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Tag: iab-infectious diseases

  • How Big Tech’s pandemic bubble burst | CNN Business

    How Big Tech’s pandemic bubble burst | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    In January 2021, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spoke in lofty terms about how the first year of the pandemic had sparked a staggering shift toward online services, benefiting his company in the process. “What we have witnessed over the past year is the dawn of a second wave of digital transformation sweeping every company and every industry,” he said.

    Two years later, the situation appears much more stark. This week, Microsoft said it planned to lay off 10,000 employees as businesses rethink their pandemic-era digital spending and confront broader economic uncertainty. Microsoft’s customers, Nadella said, are now trying “to do more with less.”

    Microsoft isn’t the only company experiencing such a dramatic reversal. Days later, Google-parent company Alphabet followed suit, saying it plans to cut around 12,000 jobs, amounting to more than 6% of its staff.

    Over the past three months, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Facebook-parent Meta have announced plans to cut more than 50,000 employees from their collective ranks, a stunning reversal from the early days of the pandemic when the tech giants were growing rapidly to meet surging demand from countless households living, shopping and working online. At the time, many tech leaders seemed to expect that growth to continue unabated.

    By September of 2022, Amazon

    (AMZN)     had more than doubled its corporate staff compared to the same month in 2019, hiring more than half a million additional workers and vastly expanding its warehouse footprint. Meta nearly doubled its headcount between March 2020 and September of last year. Microsoft

    (MSFT)     and Google

    (GOOGL GOOGLE)     also hired thousands of additional workers, as did other tech firms like Salesforce

    (CRM)    , Snap

    (SNAP)     and Twitter, all of which have announced layoffs in recent weeks, too.

    But many of those same leaders appear to have misjudged just how much growth spurred by the pandemic would continue once people returned to their offline lives.

    In recent months, higher interest rates, inflation and recession fears causing a pullback in advertising and consumer spending have all weighed on tech companies’ profits and share prices. Wall Street analysts now project single-digit revenue growth during the all-important December quarter for Google, Microsoft and Amazon, and declines for Meta and Apple, when they report earnings in the coming weeks, according to Refinitiv estimates.

    The recent cuts in most cases amount to a relatively small percentage of each company’s overall headcount, essentially erasing the last year of gains for some but leaving them with tens or in some cases hundreds of thousands of remaining workers. But it nonetheless upends the lives of many workers now left to search for new jobs after their employers exit a period of seemingly limitless growth.

    “They went from being on top of the world to having to make some really tough decisions,” said Scott Kessler, global sector lead for technology, media and telecommunications at investment firm Third Bridge. “To see this dramatic reversal of fortunes… it’s not just the magnitude of these moves but the speed that they’ve played out. You’ve seen companies make the wrong strategic decisions at the wrong times.”

    Apple

    (AAPL)     remains an outlier as the one major tech company that has yet to announce layoffs, although the iPhone maker has reportedly instituted a hiring freeze of all areas except research and development. Apple

    (AAPL)     grew its staff by 20% from 2019 through last year, markedly less than some of its peers.

    “They’ve taken a more seemingly thoughtful approach to hiring and overall managing the company,” Kessler said.

    Tech CEOs, from Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg to Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, have blamed themselves for over-hiring early on in the pandemic and misreading how a surge in demand for their products would cool once Covid-19 restrictions eased. Pichai on Friday also took the blame for Alphabet’s cuts, and said he plans to return the company’s focus to its core business and “highest priorities.”

    “The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here,” Pichai said in an email to employees that was posted to the company’s website Friday.

    Notably, however, none of the Big Tech company CEOs now overseeing layoffs appear to have been hit with any change to their compensation or title.

    The tech layoff announcements are likely to continue into the upcoming earnings season, Kessler said, amid ongoing economic warning signs. And even companies that might not yet be feeling the pain may follow their peers’ lead in trimming their workforces.

    “I think there is an element of [some companies saying], ‘We might not see this right now but all these other big companies, these companies that we compete with, that we know, that we respect, are taking these kinds of actions, so maybe we should be thinking and acting accordingly,” Kessler said.

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  • Here are the companies that have laid off employees this year — so far | CNN Business

    Here are the companies that have laid off employees this year — so far | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Just this week, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, Microsoft

    (MSFT)     and Vox Media announced layoffs that will affect more than 22,000 workers.

