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Tag: Epidemics

  • China’s three-week COVID case tally tops 253,000 and daily average is rising, government says

    China’s three-week COVID case tally tops 253,000 and daily average is rising, government says

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    More than 253,000 coronavirus cases have been found in China in the past three weeks and the daily average is rising, the government said Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.

    The trend is putting pressure on officials who are trying to ease economic disruption by easing strict controls that have confined millions of people to their homes.

    China is the only major country in the world still trying to curb virus transmissions through strict lockdown measures and mass testing. The ruling Communist Party promised earlier this month to reduce disruptions from its “zero- COVID” strategy by making controls more flexible, but so far, progress has been slow.

    Beijing, which announced its first COVID death in about six months over the weekend, has locked down parks, populous districts, stores and offices and many school kids have resumed online learning.

    The past week’s average of 22,200 daily cases is double the previous week’s rate, the official China News Service reported, citing the National Bureau of Disease Prevention and Control.

    On Tuesday, the government reported 28,127 cases found over the past 24 hours, including 25,902 with no symptoms. Almost one-third, or 9,022, were in Guangdong province, the heartland of export-oriented manufacturing adjacent to Hong Kong.

    In the U.S., known cases of COVID are rising again with the daily average standing at 41,530 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 4% from two weeks ago.

    Don’t miss: Confused about COVID boosters? Here’s what the science and the experts say about the new generation of shots.

    Cases are rising in 24 states, plus Washington, D.C., Guam and Puerto Rico. Washington state has replaced Nebraska as leader by new cases, which have climbed 423% from two weeks ago. That’s followed by Arizona, where they are up 110% and California, up 60%.

    The daily average for hospitalizations was down 1% at 27,547, but again, the trend is not uniform across the U.S. Hospitalizations are up 60% in Alaska, up 47% in Arizona and up 30% in Wyoming.

    The daily average for deaths is down 2% to 294. 

    Physicians are reporting high numbers of respiratory illnesses like RSV and the flu earlier than the typical winter peak. WSJ’s Brianna Abbott explains what the early surge means for the coming winter months. Photo illustration: Kaitlyn Wang

    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:

    • Japan approved an antiviral pill from Shionogi & Co.
    4507,
    +2.77%
    to treat COVID after the company provided new data to show the drug’s efficacy, the Wall Street Journal reported. The treatment is the first locally developed alternative to Pfizer Inc.’s
    PFE,
    +1.45%
    Paxlovid and Merck & Co.’s
    MRK,
    +0.93%
    Lagevrio, which have been authorized for emergency use in Japan. Shionogi aims to win approval from the Food and Drug Administration for its pill in the U.S. Osaka-based Shionogi filed in February for emergency approval for the drug, known as Xocova, in Japan. The health ministry panel said in July it needed to see results from a larger human trial because data submitted at the time didn’t sufficiently show improvements in symptoms associated with COVID.

    • Dubai International Airport passenger numbers surpassed pre-COVID pandemic levels in the third quarter of 2022, the airport’s chief executive said, causing the airport to revise its annual forecast by another 1 million passengers, the AP reported. Paul Griffiths, who oversees the world’s busiest airport, told the Associated Press the annual forecast at Dubai International, or DXB, is more than 64 million. The airport saw 18.5 million passengers in the third quarter of this year, up from 17.8 million during the first quarter of 2020—prior to and at the dawn of the pandemic.

    • Get ready for long lines at U.S. airports and traffic jams galore—just like old times. Airports and roads may be “jam-packed” this year, according to the AAA. It estimates that 53.6 million people will travel for the Thanksgiving weekend, reaching 98% of pre-pandemic Thanksgiving travel. “Families and friends are eager to spend time together this Thanksgiving, one of the busiest for travel in the past two decades,” said Paula Twidale, senior vice president, AAA Travel. “Plan ahead and pack your patience, whether you’re driving or flying.”

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 638.5 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.62 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 98.4 million cases and 1,077,225 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 228.2 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.7% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

    So far, just 35.3 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 11.3% of the overall population.

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  • Confused about COVID boosters? Here’s what the science and the experts say about the new generation of shots.

    Confused about COVID boosters? Here’s what the science and the experts say about the new generation of shots.

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    As we head into the third winter of the pandemic, only about 13% of American adults — less than 11% of Americans overall — have received the bivalent COVID-19 booster. 

    Only about 34 million adults in the U.S. have opted to get the new shot, which became available in September. The bivalent boosters, which were developed by Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer, are designed to better protect people against the forms of the virus that are currently circulating.

    Medical experts say the lackluster interest in the new boosters is due to several factors: pandemic fatigue, mixed messages from public-health officials, confusion about how the new boosters are different from previous shots, and the government’s decision to authorize the updated boosters without first getting clinical data in humans. 

    “It’s hard for people to wade through that,” said Robert Wachter, chair of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. “Some of them are just throwing up their hands and saying, ‘I got vaccinated, and that’s all I need to do.’ Which, unfortunately, is not.”

    A lot has changed since 2020. We now have vaccines that do a pretty good job of keeping most people from getting so sick that they end up in the hospital or die. You can now pick up at-home tests from pharmacies, and there are antiviral drugs that help treat COVID and may help prevent long COVID, in which symptoms can linger long after an infection. And now we also have the updated boosters, which are another way to ward off the worst of the virus.

    Those boosters, however, don’t confer total protection from getting sick, leading some people, particularly those who are young and healthy, to ask: Why get one, then?

    With new variants like BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 now the dominant strains circulating in the U.S., and with the coming holidays bringing more people together to spend time socializing indoors with friends and family, it’s important to understand that your immunity, whether from an infection or vaccination, wanes within four to six months. In fact, immunity to all coronaviruses wanes over time “for reasons that we don’t quite understand,” Kami Kim, director of infectious-disease research at Tampa General Hospital’s Global Emerging Diseases Institute, told me.

    “If you’re past three months [after vaccination or infection], you don’t want to rely on you having a BA.5 infection, because BQ.1.1 still can hit you,” said Eric Topol, chair of innovative medicine at Scripps Research in La Jolla, Calif.

    Here are answers to some common questions about COVID.

    1. What’s the difference between this booster and the shots that were available last year? 

    The earlier booster shots were simply additional, smaller doses of the original vaccine. But now there are two bivalent COVID-19 boosters available in the U.S.: Moderna’s
    MRNA,
    +1.61%
    MRNA-1273.222 and the BNT162b2 Bivalent from BioNTech
    BNTX,
    +0.20%
    and Pfizer
    PFE,
    +1.87%    .
     

    Both shots are designed to protect against the original strain of the virus in addition to the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants. The bivalent boosters were designed to better protect people against the forms of the virus that are currently circulating, as well as future variants. It’s a similar approach to the way influenza strains are selected for flu shots every year. 

    “It’s the same exact mRNA technology [as the original vaccine], but each dose now has half of the [original] variant,” said Jennifer Beam Dowd, an epidemiologist and professor of demography and population health at the University of Oxford in the U.K.

    In June of this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asked drugmakers to design the next generation of COVID boosters using this formula. (In Europe, regulators took a slightly different approach, first opting for bivalent boosters that equally protect against the original virus and the BA.1 subvariant of omicron before adding a recommendation for the same bivalent formula that’s being used in the U.S.) 

    “Part of the rationale for keeping the old version and BA.4/BA.5 is that if you put all your eggs in the basket, as far as BA.4/BA.5, then the virus will change to turn into more like the original version,” said Tampa General Hospital’s Kim. “It’s hedging your bets.”

    Up until last week, BA.5 had been the dominant variant in the U.S. But as of Friday, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, which are sublineages of BA.5, now make up the majority of new infections in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

    This isn’t all bad news. BQ.1.1 is closely related to BA.5, according to Dowd, and that means many of the protective qualities of the bivalent booster will also guard against the new variants. 

    2. What does the science say about the new boosters?

    There is preliminary data about both bivalent boosters that appears to indicate they work against BQ.1.1 as well as BA.5. However, scientists and physicians say they are still waiting to see peer-reviewed research from the clinical trials to fully gauge the effectiveness of both shots.

    • Moderna’s booster: Early clinical data shows that Moderna’s bivalent booster produced a 5- to 6-fold increase in neutralizing antibodies against the BA.4 and BA.5 variants in about 500 adults who were previously vaccinated and boosted, according to a Nov. 14 news release. The Phase 2/3 clinical trial compared the new booster’s response against the company’s original booster. Moderna also said that the bivalent shot increased antibodies protecting against BQ.1.1, though not as much as it did against BA.4 and BA.5, based on an analysis of about 40 participants in the same study.

    “It’s not orders of magnitude more protection — but at least 5- to 6-fold more protection against BA.5, that’s good,” Topol said.

    • BioNTech and Pfizer’s booster: In a preprint published Nov. 17, the two companies said their bivalent booster led to an 8.7-fold increase in neutralizing antibodies against BQ.1.1 after 30 days, compared with the original booster’s 1.8-fold increase in antibodies against the same subvariant. The study assessed the immune responses in adults 55 years or older who had been previously vaccinated and boosted, regardless of infection history. 

    3. What if I had COVID this year? Does it matter when I get the booster?

    Most experts interviewed for this story say immunity can last anywhere from three to six months, though the official CDC recommendation is that the bivalent boosters should be given three months after a COVID infection or two months after an individual’s last shot. 

    “We used to say, just go ahead and get vaccinated as soon as you recover,” Dowd said. “But there has been subsequent evidence that suggests it’s a little better to probably wait at least three months. Not because it’s harmful to get it sooner, but you really won’t be getting much of the benefit of that boost. You reach a ceiling.”

