its key overnight rate is at its highest level in 15 years, after beginning the year at a record low of near zero. The key lending rate, the federal funds rate, stands at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, and Fed policymakers have forecast it will reach a range of 5% to 5.25% by the end of 2023 and not be cut before 2024.

The higher rates bring the risk the economy could stall and slip into a recession in 2023. They also have been weighing heavily on prices for stocks and other investments.

In other trading Tuesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil picked up 31 cents to $79.87 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gained $2.07 to $79.56 before markets closed for the long Christmas weekend holiday.

Brent crude oil, the pricing basis for international trading, also added 31 cents to $84.81 per barrel.

In currency dealings, the U.S. dollar rose to 132.96 Japanese yen from 132.89 yen late Monday. The euro rose to $1.0647 from $1.0638.

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December 26, 2022
Shares gain in Asia after China relaxes more COVID rules

BANGKOK — Shares advanced Tuesday in Asia after China announced it would relax more of its pandemic restrictions despite widespread outbreaks of COVID-19 that are straining its medical systems and disrupting business.

China’s National Health Commission said Monday that passengers arriving from abroad will no longer have to observe a quarantine, starting Jan. 8. They will still need a negative virus test within 48 hours of their departure and to wear masks on their flights.

But it was the latest step toward dropping once-strict virus-control measures that have severely limited travel to and from the world’s No. 2 economy.

China has joined other countries in treating cases instead of trying to stamp out infections, dropping or easing rules on testing, quarantines and movement as it tries to reverse an economic slump. But the shift has flooded hospitals with feverish, wheezing patients, and authorities are going door to door and paying people older than 60 to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

The Shanghai Composite index jumped 0.8% to 3,089.39. Hong Kong’s markets were closed for a holiday, as were those in Australia.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 added 0.3% to 26,476.27 and the Kospi in Seoul also gained 0.3%, to 2,323.52.

In Bangkok, the SET index rose 0.6%, while the Sensex in Mumbai surged 1.2%.

Markets in the U.S. and Europe were closed Monday for holidays and Asian markets were mostly higher.

On Friday, the S&P 500 closed 0.6% higher. It is down 19.3% for the year, just on the cusp of a bear market.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq edged 0.2% higher. The Russell 2000 index picked up 0.4%.

Solid U.S. consumer spending and a strong jobs market have kept the economy growing, but they also raise the risk that the Federal Reserve will need to persist in raising interest rates and keeping them high to crush inflation.

After last week’s updates, the last big reports of the year, investors will be watching for corporate earnings that may provide insights into how the economy is faring.

The pace of price increases has eased, but the Fed has said it will keep raising interest rates to tame inflation. Its key overnight rate is at its highest level in 15 years, after beginning the year at a record low of near zero. The key lending rate, the federal funds rate, stands at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, and Fed policymakers have forecast it will reach a range of 5% to 5.25% by the end of 2023 and not be cut before 2024.

The higher rates bring the risk the economy could stall and slip into a recession in 2023. They also have been weighing heavily on prices for stocks and other investments.

In other trading Tuesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil picked up 31 cents to $79.87 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gained $2.07 to $79.56 before markets closed for the long Christmas weekend holiday.

Brent crude oil, the pricing basis for international trading, also added 31 cents to $84.81 per barrel.

In currency dealings, the U.S. dollar rose to 132.96 Japanese yen from 132.89 yen late Monday. The euro rose to $1.0647 from $1.0638.

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December 26, 2022
Shares of China-based funeral company are surging as Covid infections spike

Workers in protective gear handle a coffin and coffin case at Dongjiao Funeral Parlor, reportedly designated to handle Covid fatalities, in Beijing, China, on Monday, Dec. 19, 2022.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Hong Kong-listed shares of China’s biggest cemeteries operator and funeral service rose to their highest level in more than a year as the country struggles with a wave of Covid infections.

Fu Shou Yuan International Group stocks reached a 2022 high at 7.04 Hong Kong dollars a share as of Friday’s close — having surged about 80% in two months – as the country abruptly ended most of its Covid control measures and saw case numbers surge.

Read more about China from CNBC Pro

Shares of Fu Shou Yuan International Group were down nearly 40% for 2022 as of November, but they’re now on pace for a 15% year-to-date gain.

The company, with a market cap of more than $2 billion, debuted in 2013 with backing from Carlyle Group and hedge fund firm Farallon Investors.