    There are other considerations, as well. The timing of your last infection does matter if you have an idea what variants were circulating when you got sick. If you had an omicron infection last winter, you’re probably due for a booster. If you got sick within the past month or so, presumably with BA.5 or one of its subvariants, you may want to wait a month or two.  

    “As good as the vaccine is and as good as post-infection protection is, the immunity and protection wanes over time,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, told journalists at a White House briefing on Tuesday.

    You also have to assess your underlying immune status, whether you have medical conditions that put you at higher risk for severe disease, and how concerned you are about long COVID.

    “Most of the deaths that we’ll see from COVID could have been prevented if people stayed up to date with their boosters,” said the University of California’s Wachter. “And many cases of long COVID could [also] have been prevented if people stayed up to date with their boosters.”

    Finally, if you’re planning to spend Christmas with family or take a trip at the end of December, remember that it takes a few weeks to build up antibodies from the new shots. 

    4. Do I really need to get a booster if I’m young and healthy?

    We are long past the stage in the pandemic when the approach to vaccination was one size fits all, and not all medical experts think that people who are young and healthy need a booster right now.

    Dowd said that people who are “younger and in good health” can wait up to six months after a previous infection to get another shot.

    “If we go by the CDC data or the U.K. data, the people who seem to benefit from the boost fall into three categories: people who are immunocompromised, people who are elderly — mostly over 75 — and people who have high-risk medical conditions,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.  

    It’s unclear whether that thinking has influenced people’s decisions about whether to get a booster. But the bivalent shots have been available to children older than 5 years old and all adults in the U.S. for months, and that availability hasn’t led to much interest.

    “It’s for the same reason that 19,500 people pour into Wells Fargo Center [in Philadelphia] to watch the Sixers play, screaming their heads off, without a mask on,” Offit said. “They don’t feel compelled to get a booster dose.”

    That may be due in part to the fact that COVID hospitalizations and deaths have largely remained stable. There is no longer the kind of urgency that drove people to book appointments for the original vaccine or to wear masks. With the annual peak in COVID cases occurring during the first two weeks of January in 2021 and 2022, the question now is: Will that comfort level change as we get further into winter and the holiday season?

    “People want [a booster] to be like flipping a switch, like I’m 100% protected or not,” Dowd said, “but we know from the first couple of years that when the vaccine is well matched to the variants, which the BA.5 is a decent match right now, it really lowers transmission substantially and your chances of getting infected at all. We should take advantage of that.”

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  • China announces first COVID deaths in months and unveils restrictions in Beijing and Guangzhou

    China announces first COVID deaths in months and unveils restrictions in Beijing and Guangzhou

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    China’s zero-COVID strategy was back in the headlines on Monday, after the country announced its first COVID deaths in nearly six months, announced new restrictions in the capital Beijing and locked down the largest district in the southern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou.

    Beijing residents were told not to travel between city districts, and large numbers of restaurants, shops, malls, office buildings and apartment blocks have been closed or isolated, the Associated Press reported. Local and international schools in urban districts of the city of 21 million have been moved online.

    Beijing reported two more COVID-19-related deaths on Monday, a day after the city reported its first COVID-19 death since May. China’s COVID numbers are widely held to be massively undercounted.

    In Guangzhou, public transit was suspended and residents are required to present a negative test if they want to leave their homes, according to a separate AP report.

    The outbreak is testing China’s attempt to bring a more “targeted” approach to its zero-COVID policies while facing multiple outbreaks. China is the only major country in the world still trying to curb virus transmissions through strict lockdown measures and mass testing.

    A group of Chinese doctors interviewed by the Financial Times said the country’s healthcare system is not ready to deal with a huge COVID outbreak that will inevitably follow any easing of strict measures to contain COVID-19.

    “The medical system will probably be paralyzed when faced with mass cases,” one doctor in a public hospital in Wuhan, central China, where the pandemic started nearly three years ago, reportedly told the FT.

    See: China’s COVID-19 restrictions hit historic Beijing theater

    Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech at China’s 20th Party Congress suggests the country’s economy is moving in a new direction. As for U.S. investors, they’ll likely be taking on more risk investing in China. WSJ’s Dion Rabouin explains. Illustration: Elizabeth Smelov

    In the U.S., known cases of COVID were flat on Sunday with the daily average standing at 40,588, according to a New York Times tracker, up 1% from two weeks ago. Cases are currently rising in about half the states and falling in the rest, but some are seeing sharp spikes.

    In Nebraska, for example, cases are up 153% from two weeks ago, followed by Arizona, where they are up 110%.

    The daily average for hospitalizations was up 1% at 27,781, but Alaska is currently seeing a 50% spike, followed by Arizona where hospitalizations are up 51%.

    On a brighter note, the daily average for deaths is down 10% to 286.

    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:

    • Hong Kong leader John Lee tested positive for COVID-19 after meeting with other regional leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Thailand, the city government said Monday, the AP reported. Lee tested negative throughout his four-day stay in Bangkok but his test upon his arrival at Hong Kong’s airport on Sunday night was positive, a government statement said. Lee is now in isolation and will work from home, according to a spokesperson of the Chief Executive’s Office. Other officials at his office who went to Thailand with Lee all tested negative.

    • Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and her husband Dan Little have tested positive for COVID, after returning from Vietnam, Brown disclosed in a tweet. The pair were attending the Vietnam-United States Trade Forum.

    • A Los Angeles couple who fled to Europe after being convicted of running a fraud ring that stole $18 million in COVID aid money was returned to the U.S. to face prison, the AP reported. Richard Ayvazyan and his wife, Marietta Terabelian, were extradited from the Balkan country of Montenegro, where they were living in a luxury seaside villa before their arrest in February. They arrived in Los Angeles on Thursday, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. While they were on the run last year, a court in Los Angeles sentenced Ayvazyan to 17 years in federal prison, and Terabelian to six years.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 638.1 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.62 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 98.3 million cases and 1,077,031 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 228.2 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.7% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

    So far, just 35.3 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 11.3% of the overall population.

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  • Pfizer and BioNTech updated booster shows strong results against new omicron sublineages in fresh analysis of data

    Pfizer and BioNTech updated booster shows strong results against new omicron sublineages in fresh analysis of data

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    A fresh analysis of data on the immune response generated by the bivalent COVID-19 booster showed strong results against the newer omicron sublineages, Pfizer and German partner BioNTech said Friday.

    The bivalent booster targets the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron variants as well as the original virus, and it also appears to be effective against the sublineages dubbed BA.4.6, BA.2.75.2, BQ.1.1 and XBB.1.

    The data, which have been posted on the preprint server bioRxiv, show that the booster induces a greater increase in neutralizing-antibody titers than the companies’ original COVID vaccine.

    “Based on these findings, the Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent booster may help to provide improved protection against COVID-19 due to Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages as well as new sublineages that continue to increase in prevalence,” the companies said in a joint statement.

    Specifically, one month after a booster dose of the bivalent COVID-19 vaccine, neutralizing-antibody titers against the sublineages increased 3.2-fold to 4.8-fold compared with the original COVID vaccine.

    Neutralizing-antibody titers against BA.4.6, BA.2.75.2, BQ.1.1 and XBB.1 increased 4.8-fold to 11.1-fold from prebooster levels following a booster dose of the bivalent vaccine.

    The companies
    PFE,
    -0.72%
    BNTX,
    +0.08%
    said BA.5 is still the most prevalent sublineage in the U.S., accounting for nearly 30% of cases at time of publication, while the emerging BA.1.1 sublineage accounts for nearly 25% of cases and is spreading globally.

    But data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention later Friday showed BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 now account for a combined 49.7% of new cases in the week through Nov. 19, while BA.5 accounted for just 24%.64.8%

    In the New York region, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounted for 64.8% of new cases, while BA.5 accounted for 14.0%.

    The bivalent booster has been granted emergency-use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for people ages 5 and older and has also been allowed in the European Union for that group.

    The news comes as U.S. COVID cases have been rising again, although the daily average edged lower on Thursday to 39,562, according to a New York Times tracker, down 1% from two weeks ago.

    Cases are rising in roughly half the states and falling in the rest, but there are wide discrepancies between individual states. In Nebraska, cases are up 540% from two weeks ago, the tracker shows, followed by Arizona, where they are up 110%; California, where they have climbed 53%; and Colorado, where they are up 50%.

    Meanwhile, Kentucky is seeing a 54% decline in cases from two weeks ago, and Michigan cases are down 48%.

    The daily U.S. average for hospitalizations is up 2% to 27,818, while the daily average for deaths is down 4% to 325.

    Physicians are reporting high numbers of respiratory illnesses like RSV and the flu earlier than the typical winter peak. WSJ’s Brianna Abbott explains what the early surge means for the winter months. Photo illustration: Kaitlyn Wang

    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 southern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou is planning to build quarantine facilities for nearly 250,000 people to fight surging COVID outbreaks, even as the national government tries to reduce the impact of zero-COVID controls that have confined millions of people to their homes, the Associated Press reported. Guangzhou, a city of 13 million and the biggest of a series of hotspots across China with outbreaks since early October, reported 9,680 new cases in the past 24 hours. That was about 40% of the 23,276 cases reported nationwide. 

    • Racial disparities in COVID cases and deaths have widened and narrowed over the course of the pandemic, but age-adjusted data still show that Black, Hispanic and American Indian/Alaska Native people have been at higher risk for cases, hospitalizations and deaths, according to a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation. “While disparities in COVID-19 vaccinations have narrowed over time and have been reversed for Hispanic people, they persist for Black people,” the report found. The pattern is also evident in uptake of the new bivalent booster, with Black and Hispanic people about half as likely as white people to have had one. Black people are also less likely to have access to antivirals, antibody treatments and other therapies.

    • The Indian Health Service announced Thursday that all tribal members covered by the federal agency will be offered a vaccine at every appointment when appropriate under a new vaccine strategy, the AP reported. Throughout the pandemic, American Indians and Alaska Natives have had some of the highest COVID vaccination rates across the country. But Indigenous people are especially vulnerable to vaccine-preventable illness, and IHS officials recently noted that fewer patients have been getting vaccines for COVID-19. Monkeypox is now an additional health concern.

    • Novavax
    NVAX,
    -6.11%
    said its COVID vaccine has received expanded authorization in Canada as a booster for adults aged 18 and older who had it as their primary shot. The protein-based vaccine has already been approved as a booster in the U.S., European Union and U.K., among other countries, Novavax said.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 637.1 million on Friday, while the death toll rose above 6.61 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 98.3 million cases and 1,076,683 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 228.2 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.7% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

    So far, just 35.3 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 11.3% of the overall population.

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  • China locks down Peking University over one COVID case, showing commitment to zero-COVID policy

    China locks down Peking University over one COVID case, showing commitment to zero-COVID policy

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    Chinese authorities have locked down Peking University after finding a single COVID case, evidence of their continued commitment to the country’s zero-COVID policy.

    Beijing reported more than 350 new cases in the latest 24-hour period, representing a small fraction of its population of 21 million but still enough to trigger localized lockdowns and quarantines under China’s zero-COVID strategy, as the Associated Press reported. Nationwide, China reported about 20,000 cases, up from about 8,000 a week ago.

    Authorities are trying to move away from the lockdowns, such as those seen earlier this year in Shanghai, that have frustrated locals and prompted protests. And revised national guidelines issued last week instructed local governments to follow a targeted and scientific approach that avoids unnecessary measures. But that doesn’t mean an end to zero-COVID, a policy that has hurt the country’s economy.

    Peking University has more than 40,000 students on multiple campuses, most of them in Beijing. It was unclear how many were affected by the new lockdown. The 124-year-old institution is one of China’s top universities and was a center of student protest in earlier decades. Its graduates include leading intellectuals, writers, politicians and businesspeople.

    The news comes as known U.S. cases of COVID are climbing again for the first time in a few months. The daily average for new cases stood at 39,414 on Tuesday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 2% versus two weeks ago.

    Cases are climbing in 29 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Guam and Puerto Rico. They are up a staggering 868% in Nebraska from two weeks ago, with an average of 16 cases per 100,000 residents. Cases are up 77% in Utah, 54% in Oklahoma and 53% in Arizona.

    The U.S. daily average for hospitalizations is up 2% to 27,807, but it is up by higher rates in Western states, led by Colorado at 67%, Arizona at 60% and Nevada at 45%.

    On a brighter note, the daily death toll continues to decline and is now down 15%, to 292, from two weeks ago.

    Physicians are reporting high numbers of respiratory illnesses like RSV and the flu earlier than the typical winter peak. WSJ’s Brianna Abbott explains what the early surge means for the winter months. Photo illustration: Kaitlyn Wang

    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:

    • A federal judge has approved a nearly $58 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit filed in response to the deaths of dozens of veterans who contracted COVID-19 at a Massachusetts veterans home, the AP reported. “It was with heavy hearts that we got to the finish line on this case,” Michael Aleo, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said Tuesday, the day after the settlement was approved by a U.S. district court judge in Springfield. The coronavirus outbreak at the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke in the spring of 2020 was one of the deadliest outbreaks at a long-term care facility in the U.S.

    • Australian health authorities have recommended against getting a fifth COVID vaccine shot, even as they urged those who are eligible to sign up for their remaining booster doses as the country’s latest COVID wave grows rapidly, Reuters reported. Average daily cases were 47% higher last week than the week before, said Health Minister Mark Butler at a press conference on Tuesday, announcing the new vaccination recommendations. But cases remain 85% below the previous late July peak.

    • A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Biden administration to lift Trump-era asylum restrictions that have been a cornerstone of border enforcement since the beginning of the pandemic, the AP reported separately. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled in Washington that enforcement must end immediately for families and single adults, calling the ban “arbitrary and capricious.” The administration has not applied it to children traveling alone. Within hours, the Justice Department asked the judge to let the order take effect Dec. 21, giving it five weeks to prepare. Plaintiffs including the American Civil Liberties Union didn’t oppose the delay.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 635.9 million on Wednesday, while the death toll rose above 6.61 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 98 million cases and 1,075,112 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 227.8 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.6% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

    So far, just 31.4 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 10.1% of the overall population.

     

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  • A robust booster campaign could prevent millions of missed school days among children ages 5 to 17, report finds

    A robust booster campaign could prevent millions of missed school days among children ages 5 to 17, report finds

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    If 80% of children ages 5 and older get their COVID booster shots by the end of 2022, it could prevent about 29 million missed days of school and almost 51,000 hospitalizations, according to a new report.

    And if COVID booster coverage simply matches 2020-21 flu-vaccination levels by year’s end, it would prevent about 22 million missed school days, said the report published by the Commonwealth Fund.

    “We expand our previous analysis to include the impact on pediatric hospitalizations, pediatric isolation days, and school absenteeism (among children ages 5 to 17), demonstrating both the health benefits of vaccination and the importance of vaccination uptake for maintaining uninterrupted in-school education,” the authors wrote in the report.

    The number of days absent from school was calculated based on five days of required isolation for children in that age group who experience mild symptomatic illness and 10 days for children who have severe illness or require hospitalization.


    Source: Commonwealth Fund

    An effective booster campaign would considerably reduce the strain on pediatric hospitals this winter, many of which are currently seeing high numbers of children with respiratory syncytial virus, known as RSV, and the flu, the authors wrote.

    “Throughout the pandemic, children have experienced direct health burdens as well as enormous upheaval in their personal and educational lives,” the report said. “Accelerated vaccination campaigns that achieve high coverage across all ages have the potential to prevent a possible imminent surge in COVID-19, protecting children both directly and indirectly and providing them with additional stability in terms of school attendance and other social engagement.”

    Now read: A strong fall COVID booster campaign could save 90,000 U.S. lives and avoid more than 936,000 hospitalizations, study finds

    The report comes as known U.S. cases of COVID are climbing again for the first time in a few months. The daily average for new cases stood at 39,459 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 4% versus two weeks ago.

    Cases are rising the most in the Southwest, led by Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico — states that are also seeing hospitalization numbers climb by more than 30% in the last two weeks.

    The daily average for U.S. hospitalizations was up 1% at 27,662.

    On a brighter note, the daily death tally continues to fall and is down 13% to 302 from two weeks ago.

    Physicians are reporting high numbers of respiratory illnesses like RSV and the flu earlier than the typical winter peak. WSJ’s Brianna Abbott explains what the early surge means for the winter months. Photo illustration: Kaitlyn Wang

    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 ruling party called for strict adherence to its hard-line “zero-COVID” policy Tuesday in an apparent attempt to guide public perceptions after regulations were eased slightly in places, the Associated Press reported. The news may disappoint Chinese citizens who have clashed with police and COVID workers to show their frustration over lockdowns and restrictions on movement. The People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, said in an editorial that China must “unswervingly implement” the policy that requires mass obligatory testing and places millions under lockdown in an attempt to eliminate the coronavirus from the nation of 1.4 billion people.

    • Japan will lift a ban on international cruise ships that has lasted more than two and half years, transport officials said Tuesday, the AP reported separately. The ban was imposed following a deadly coronavirus outbreak on the cruise ship Diamond Princess at the beginning of the pandemic. The Transport Ministry said cruise-ship operators and port authorities associations have adopted antivirus guidelines and that Japan is now ready to resume its international cruise operations and to receive foreign ships at its ports.

    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

    • Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen tested positive for COVID-19 after meeting with world leaders, including President Joe Biden, at a summit of Southeast Asian nations last week, the Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Hun Sen held one-on-one talks with Biden on Saturday on the sidelines of the regional discussions in Phnom Penh. Biden — who is on a five-day trip to Asia to attend a series of summits — then traveled to Bali, Indonesia, where he sat down on Monday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping for a face-to-face meeting that stretched over three hours.

    • Australia will overturn a three-year ban on tennis player Novak Djokovic entering the country, paving the way for the former top-ranked player to take part in the 2023 Australian Open, CNN reported, citing a source with direct knowledge of the matter. Australian Immigration Minister Andrew Giles will lift the ban, the source said.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 635.6 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.61 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 98 million cases and 1,074,691 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 227.8 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.6% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

    So far, just 31.4 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 10.1% of the overall population.

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  • China eases some travel requirements in move welcomed by markets, even as it counts 10,000 new COVID cases in a day

    China eases some travel requirements in move welcomed by markets, even as it counts 10,000 new COVID cases in a day

    [ad_1]

    China counted more than 10,000 fresh COVID cases on Friday sparking further restrictions on movement, but also eased some travel requirements in a move welcomed by financial markets.

    Beijing closed city parks and imposed other restrictions, even as millions of people remained under lockdown Friday in the West and south of China, the Associated Press reported. 

    The country reported 10,729 new cases on Friday, almost all of them testing positive while showing no symptoms. More than five million people were under lockdown Friday in the southern manufacturing hub Guangzhou and the western megacity Chongqing.