Carlyle co-founder William Conway had visited Fu Shou Yuan’s main cemetery in Shanghai with a group of executives in December 2010 before agreeing to purchase $25 million worth of shares prior to the company going public.

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December 26, 2022
China to scrap COVID-19 quarantine for incoming passengers

BEIJING — China will drop a COVID-19 quarantine requirement for passengers arriving from abroad starting Jan. 8, the National Health Commission announced Monday in the latest easing of the country’s once-strict virus-control measures.

Currently, arriving passengers must quarantine for five days at a hotel, followed by three days at home. That is down from as much as three weeks in the past.

The scrapping of the quarantine requirement is a major step toward fully reopening travel with the rest of the world, which the government severely curtailed in a bid to keep the virus out.

The restrictions have prevented most Chinese from traveling abroad, limited face-to-face diplomatic exchanges and sharply reduced the number of foreigners in China for work and study.

China’s health commission said that steps would be taken to make it easier for some foreigners to enter the country, though it didn’t include tourists. It did indicate that Chinese would be gradually allowed to travel abroad for tourism again, an important source of revenue for hotels and related businesses in many countries.

People coming to China will still need a negative virus test 48 hours before departure and passengers will be required to wear protective masks on board, an online post from the health commission said.

China abruptly dropped many of its pandemic restrictions earlier this month, sparking widespread outbreaks that have swamped hospital emergency rooms and funeral homes.

The move followed rare public protests against the restrictions, which have slowed the economy, putting people out of work and driving restaurants and shops out of business.

For more than 2 ½ years, Chinese authorities enforced a strict zero-COVID approach that became a signature policy of leader Xi Jinping.

The arrival of the fast-spreading omicron variant in late 2021 made the strategy increasingly untenable, requiring ever-wider lockdowns that stymied growth and disrupted lives.

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December 26, 2022
Beijing to distribute Pfizer antiviral drug as Covid wave strains health system | CNN

Beijing
CNN
—

Beijing will begin distributing Pfizer’s Covid-19 drug Paxlovid to the city’s community health centers in the coming days, state media reported Monday.

The report comes as the city grapples with an unprecedented wave of infections that has severely strained its hospitals and emptied pharmacy shelves.

The state-run China News Service reported Monday that after receiving training, community doctors will administer the medicine to Covid-19 patients and give instructions on how to use them.

“We have received the notice from officials, but it is not clear when the drugs will arrive,” it cited a worker at a local community health center in Beijing’s Xicheng district as saying.

Paxlovid remains the only foreign medicine to treat Covid that has been approved by China’s regulator for nationwide use, but access is extremely difficult to come by. When a Chinese healthcare platform offered the antiviral drug earlier this month, it sold out within hours.

Azvudine, an oral medicine developed by China’s Genuine Biotech, has also been approved.

After nearly three years of lockdowns, quarantines and mass testing, China abruptly abandoned its zero-Covid policy this month following nationwide protests over its heavy economic and social toll.

The sudden lifting of restrictions sparked panic buying of fever and cold medicines, leading to widespread shortages, both at pharmacies and on online shopping platforms. Long lines have become routine outside fever clinics and hospital wards overflowing with patients in the capital Beijing and elsewhere in the country.

An emergency room doctor in Beijing told the state-run People’s Daily on Thursday that four doctors on his shift did not have time to eat or drink. “We have been seeing patients nonstop,” he said.

Another emergency room doctor told the newspaper he had been working despite having developed fever symptoms. “The number of patients is high, and with fewer medical staff, the pressure is multiplied,” said the doctor.

In a sign of the strain on Beijing’s medical system, hundreds of health professionals from across China have traveled to the city to assist medical centers.

As the capital, Beijing has some of the best medical resources in the country. However, the abrupt zero-Covid u-turn has left people and health facilities ill-prepared to deal with a surge in infections.

China’s official Covid case count has become meaningless after it rolled back mass testing and allowed residents to use antigen tests and isolate at home. It has stopped reporting asymptomatic cases, conceding it was no longer possible to track the actual number of infections.

According to an internal estimate from the National Health Commission, almost 250 million people in China have caught Covid in the first 20 days of December – accounting for roughly 18% of the country’s population.

Experts have warned that as people in big cities return to their hometowns for the Lunar New Year next month, the virus could sweep through China’s vast rural areas, where vaccination rates are lower and medical resources are severely lacking.

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December 26, 2022
China’s COVID-19 surge raises odds of new coronavirus mutant

Could the COVID-19 surge in China unleash a new coronavirus mutant on the world?