    The government said Friday it was reducing the amount of time incoming passengers would be required to undergo quarantine. The U.S. Embassy this week renewed its advisement for citizens to avoid travel to and within China unless absolutely necessary.

    Incoming passengers will only be quarantined for five days, rather than the previous seven, at a designated location, followed by three days of isolation at their place of residence, according to a notice from the State Council, China’s cabinet.

    It wasn’t immediately clear when and where the rules would take effect and whether they would apply to foreigners and Chinese citizens alike.

    Relaxed standards would also be applied to foreign businesspeople and athletes, in what appeared to be a gradual move toward normalization. The news will be welcomed by Chinese citizens frustrated by the government’s zero COVID policy that has kept many in their homes sometimes for months at a time, and forced them to take regular tests.

    In the U.S., known cases of COVID are climbing again for the first time in a few months. The daily average for new cases stood at 40,835 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 9% versus two weeks ago.

    As always, case numbers vary from state to state and some are seeing sharp spikes, led by Nevada, where cases have soared 176% from two weeks ago, the tracker shows. That’s followed by Utah, where they are up 77%, New Mexico at 62% and Oklahoma at 54%.

    Cases are rising in 32 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. They are up by double digits in 27 of those states.

    The daily average for hospitalizations was up 3% at 27,989, while the daily average for deaths is down 9% to 326. 

    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:

    • Four German regions — Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria, Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein — plan to scrap rules requiring people infected with the coronavirus to isolate at home, arguing that the pandemic has evolved and it’s time for a different approach, the AP reported. The health ministry pointed to declining infections, effective vaccinations, a high degree of population immunity, milder illnesses and the example of countries such as Austria that have loosened rules. “The decision doesn’t mean that we will give free rein to infections,” said Bavarian state health minister Klaus Holetschek. “People who test positive will in the future have to put on a mask outside their own apartment. And of course, the principle still goes that people who are sick stay at home.”

    • Sanofi
    SAN,
    -5.22%
    won European Union approval for its COVID vaccine booster, jointly made with British partner GSK
    GSK,
    -5.65%

    GSK,
    -6.01%    ,
    after a drawn-out development effort that saw the pair fall behind now-dominant vaccine suppliers, Reuters reported. The shot with the brand name VidPrevtyn Beta can be given to people who have already had a primary course of vaccination from other approved shots, the French drugmaker and the European Medicines Agency said in separate statements. Shipments are ready to be distributed to European countries under advance purchase agreements, Sanofi said. The company said last year that the European Union and Britain had ordered a combined 75 million doses of the shot, contingent on approval.

    • U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor rejected a bid to prevent New York City from enforcing its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for municipal workers against a group of teachers, firefighters and others who challenged the policy, Reuters reported separately. The justice denied an emergency request, received by the court on Nov. 4, to block the policy by individual municipal workers, as well as a group called New Yorkers For Religious Liberty, while their appeal of lower court decisions siding with the city proceeds.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 634.3 million on Friday, while the death toll rose above 6.60 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 97.9 million cases and 1,074,485 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 227.8 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.6% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

    So far, just 31.4 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 10.1% of the overall population.

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  • Chinese travel, consumption stocks rally as Beijing eases COVID rules

    Chinese travel, consumption stocks rally as Beijing eases COVID rules

    [ad_1]

    Shares of Chinese travel and consumer companies gained ground in Hong Kong after Beijing eased some Covid-19 restrictions, improving the outlook for sectors directly hit by the pandemic and the broader economic recovery.

    In Friday afternoon trade, the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index
    160462,
    +7.98%
    advanced 7.6%, while the city’s benchmark Hang Seng Index
    HSI,
    +7.51%
    jumped 7.1% to 17221.43, recovering to levels last seen a month ago. The benchmark index would mark its largest one-day gain since mid-March if it closes at current levels.

    China’s three major airlines, Air China Ltd.
    601111,
    -3.11%    ,
    China Southern Airlines Co.
    600029,
    +0.13%
    and China Eastern Airlines Corp.
    600115,
    +1.14%    ,
    added between 2.2% and 5.1%, while travel retailer China Tourism Group Duty Free Corp.
    601888,
    +3.65%
    climbed 7.1%.

    Broader consumer-related sectors also strengthened, amid hopes that less stringent rules could help revive consumption. E-commerce platforms Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
    BABA,
    +7.60%

    9988,
    +11.51%
    and JD.com Inc.
    JD,
    +8.41%

    9618,
    +16.22%
    jumped 11% and 16%, respectively, while restaurant operator Haidilao International Holding Ltd.
    6862,
    +5.21%
    climbed 4.7%.

    China said Friday that it will shorten the quarantine period for close contacts of COVID cases and travelers to the country, among other policy tweaks. But the government also said it will stick to its zero-COVID policy.

    Friday’s market upturn came on the back of U.S. stocks’ biggest rally in two years, after October inflation data was weaker than expected, lifting expectations of less aggressive interest-rate increases by the Federal Reserve.

    Write to Clarence Leong at clarence.leong@wsj.com

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  • WHO says 90% decline in COVID deaths since Feb. is ’cause for optimism,’ while urging vigilance against new variants

    WHO says 90% decline in COVID deaths since Feb. is ’cause for optimism,’ while urging vigilance against new variants

    [ad_1]

    The head of the World Health Organization said a close to 90% decline in COVID deaths globally compared to nine months ago is “cause for optimism,” but urged leaders to remain vigilant as new variants continue to emerge.

    Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters on Wednesday that there were just 9,400 COVID deaths last week, compared with more than 75,000 in February, the Associated Press reported. 

    “Almost 10,000 deaths a week is 10,000 too many for a disease that can be prevented and treated,” he said.

    Testing and sequencing rates remain low globally, vaccination gaps between rich and poor countries are still wide, and new variants continue to proliferate.

    In its weekly epidemiological update, the agency said the global tally of cases fell 15% in the week through Nov. 6 from the previous week with over 2.1 million new cases counted.

    The highest number of new cases was reported from Japan, at 401,693, followed by Korea at 299,440 and the U.S. at 266,104. The agency again cautioned that the numbers may be undercounted, given the changes in testing strategies and overall surveillance in many countries, including the U.S.

    As for new variants, the update found BA.5, an omicron subvariant, remained dominant globally, accounting for 74.5% of sequences submitted to a central database. But newer ones, including BQ.1 and XBB, are on the rise.

    BQ.1 sequences rose to 13.4% of the total from 9.4% a week ago. XBB rose to 2.0% from 1.1%. The WHO is still closely monitoring newer sublineages but called on countries to also track them closely.

    In the U.S., known cases of COVID are climbing again for the first time in a few months. The daily average for new cases stood at 40,189 on Wednesday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 7% versus two weeks ago.

    Cases are rising extremely sharply in some states, led by Nevada, where they are up 96% from two weeks ago. New Mexico’s case tally has climbed 64% from two weeks ago and Utah is up 61%. Overall, cases are rising in 32 states and are flat in Delaware. They are also rising in Washington, D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

    The daily average for hospitalizations was up 3% at 28,003, while the daily average for deaths is down 13% to 316.

    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 new top leadership body reaffirmed Beijing’s “dynamic-zero” COVID-19 policy on Thursday, as case numbers rose and authorities in the city of Guangzhou urged residents to work from home but stopped short of a citywide lockdown, Reuters reported. In its first meeting since being formed last month after the ruling Communist Party’s twice-a-decade congress, the Politburo Standing Committee said China’s epidemic prevention measures must not be relaxed, according to state media.

    • AstraZeneca PLC on Thursday lifted its guidance for the full year after reporting a swing to net profit and higher sales for the third quarter of the year, which both beat consensus expectations, Dow Jones Newswires reported. The Anglo-Swedish drug company dropped its submission for U.S. regulatory approval for its COVID vaccine, saying it has decided to focus instead on areas with greater unmet medical needs. The vaccine was initially approved in the U.K. and Europe about two years ago. CEO Pascal Soriot said the submission in the U.S. was becoming “very complicated and very large,” as it had to gather data from around the world.

    • Pfizer
    PFE,
    +1.41%
    and German partner BioNTech
    BNTX,
    -1.67%
    said Thursday that their booster dose of the omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent COVID vaccine for 5-to-11 year olds was recommended for marketing authorization in the European Union. The EU will review the recommendation from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP), and is expected to make a decision “soon.” The companies’ bivalent booster is already authorized in the EU for people at least 12 years old.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 633.9 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.60 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 97.9 million cases and 1,073,934 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 227.3 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.5% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

    So far, just 26.3 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 8.4% of the overall population.

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  • In a first, doctors treat fatal genetic disease before birth

    In a first, doctors treat fatal genetic disease before birth

    [ad_1]

    A toddler is thriving after doctors in the U.S. and Canada used a novel technique to treat her before she was born for a rare genetic disease that caused the deaths of two of her sisters.

    Ayla Bashir, a 16-month-old from Ottawa, Ontario, is the first child treated as fetus for Pompe disease, an inherited and often fatal disorder in which the body fails to make some or all of a crucial protein.

    Today, she’s an active, happy girl who has met her developmental milestones, according to her father, Zahid Bashir and mother, Sobia Qureshi.

    “She’s just a regular little 1½-year-old who keeps us on our toes,” Bashir said. The couple previously lost two daughters, Zara, 2½, and Sara, 8 months, to the disease. A third pregnancy was terminated because of the disorder.

    In a case study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors describe an international collaboration during the COVID-19 pandemic that led to the treatment that may have saved Ayla’s life – and expanded the field of potential fetal therapies. The outlook for Ayla is promising but uncertain.

    “It holds a glimmer of hope for being able to treat them in utero instead of waiting until damage is already well-established,” said Dr. Karen Fung-Kee-Fung, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at The Ottawa Hospital who gave the treatment and delivered Ayla.

    Fung-Kee-Fung was following a new treatment plan developed by Dr. Tippi MacKenzie, a pediatric surgeon and co-director of the Center for Maternal-Fetal Precision Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who shared her research after the pandemic prevented Ayla’s mother from traveling for care.

    “We were all motivated to make this happen for this family,” MacKenzie said.

    Doctors have treated fetuses before birth for three decades, often with surgeries to repair birth defects such as spina bifida. And they’ve given blood transfusions to fetuses through the umbilical cord, but not medicines. In this case, the crucial enzymes were delivered through a needle inserted through the mother’s abdomen and guided into a vein in the umbilical cord. Ayla received six biweekly infusions that started at about 24 weeks of gestation.

    “The innovation here wasn’t the drug and it wasn’t accessing the fetal circulation,” said Dr. Pranesh Chakraborty, a metabolic geneticist at Childrens Hospital of Eastern Ontario, who has cared for Ayla’s family for years. “The innovation was treating earlier and treating while still in utero.”

    The unusual partnership also involved experts at Duke University in Durham, N.C., which has led research on Pompe disease, and University of Washington in Seattle.

    Babies with Pompe disease are often treated soon after birth with replacement enzymes to slow devastating effects of the condition, which affects fewer than 1 in 100,000 newborns. It is caused by mutations in a gene that makes an enzyme that breaks down glycogen, or stored sugar, in cells. When that enzyme is reduced or eliminated, glycogen builds up dangerously throughout the body.

    In addition, the most severely affected babies, including Ayla, have an immune condition in which their bodies block the infused enzymes, eventually stopping the therapy from working. The hope is that Ayla’s early treatment will reduce the severity of that immune response.

    Babies with Pompe disease have trouble feeding, muscle weakness, floppiness and, often, grossly enlarged hearts. Untreated, most die from heart or breathing problems in the first year of life.

    In late 2020, Bashir and Qureshi had learned they were expecting Ayla and that prenatal tests showed she, too, had Pompe disease.

    “It was very, very scary,” recalled Qureshi. In addition to the girls who died, the couple have a son, Hamza, 13, and a daughter, Maha, 5, who are not affected.

    Both parents carry a recessive gene for Pompe disease, which means there’s a 1 in 4 chance that a baby will inherit the condition. Bashir said their decision to proceed with additional pregnancies was guided by their Muslim faith.

    “We believe that what will come our way is part of what’s meant or destined for us,” he said. They have no plans for more children, they said.

    Chakraborty had learned of MacKenzie’s early stage trial to test the enzyme therapy and thought early treatment might be a solution for the family.

    The treatment could be “potentially very significant,” said Dr. Brendan Lanpher, a medical geneticist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who was not involved in the research.

    “This is a progressive disease that builds up over time, so every day a fetus or baby has it, they’re accumulating more of the material that affects muscle cells.”

    Still, it’s too early to know whether the protocol will become accepted treatment, said Dr. Christina Lam, interim medical director of biochemical genetics at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital in Seattle.

    “It’s going to take some time to really be able to establish the evidence to definitively show that the outcomes are better,” she said.

    Ayla receives drugs to suppress her immune system and weekly enzyme infusions that take five to six hours — a growing challenge for a wiggly toddler, her mother said. Unless a new treatment emerges, Ayla can expect to continue the infusions for life. She is developing normally — for now. Her parents say every milestone, such as when she started to crawl, is especially precious.

    “It’s surreal. It amazes us every time,” Qureshi said. “We’re so blessed. We’ve been very, very blessed.”

    ———

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

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  • In a first, doctors treat fatal genetic disease before birth

    In a first, doctors treat fatal genetic disease before birth

    [ad_1]

    A toddler is thriving after doctors in the U.S. and Canada used a novel technique to treat her before she was born for a rare genetic disease that caused the deaths of two of her sisters.

    Ayla Bashir, a 16-month-old from Ottawa, Ontario, is the first child treated as fetus for Pompe disease, an inherited and often fatal disorder in which the body fails to make some or all of a crucial protein.

    Today, she’s an active, happy girl who has met her developmental milestones, according to her father, Zahid Bashir and mother, Sobia Qureshi.

    “She’s just a regular little one-and-a-half year old who keeps us on our toes,” Bashir said. The couple previously lost two daughters, Zara, 2 ½, and Sara, 8 months, to the disease. A third pregnancy was terminated because of the disorder.

    In a case study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors describe an international collaboration during the COVID-19 pandemic that led to the treatment that may have saved Ayla’s life – and expanded the field of potential fetal therapies. The outlook for Ayla is promising but uncertain.

    “It holds a glimmer of hope for being able to treat them in utero instead of waiting until damage is already well-established,” said Dr. Karen Fung-Kee-Fung, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at The Ottawa Hospital who gave the treatment and delivered Ayla.

    Fung-Kee-Fung was following a new treatment plan developed by Dr. Tippi MacKenzie, a pediatric surgeon and co-director of the Center for Maternal-Fetal Precision Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who shared her research after the pandemic prevented Ayla’s mother from traveling for care.

    “We were all motivated to make this happen for this family,” MacKenzie said.

    Doctors have treated fetuses before birth for three decades, often with surgeries to repair birth defects such as spina bifida. And they’ve given blood transfusions to fetuses through the umbilical cord, but not medicines. In this case, the crucial enzymes were delivered through a needle inserted through the mother’s abdomen and guided into a vein in the umbilical cord. Ayla received six biweekly infusions that started at about 24 weeks of gestation.

    “The innovation here wasn’t the drug and it wasn’t accessing the fetal circulation,” said Dr. Pranesh Chakraborty, a metabolic geneticist at Childrens Hospital of Eastern Ontario, who has cared for Ayla’s family for years. “The innovation was treating earlier and treating while still in utero.”

    The unusual partnership also involved experts at Duke University in Durham, N.C., which has led research on Pompe disease, and University of Washington in Seattle.

    Babies with Pompe disease are often treated soon after birth with replacement enzymes to slow devastating effects of the condition, which affects fewer than 1 in 100,000 newborns. It is caused by mutations in a gene that makes an enzyme that breaks down glycogen, or stored sugar, in cells. When that enzyme is reduced or eliminated, glycogen builds up dangerously throughout the body.

    In addition, the most severely affected babies, including Ayla, have an immune condition in which their bodies block the infused enzymes, eventually stopping the therapy from working. The hope is that Ayla’s early treatment will reduce the severity of that immune response.

    Babies with Pompe disease have trouble feeding, muscle weakness, floppiness and, often, grossly enlarged hearts. Untreated, most die from heart or breathing problems in the first year of life.

    In late 2020, Bashir and Qureshi had learned they were expecting Ayla and that prenatal tests showed she, too, had Pompe disease.

    “It was very, very scary,” recalled Qureshi. In addition to the girls who died, the couple have a son, Hamza, 13, and a daughter, Maha, 5, who are not affected.

    Both parents carry a recessive gene for Pompe disease, which means there’s a 1 in 4 chance that a baby will inherit the condition. Bashir said their decision to proceed with additional pregnancies was guided by their Muslim faith.

    “We believe that what will come our way is part of what’s meant or destined for us,” he said. They have no plans for more children, they said.

    Chakraborty had learned of MacKenzie’s early stage trial to test the enzyme therapy and thought early treatment might be a solution for the family.

    The treatment could be “potentially very significant,” said Dr. Brendan Lanpher, a medical geneticist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who was not involved in the research.

    “This is a progressive disease that builds up over time, so every day a fetus or baby has it, they’re accumulating more of the material that affects muscle cells.”

    Still, it’s too early to know whether the protocol will become accepted treatment, said Dr. Christina Lam, interim medical director of biochemical genetics at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital in Seattle.

    “It’s going to take some time to really be able to establish the evidence to definitively show that the outcomes are better,” she said.

    Ayla receives drugs to suppress her immune system and weekly enzyme infusions that take five to six hours — a growing challenge for a wiggly toddler, her mother said. Unless a new treatment emerges, Ayla can expect to continue the infusions for life. She is developing normally — for now. Her parents say every milestone, such as when she started to crawl, is especially precious.

    “It’s surreal. It amazes us every time,” Qureshi said. “We’re so blessed. We’ve been very, very blessed.”

    ———

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

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  • Manufacturing hub Guangzhou is latest Chinese city to face lockdowns as COVID cases rise

    Manufacturing hub Guangzhou is latest Chinese city to face lockdowns as COVID cases rise

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    The southern Chinese manufacturing hub of Guangzhou is the latest to see lockdowns amid a surge in COVID-19 cases, as the government presses ahead with the strict zero-COVID policy that has frustrated citizens.

    The latest lockdowns have further disrupted global supply chains and sharply slowed growth in the world’s second-largest economy, as the Associated Press reported.

    Residents in districts encompassing almost 5 million people have been ordered to stay home at least through Sunday, with one member of each family allowed out once a day to purchase necessities, local authorities said Wednesday.

    The order came after the densely populated city of 13 million reported more than 2,500 new cases over the previous 24 hours.

    China has retained its strict zero-COVID policy despite relatively low case numbers and no new deaths. The country’s borders remain largely closed, and internal travel and trade is complicated by ever-changing quarantine regulations.

    Apple
    AAPL,
    -3.32%
    and iPhone manufacturer Foxconn
    2317,
    -1.95%
    said over the weekend that restrictions are crimping production and will delay shipments of the high-end iPhone 14.