Scientists don’t know but worry that might happen. It could be similar to omicron variants circulating there now. It could be a combination of strains. Or something entirely different, they say.

“China has a population that is very large and there’s limited immunity. And that seems to be the setting in which we may see an explosion of a new variant,” said Dr. Stuart Campbell Ray, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University.

Every new infection offers a chance for the coronavirus to mutate, and the virus is spreading rapidly in China. The country of 1.4 billion has largely abandoned its “zero COVID” policy. Though overall reported vaccination rates are high, booster levels are lower, especially among older people. Domestic vaccines have proven less effective against serious infection than Western-made messenger RNA versions. Many were given more than a year ago, meaning immunity has waned.

The result? Fertile ground for the virus to change.

“When we’ve seen big waves of infection, it’s often followed by new variants being generated,” Ray said.

About three years ago, the original version of the coronavirus spread from China to the rest of the world and was eventually replaced by the delta variant, then omicron and its descendants, which continue plaguing the world today.

Dr. Shan-Lu Liu, who studies viruses at Ohio State University, said many existing omicron variants have been detected in China, including BF.7, which is extremely adept at evading immunity and is believed to be driving the current surge.

Experts said a partially immune population like China’s puts particular pressure on the virus to change. Ray compared the virus to a boxer that “learns to evade the skills that you have and adapt to get around those.”

One big unknown is whether a new variant will cause more severe disease. Experts say there’s no inherent biological reason the virus has to become milder over time.

“Much of the mildness we’ve experienced over the past six to 12 months in many parts of the world has been due to accumulated immunity either through vaccination or infection, not because the virus has changed” in severity, Ray said.

In China, most people have never been exposed to the coronavirus. China’s vaccines rely on an older technology producing fewer antibodies than messenger RNA vaccines.

Given those realities, Dr. Gagandeep Kang, who studies viruses at the Christian Medical College in Vellore, India, said it remains to be seen if the virus will follow the same pattern of evolution in China as it has in the rest of the world after vaccines came out. “Or,” she asked, “will the pattern of evolution be completely different?”

Recently, the World Health Organization expressed concern about reports of severe disease in China. Around the cities of Baoding and Langfang outside Beijing, hospitals have run out of intensive care beds and staff as severe cases surge.

China’s plan to track the virus centers around three city hospitals in each province, where samples will be collected from walk-in patients who are very sick and all those who die every week, Xu Wenbo of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said at a briefing Tuesday.

He said 50 of the 130 omicron versions detected in China had resulted in outbreaks. The country is creating a national genetic database “to monitor in real time” how different strains were evolving and the potential implications for public health, he said.

At this point, however, there’s limited information about genetic viral sequencing coming out of China, said Jeremy Luban, a virologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

“We don’t know all of what’s going on,” Luban said. But clearly, “the pandemic is not over.”

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AP video producer Olivia Zhang and reporter Dake Kang in Beijing contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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December 25, 2022
China’s foreign minister signals deeper ties with Russia

BEIJING — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi defended his country’s position on the war in Ukraine on Sunday and signaled that China would deepen ties with Russia in the coming year.

Wang, speaking by video to a conference in the Chinese capital, also blamed America for the deterioration in relations between the world’s two largest economies, saying that China has “firmly rejected the United States’ erroneous China policy.”

China has pushed back against Western pressure on trade, technology, human rights and its claims to a broad swath of the western Pacific, accusing the U.S. of bullying. Its refusal to condemn the invasion of Ukraine and join others in imposing sanctions on Russia has further frayed ties and fueled an emerging divide with much of Europe.

Wang said that China would “deepen strategic mutual trust and mutually beneficial cooperation” with Russia.

“With regard to the Ukraine crisis, we have consistently upheld the fundamental principles of objectivity and impartiality, without favoring one side or the other, or adding fuel to the fire, still less seeking selfish gains from the situation,” he said, according to an official text of his remarks.

Even as China has found common ground with Russia as both come under Western pressure, its economic future remains tied to American and European markets and technology. Leader Xi Jinping is pushing Chinese industry to become more self-sufficient, but Wang acknowledged that experience has shown “that China and the United States cannot decouple or sever supply chains.”

He said that China would strive to bring relations with the U.S. back on course, saying they had plunged because “the United States has stubbornly continued to see China as its primary competitor and engage in blatant blockade, suppression and provocation against China.”

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December 24, 2022