    For more, read: All eyes on China as Apple and Foxconn outline zero-COVID issues. Meanwhile, cases are rising again in the U.S.

    In the U.S., known cases of COVID are climbing again for the first time in a few months. The daily average for new cases stood at 39,578 on Tuesday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 5% versus two weeks ago.

    As always, the increase in cases is not uniform across the nation. Some states are seeing sharp spikes, led by Nevada, where cases are up 96% from two weeks ago. Tennessee is second with cases up 69%, followed by Louisiana with cases up 68%, New Mexico, where they are up 62%, and Utah, where they have climbed 61%.

    Cases are up by a double-digit percentage in 22 states.

    The daily average for hospitalizations was up 3% to 27,713, while the daily average for deaths was down 14% to 308.

    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:

    • Novavax Inc.
    NVAX,
    -5.19%
    on Tuesday tweaked its full-year sales outlook to the low end of its expected range and reported a surprise quarterly loss, but sales for the COVID-19 vaccine maker were far better than expected. The company reported a net loss of $168.6 million, or $2.15 a share, compared with a loss of $322.4 million, or $4.31 a share, in the same quarter a year ago. Sales were $735 million, compared with $178.8 million in the prior-year quarter. Analysts polled by FactSet expected Novavax to earn $1.57 a share on revenue of $586 million.

    • A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee said this week that Veru Inc.’s
    VERU,
    +3.95%
    COVID treatment Sabizabulin demonstrated a clear clinical benefit with a favorable benefit-to-risk profile. Veru is seeking emergency-use authorization for treatment of hospitalized COVID-19 patients at high risk for acute respiratory distress syndrome.

    • A Massachusetts man who admitted to lying on his application for federal coronavirus business stimulus funds and using some of the $400,000 he received to pay his mortgage has been sentenced to 15 months in prison, federal prosecutors said, as the AP reported. In addition to the time behind bars, Adley Bernadin, 44, of Stoughton, was sentenced last week to three years of supervised release and ordered to forfeit more than $280,000, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 633.5 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.60 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 97.8 million cases and 1,072,943 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 227.3 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.5% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

    So far, just 26.3 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 8.4% of the overall population.

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  • All eyes on China as Apple and Foxconn outline zero-COVID issues. Meanwhile, cases are rising again in the U.S.

    All eyes on China as Apple and Foxconn outline zero-COVID issues. Meanwhile, cases are rising again in the U.S.

    [ad_1]

    China’s strict zero-COVID policy was making headlines Monday after Apple and iPhone manufacturer Foxconn said over the weekend that restrictions are crimping production and will delay shipments of the high-end iPhone 14.

    “We continue to see strong demand for iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max models,” Apple
    AAPL,
    -0.82%
    announced in a Sunday evening press release. “However, we now expect lower iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max shipments than we previously anticipated and customers will experience longer wait times to receive their new products.” 

    Also read: Will Apple’s latest production issues destroy demand?

    Foxconn, meanwhile, which trades as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.
    2317,
    -0.50%    ,
    lowered its fourth-quarter guidance and said anti-COVID measures were affecting some of its operations in Zhengzhou, China, as Dow Jones Newswires reported.

    Foxconn said that the Henan provincial government had made it clear that it would fully support the company. Foxconn’s most advanced iPhone plant, located in the provincial capital of Zhengzhou, has been battling a COVID outbreak.

    Foxconn said it is working with the government to halt the outbreak and resume production at full capacity as quickly as possible.

    Workers at the world’s biggest assembly site for Apple’s iPhones walked out last week as Foxconn struggled to contain a COVID-19 outbreak. The chaos highlighted the tension between Beijing’s rigid pandemic controls and the need to keep production on track. Photo: Hangpai Xinyang/Associated Press

    Investors have been closely watching China for signs that its government would start to lift the tough pandemic restrictions that have been in place for almost three years. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the country’s leaders are considering steps but have not yet set a timeline.

    Chinese  officials have become concerned about the costs of their zero-tolerance approach to COVID, which has resulted in lockdowns of cities and whole provinces, crushing business activity and confining hundreds of millions of people to their homes for weeks and sometimes months on end.

    But they are weighing those concerns against the potential costs of reopening on public health and on support for the Communist Party. On Saturday, officials from China’s National Health Commission again reaffirmed their commitment to a firm zero-COVID strategy, which they described as essential to “protect people’s lives.”

    Still, there are plans in Beijing to further cut the number of days incoming travelers must quarantine in hotels from 10 to seven, followed by three days of home monitoring, the paper reported, citing people involved in the discussions.

    And officials have told retail businesses that they intend to reduce the frequency of PCR testing as soon as this month, partly because of the cost.

    In the U.S., known cases of COVID and hospitalizations are climbing again for the first time in a few months.

    The daily average for new cases stood at 39,954 on Sunday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 6% compared with two weeks ago. But cases are sharply higher in several states, led by Nevada, where they are up 96% from two weeks ago, followed by Tennessee, where they are up 69%; Louisiana, where they are up 68%; Utah, where they have climbed 61%; and New Mexico, where they are up 56%.

    Cases are climbing in 30 states and in Washington, D.C.

    The daily average for hospitalizations was up 2% to 27,419, while the daily average for deaths was down 11% to 320.

    Physicians are reporting high numbers of respiratory illnesses like RSV and the flu earlier than the typical winter peak. WSJ’s Brianna Abbott explains what the early surge means for the winter months. Photo illustration: Kaitlyn Wang

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 variants accounted for 35.3% of new cases in the week through Nov. 5, up from 27.1% a week ago.

    The two variants accounted for 52.3% of all cases in the New York region, which includes New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, up from 42.5% the previous week. That was more than the BA.5 omicron subvariant, which accounted for 24.9% of new cases in the New York area in the latest week.

    The BA.5 omicron subvariant accounted for 39.2% of all U.S. cases, the data show.

    BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 were still lumped in with BA.5 variant data as recently as three weeks ago, because at that time, their numbers were too small to break out. BQ.1 was first identified by researchers in early September and has been found in the U.K. and Germany, among other places. 

    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:

    • BioNTEch SE
    BNTX,
    +2.84%    ,
    the German biotech that has partnered with Pfizer
    PFE,
    -0.53%
    on a COVID vaccine, posted earnings early Monday, showing a roughly 50% drop in profit that sent its stock lower, despite beating consensus estimates. The Mainz-based company said it had invoiced about 300 million doses of its bivalent vaccine, which targets the omicron variant as well as the original virus. The company chalked up €564.5 million ($563.9 million) in direct COVID vaccine sales in the quarter, down from €1.351 billion a year ago. BioNTech raised the lower end of its full-year COVID vaccine revenue range to €16 billion to €17 billion, from a previous €13 billion to €17 billion.

    • Thousands of runners took to the streets of the Chinese capital on Sunday for the return of Beijing’s annual marathon after a two-year hiatus, the Associated Press reported. However, the good news was offset by anger about another death related to COVID restrictions, this time of a 55-year-old woman in a sealed building. An investigation report released Sunday in Hohhot, the capital of China’s Inner Mongolia region, blamed property management and community staff for not acting quickly enough to prevent the death of the woman after being told she had suicidal tendencies.

    • The U.S. flu season is off to an unusually fast start, contributing to an autumn mix of viruses that have patients filling hospitals’ and physicians’ waiting rooms, the AP reported separately. Reports of flu are already high in 17 states, and the hospitalization rate hasn’t been this high this early since the 2009 swine flu pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So far, there have been an estimated 730 flu deaths, including at least two children. The winter flu season usually ramps up in December or January.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 632.6 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.60 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 97.7 million cases and 1,072,598 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 227.3 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.5% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

    So far, just 26.3 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 8.4% of the overall population.

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  • Apple warns that iPhone 14 Pro shipments will be hit by China production snags

    Apple warns that iPhone 14 Pro shipments will be hit by China production snags

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    Apple Inc. said Sunday that it now expects lower shipments of its high-end iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max devices than it did previously, as COVID-19 issues hamper production in China.

    “We continue to see strong demand for iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max models,” the company announced in a Sunday evening press release. “However, we now expect lower iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max shipments than we previously anticipated and customers will experience longer wait times to receive their new products.”

    Apple
    AAPL,
    -0.19%
    acknowledged in its release that COVID-19 issues have “temporarily impacted” production of the devices at the Zhengzhou site that is the “primary” assembly facility for the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. That facility is currently seeing “significantly reduced” operating capacity.

    “We are working closely with our supplier to return to normal production levels while ensuring the health and safety of every worker,” the company added in the release.

    Analysts have been discussing iPhone production disruption at manufacturer Foxconn’s
    2354,
    +1.31%
    Zhengzhou facility for the past week amid fallout from COVID-19 restrictions in the city.

    “Although Apple earnings were only a week ago, supply shortages at the high end of the market and recent COVID lockdowns in China impacting a Foxconn plant could negatively impact iPhone units in the December quarter,” UBS analyst David Vogt wrote Wednesday, ahead of Apple’s press release. “While we believe iPhone demand tends to not be perishable, a slippage of a couple of million units is possible below our 86 million forecast.”

    While Apple was the only Big Tech company to see its shares rally in the wake of its late-October earnings report, shares have struggled more since then. They logged their worst weekly performance since March 2020 last week.

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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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  • China aiming for less disruptive COVID policies, reports say

    China aiming for less disruptive COVID policies, reports say

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    Chinese officials are trying to quell an outcry over the death of a 3-year-old boy from a quarantined residential compound that added to public anger at anti-virus controls that have confined millions of people to their homes.

    The boy died at a hospital in Lanzhou of carbon monoxide poisoning blamed on a gas leak. His father accused health workers who were enforcing the closure of the compound of refusing to help and trying to stop him as he rushed his son to the hospital.

    The father’s account on social media prompted angry comments about the human cost of the ruling Communist Party’s “Zero COVID” strategy that has confined families to cramped apartments for weeks at a time to fight outbreaks.

    The quarantine system “is to protect life and health, not to confront those who need to be rescued with obstacles!” said a post on the popular Sina Weibo social media service.

    The ruling party is sticking to “Zero COVID” at a time when other governments are easing anti-virus controls. That has kept China’s infection numbers relatively low but disrupts business and travel.

    Residents of many parts of the Xinjiang region in the northwest were barred from leaving their homes in August and September. People in Urumqi and other cities who said they had run out of food and medicine posted appeals for help on social media.

    Public frustration has boiled over into fights with police and health workers in some places.

    The Lanzhou city government expressed “deep sorrow and regret” for the boy’s death in a statement and blamed “weak emergency response.” It said public employees who were found to have responded poorly would be “dealt with seriously.”

    The boy’s father said he tried to call an ambulance after his son collapsed Monday after a possible gas leak at home. The father wrote that he asked health workers at the compound gate for help but they told him to ask someone else and asked him to show a negative virus test. The father wrote that he wound up taking his son by taxi to a hospital, where doctors failed to revive him.

    A city government statement on its social media account said investigators found an employee at a neighborhood checkpoint told the father to call the emergency number when he asked for help.

    Lanzhou Mayor Zhang Weiwen visited the neighborhood Thursday and promised to “open up the ‘last mile’ for the masses to seek medical treatment,” the government newspaper Lanzhou Daily reported.

    The government promised to “deeply learn from the painful lessons of this accident,” the newspaper said.

    The public, companies and foreign investors are watching for signs the ruling party might ease restrictions that are weighing on the economy and make travel into and out of China cumbersome.

    The ruling party newspaper People’s Daily tried last month to dispel hopes for a quick easing, saying “Zero COVID” was working and citing health experts who said it had to stay in place.

    Despite that, stock prices of Chinese companies jumped in Hong Kong on Tuesday after a rumor circulated on social media that a “reopening committee” might be created to look at easing restrictions. Prices fell after the government failed to confirm the rumor.

    See: Alibaba, JD.com, Nio extend rally in Chinese stocks amid continued hope for relaxing COVID rules

    On Friday, share prices in Hong Kong jumped again after an official newspaper said the health ministry wants to make anti-virus measures less costly and a city with the world’s biggest iPhone factory promised to ease restrictions.

    Health experts and economists say “Zero COVID” is likely to stay in place possibly through most of 2023, due partly to the need to vaccinate millions of elderly people before Beijing can consider relaxing requirements that people who come into China must be quarantined for a week or more.

    See also: BioNTech stock surges toward 3-month high after report China agrees to approve its COVID vaccine for foreigners

    This week, access to an industrial zone in the central city of Zhengzhou that is home to the biggest factory assembling Apple Inc.’s iPhones was suspended following infections.

    The National Health Commission said this week the country needs to control outbreaks “with the minimum scale affected and the shortest time and lowest cost possible,” according to the Global Times, published by the ruling party newspaper People’s Daily.

    That is meant to “correct mistakes from overly strict measures that have caused damage to people’s properties and lives,” the Global Times reported late Thursday.
    Among other changes, train passengers bound for Beijing from the southern region of Guangxi, near Hong Kong, no longer need to submit nucleic test results, the newspaper said.

    The ruling party responded to complaints about the high cost of “Zero COVID” by switching earlier this year to a strategy that isolates buildings or neighborhoods instead of entire cities after cases found.

    Still, after outbreaks in Shanghai in March, most of the city’s 25 million people were confined to their homes for two months. More recently, families have been confined at home for weeks at a time following outbreaks.

    On Monday, visitors to Shanghai Disneyland were temporarily blocked from leaving the park as part of virus testing the city said extended to some 439,000 people. The city health agency said the guests all tested negative.

    In Zhengzhou, a city of 12.5 million people in Henan province, authorities said Thursday restrictions were being eased while the government tries to spot and isolate new cases.

    On Wednesday, access to an industrial zone adjacent to the Zhengzhou airport was suspended for one week following outbreaks.

    Thousands of employees who assemble Apple’s iPhone 14 at a factory there operated by Foxconn Technology Group left last month following complaints coworkers who fell ill didn’t receive medical help. The company later said it had imposed “closed loop management,” an official term for employees living at their workplaces and having no outside contact.

    Foxconn said the Zhengzhou factory was operating but the company and Apple haven’t responded to questions about how production and shipments might be affected.

    Authorities are focused on “restoring order to production and life” and will “strive to end this round of the epidemic as soon as possible,” said the Zhengzhou city government’s deputy secretary-general, Li Huifang, at a news conference, according to The Paper, a Shanghai news outlet.

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  • Weekly tally of COVID cases and deaths continues to fall; Moderna lowers vaccine-sales outlook by as much as $3 billion

    Weekly tally of COVID cases and deaths continues to fall; Moderna lowers vaccine-sales outlook by as much as $3 billion

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    The global tally of COVID-19 cases fell 17% in the week through Oct. 30 from the previous week, while the death toll fell 5%, the World Health Organization said in its weekly update on the virus.

    The omicron variant BA.5 remained dominant globally, accounting for 74.9% of cases sent to a central database. WHO reiterated that newer sublineages of omicron, including BQ.1 and XBB, still appear no more lethal than earlier ones and do not warrant the designation of “variant of concern.”

    But BQ.1 rose in prevalence to 9.0% globally from 5.7% a week ago, while XBB rose to 1.5% from 1.0%.

    “WHO will continue to closely monitor the XBB and BQ.1 lineages as part of omicron and requests countries to continue to be vigilant, to monitor and report sequences, as well as to conduct independent and comparative
    analyses of the different omicron sublineages,” the agency wrote.

    WHO has cautioned that changes in testing and reduced surveillance of the virus are making some of the numbers unreliable and has urged leaders to renew efforts to monitor and track developments.

    In the U.S., known cases of COVID remain 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 39,090 on Wednesday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 3% versus two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations was up 2% to 27,161, while the daily average for deaths was down 6% to 345. 

    But cases are climbing in some states, raising concerns among health experts. In Nevada, cases are up 92% from two weeks ago, followed by Missouri, where they are up 75%, Tennessee, where they are up 69%, Louisiana, where they are up 68%, and New Mexico, where they have climbed 54%.

    Physicians are reporting high numbers of respiratory illnesses like RSV and the flu earlier than the typical winter peak. WSJ’s Brianna Abbott explains what the early surge means for the coming winter months. Photo illustration: Kaitlyn Wang

    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:

    • COVID vaccine maker Moderna
    MRNA,
    -2.21%
    posted far weaker-than-expected third-quarter earnings on Thursday and lowered full-year sales guidance by up to $3 billion. The Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech firm said advance purchase agreements, or APAs, for delivery this year are now expected to total $18 billion to $19 billion of product sales, down from guidance of $21 billion that it provided when it reported second-quarter earnings. The FactSet consensus is for full-year sales of $21.3 billion. For fiscal 2023, Moderna has APAs of $4.5 billion to $5.5 billion. The FactSet consensus for 2023 sales is for $9.4 billion.

    • Virax Biolabs Group Ltd.
    VRAX,
    +36.26%
    stock jumped after the biotechnology company said its triple-virus antigen rapid test kit, which tests for RSV, influenza and COVID, has been launched in the European Union, Dow Jones Newswires reported. The test kit, which can be used in both at-home and point-of-care settings, has also been launched in other markets that accept the CE mark, Virax Biolabs said.

    Testing sewage to track viruses has drawn renewed interest after recent outbreaks of diseases like monkeypox and polio. WSJ visited a wastewater facility to find out how the testing works and what it can tell us about public health. Photo illustration: Ryan Trefes

    • Royal Caribbean Group
    RCL,
    +4.11%
    posted its first quarterly profit since the start of the pandemic, but the cruise-line company said it expected a loss for the current quarter, sending its stock lower on Thursday. Load factors were 96% overall and booking volumes were “significantly higher” than in the same period of prepandemic 2019, as the easing of testing and vaccination protocols provided a boost. For the fourth quarter, the company expects adjusted per-share losses of $1.30 to $1.50, compared with the FactSet loss consensus of 71 cents, and projects revenue of “approximately” $2.6 billion, below the FactSet consensus of $2.7 billion. 

    • The death of a 3-year-old boy in northwestern China following a suspected gas leak at a locked-down residential compound has triggered a fresh wave of outrage at the country’s stringent zero-COVID policy, CNN reported. The boy’s father said in a social media post on Wednesday that COVID workers tried to prevent him from leaving their compound in Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province, to seek treatment for his child, resulting in what he believes was a fatal delay. The post was met with an outpouring of public anger and grief, with several related hashtags racking up hundreds of millions of views over the following day on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 631.4 million on Thursday, while the death toll rose above 6.59 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 97.6 million cases and 1,071,582 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 226.9 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.4% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

    So far, just 22.8 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 7.3% of the overall population.

     

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  • Hospitalizations on the rise in New York City as new COVID strains spread rapidly

    Hospitalizations on the rise in New York City as new COVID strains spread rapidly

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    Hospitalizations are rising again in New York City with the spread of new COVID-19 subvariants that are better at evading immunity. Cases of flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, are also increasing.

    State data show about 1,100 patients hospitalized with COVID as of Oct. 24, up from 750 in mid-September, as the New York Times reported. Case numbers have held steady, although with many people testing at home where data are not being collected, those numbers are not reliable.

    Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the omicron sublineages named BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounted for 42.5% of all cases in the New York region in the week through Oct. 29, up from 37% the previous week.

    That was more than the BA.5 omicron subvariant, which accounted for 35.7% of new cases in the New York region in the latest week. The two sublineages were not even registering as recently as three weeks ago, demonstrating just how fast they are spreading.

    Experts are also concerned about a nationwide surge in RSV, which can cause breathing difficulties in small children and older adults and for which there is currently no vaccine.

    There was good news from Pfizer Inc., however, which said Tuesday that data from a late-stage trial of an RSV vaccine had proved effective in preventing severe illness in children up to 6 months old.

    The Phase 3 trial found that the vaccine, given to pregnant mothers, achieved vaccine efficacy of 81.8% in infants from birth through the first 90 days of life. The trial found efficacy of 69.4% through the first 6 months of life.

    Pfizer
    PFE,
    +3.14%
    said it expects to make its first U.S. regulatory application for the vaccine by the end of 2022 and to follow on with other regulatory bodies. It will also submit the results of the trial for peer review in a scientific journal.

    The daily U.S. average for new COVID cases stood at 37,665 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker, which was flat as compared with two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations was up 2% to 27,184, while the daily average for deaths was down 3% to 348. 

    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:

    • Apple 
    AAPL,
    -1.75%
    supplier Foxconn
    2317,

    said Tuesday it has quadrupled bonuses for workers at its Zhengzhou plant in central China as it seeks to quell discontent over COVID restrictions and retain staff at the giant iPhone manufacturing site, Reuters reported. Daily bonuses for employees, who are part of a Foxconn unit responsible for making electronics including smartphones, have been raised to 400 yuan ($55) a day for November from 100 yuan, according to the official WeChat account of Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant. The move comes after workers fled the site over the weekend to avoid COVID curbs after complaining about their treatment and provisions via social media.

    Workers at the world’s biggest assembly site for Apple’s iPhones walked out as Foxconn has struggled to contain a COVID-19 outbreak. The chaos highlights the tension between Beijing’s rigid pandemic controls and the urge to keep production on track. Photo: Hangpai Xinyang/Associated Press

    • The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Hong Kong stocks appeared to be rallying after an anonymous post on Chinese social media suggested that the government may intend to soften pandemic-related restrictions beginning in March. Other outlets also reported on the rumor. American depositary receipts for Chinese companies surged on the news.

    See: Alibaba and Nio among Chinese stocks surging as hopes build about potential reopening

    • Pfizer’s COVID antiviral Paxlovid brought in $7.5 billion in sales in the third quarter of the year, compared with a FactSet consensus of $7.6 billion. The drug company also reiterated guidance for Paxlovid revenues in 2022, saying it still expects $22 billion in sales for the year. The FactSet consensus is $22.5 billion. Pfizer raised its full-year revenue guidance for the company’s Comirnaty COVID vaccine by $2 billion to $34 billion. The guidance includes doses expected to be delivered in fiscal 2022, primarily under contracts signed as of mid-October.

    • AstraZeneca PLC’s
    AZN,
    +1.77%

    AZN,
    +0.90%
    COVID vaccine Vaxzevria has been granted full marketing authorization in the European Union, Dow Jones Newswires reported. The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical giant said Vaxzevria has been shown to be effective against all forms of the virus. Vaxzevria was originally granted conditional marketing authorization due to the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic, it said.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 630.6 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.59 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 97.5 million cases and 1,070,429 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 226.9 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.4% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

    So far, just 22.8 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 7.3% of the overall population.

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  • Pfizer raises 2022 earnings guidance, beats third-quarter expectations

    Pfizer raises 2022 earnings guidance, beats third-quarter expectations

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    Vials containing the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are displayed before being used at a mobile vaccine clinic, in Valparaiso, Chile, January 3, 2022.

    Rodrigo Garrido | Reuters

    Pfizer on Tuesday raised its 2022 earnings guidance after booking a strong third quarter that beat Wall Street expectations.

    Pfizer now expects earnings per share of $6.40 to $6.50 for the year, up from its previous forecast of $6.30 to $6.45. The pharmaceutical company also raised the lower end of its sales guidance and now expects revenues of $99.5 billion to $102 billion for the year.

    Pfizer raised its full year sales guidance for its Covid-19 vaccine to $34 billion this year, up $2 billion from the company’s previous expectations. The company is maintaining its revenue expectations of $22 billion for the antiviral pill Paxlovid.

    Its shares rose by about 4% in premarket trading.

    Here’s how the company performed compared with what Wall Street expected for the third quarter, based on analysts’ average estimates compiled by Refinitiv:

    • Adjusted EPS: $1.78 per share vs. $1.39 expected
    • Revenues: $22.6 billion vs. $21 billion expected

    Pfizer’s sold $4.4 billion of its Covid vaccine worldwide in the quarter, a decrease of 66% compared to the same period last year. It sold $7.5 billion of the Paxlovid treatment during the quarter that ended Sept. 30.

    Pfizer booked net income of $8.6 billion for the third quarter, a 6% increase over the same quarter last year.

    Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla indicated that company is looking beyond the Covid pandemic which has led to record windfalls for the pharmaceutical giant.

    Bourla said in a statement that Pfizer plans to launch 19 new products or new uses for existing drugs in the next 18 months. The company, for example, reported positive clinical trial data Tuesday for its maternal RSV vaccine that protects newborns.

    The RSV vaccine is administered as a single dose to the mother in the late second or third trimester of her pregnancy. Pfizer’s data showed that in the first 90 days of the baby’s life, the vaccine was 81% effective at preventing severe lower respiratory tract illnesses that require hospitalization or assisted breathing.

    This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

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  • S. Korea police admit responsibility for Halloween tragedy

    S. Korea police admit responsibility for Halloween tragedy

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    SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s police chief admitted “a heavy responsibility” for failing to prevent a recent crowd surge that killed more than 150 people during Halloween festivities in Seoul, saying Tuesday that officers didn’t effectively handle earlier emergency calls about the impending disaster.

    The admission came as the South Korean government faces growing public scrutiny over whether the crowd surge Saturday night in Seoul’s Itaewon district, a popular nightlife neighborhood, could have been prevented and who should take the responsibility for the country’s worst disaster in years.

    “I feel a heavy responsibility (for the disaster) as the head of one of related government offices,” Yoon Hee Keun, commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency, told a televised news conference. “Police will do their best to prevent a tragedy like this from happening again.”

    Yoon said an initial investigation has found that there were many urgent calls by citizens notifying authorities about the potential danger of a crowd gathering in Itaewon, but officers who had received those calls didn’t respond to them in a satisfactory manner.

    Yoon said police have subsequently launched an intense internal probe to look deeper into the officers’ handling of the emergency calls and other issues like their on-the-spot response to the crowd surge in Itaewon at that night.

    The disaster — which left at least 156 people dead and 151 others injured — was concentrated in a downhill, narrow alley in Itaewon. Witnesses described people falling on one another, suffering severe breathing difficulties and falling unconscious. They also recalled rescuers and ambulances failed to reach the crammed alleys in time because the entire Itaewon area was extremely packed with slow-moving vehicles and a crowd of partygoers clad in Halloween costumes.

    During a Cabinet council meeting Tuesday, President Yoon Suk Yeol also acknowledged that South Korea lacks research on a crowd management. He called for using drones and other high-tech resources to develop an effective crowd control capability. He said the government will soon hold a meeting with experts to review overall national safety rules.

    The crowd surge is South Korea’s deadliest disaster since the 2014 ferry sinking that killed 304 people and exposed the country’s lax safety rules and regulatory failures. Saturday’s crowd surge has subsequently raised public questions about what South Korea has done to prevent human-made disasters.

    After the Itaewon disaster, police launched a 475-member task force to find its cause.

    Senior police officer Nam Gu-Jun told reporters Monday that officers have obtained videos taken by about 50 security cameras in the area and were analyzing video clips posted on social media. Nam said police have also interviewed more than 40 witnesses and survivors so far.

    Police said they had sent 137 officers to maintain order during Halloween festivities on Saturday, much more than the 34-90 officers mobilized in 2017, 2018 and 2019 before the pandemic. But some observers questioned whether the 137 officers were enough to handle the estimated 100,00 people gathered Saturday in Itaewon.

    Adding more questions about the role of police was the fact that they sent 7,000 officers to another part of Seoul earlier Saturday to monitor dueling protests involving tens of thousands of people. Police also acknowledged that the 137 officers dispatched to Itaewon were primarily assigned to monitor crime, with a particular focus on narcotics use — not the crowd control.

    The death toll could rise as officials said that 29 of the injured were in serious condition. The dead included some 26 foreign nationals from Iran, China, Russia, the United States, Japan and elsewhere.

    President Yoon asked officials to provide the same government support to the bereaved families of the foreign victims as to South Korean dead and injured people. He also thanked many world leaders for sending condolence messages over the disaster.

    The Itaewon area, known for its expat-friendly, cosmopolitan atmosphere, is the country’s hottest spot for Halloween-themed events and parties, with young South Koreans taking part in costume competitions at bars, clubs and restaurants. Saturday’s gathering of the estimated 100,000 people in Itaewon was the biggest Halloween celebration in the area since the pandemic began.

    Halloween festivities in Itaewon have no official organizers. South Korean police said Monday they don’t have any specific procedures for handling incidents such as crowd surges during an event that has no organizers.

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