    Their moves follow on the heels of job cuts earlier this month at Amazon, Goldman Sachs and Salesforce. More companies are expected to do the same as firms that aggressively hired over the last two years slam on the brakes, and in many cases shift into reverse.

    The cutbacks are in sharp contrast to 2022, which had the second-highest level of job gains on record, with 4.5 million. But last year’s job numbers began falling as the year went on, with December’s job report showing the lowest monthly gains in two years.

    The highest level of hiring occurred in 2021, when 6.7 million jobs were added. But that came on the heels of the first year of the pandemic, when the US effectively shut down and 9.3 million jobs were lost.

    The current layoffs are across multiple industries, from media firms to Wall Street, but so far are hitting Big Tech especially hard.

    That’s a contrast from job losses during the pandemic, which saw consumers’ buying habits shifting toward e-commerce and other online services during lockdown. Tech firms went on a hiring spree.

    But now, workers are returning to their offices and in-person shopping is bouncing back. Add in the increasing likelihood of a recession, higher interest rates and tepid demand due to rising prices, and tech businesses are slashing their costs.

    January has been filled with headlines announcing job cuts at company after company. Here is a list of layoffs this month – so far.

    Google

    (GOOGL)    ’s parent said Friday it is laying off 12,000 workers across product areas and regions, or 6% of its workforce. Alphabet added 50,000 workers over the past two years as the pandemic created greater demand for its services. But recent recession fears has advertisers pulling back from its core digital ad business.

    “Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to employees. “To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.”

    The tech behemoth is laying off 10,000 employees, the company said in a securities filing on Wednesday. Globally, Microsoft has 221,000 full-time employees with 122,000 of them based in the US.

    CEO Satya Nadella said during a talk at Davos that “no one can defy gravity” and that Microsoft could not ignore the weaker global economy.

    “We’re living through times of significant change, and as I meet with customers and partners, a few things are clear,” Nadella wrote in a memo. “First, as we saw customers accelerate their digital spend during the pandemic, we’re now seeing them optimize their digital spend to do more with less.”

    The publisher of the news and opinion website Vox, tech website The Verge and New York Magazine, announced Friday that it’s cutting 7% of its staff, or about 130 people.

    “We are experiencing and expect more of the same economic and financial pressures that others in the media and tech industries have encountered,” chief executive Jim Bankoff said in a memo.

    Layoffs are also hitting Wall Street hard. The world’s largest asset manager is eliminating 500 jobs, or less than 3% of its workforce.

    Today’s “unprecedented market environment” is a stark contrast from its attitude over the last three years,, when it increased its staff by about 22%. Its last major round of cutbacks was in 2019.

    The bank will lay off up to 3,200 workers this month amid a slump in global dealmaking activity. More than a third of the cuts are expected to be from the firm’s trading and banking units. Goldman Sachs

    (FADXX)     had almost 50,000 employees at the end of last year’s third quarter.

    The crypto brokerage announced in early January that it’s cutting 950 people – almost one in five employees in its workforce. The move comes just a few months after Coinbase laid off 1,100 people.

    Though Bitcoin had a solid start to the new year, crypto companies were slammed by significant drops in prices of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

    McDonald’s

    (MCD)    , which thrived during the pandemic, is planning on cutting some of its corporate staff, CEO Chris Kempczinski said this month.

    “We will evaluate roles and staffing levels in parts of the organization and there will be difficult discussions and decisions ahead,” Kempszinski said, outlining a plan to “break down internal barriers, grow more innovative and reduce work that doesn’t align with the company’s priorities.”

    The online personalized subscription clothing retailer said it plans to lay off 20% of its salaried staff.

    “We will be losing many talented team members from across the company and I am truly sorry,” Stitch Fix

    (SFIX)     founder and former CEO Katrina Lake wrote in a blog post.

    As the new year began, Amazon

    (AMZN)     said it plans to lay off more than 18,000 employees. Departments from human resources to the company’s Amazon

    (AMZN)     Stores will be affected.

    “Companies that last a long time go through different phases. They’re not in heavy people expansion mode every year,” CEO Andy Jassy said in a memo to employees.

    Amazon boomed during the pandemic, and hired rapidly over the last few years. But demand has cooled as consumers return to their offline lives and battle high prices. Amazon says it has more than 800,000 employees.

    At The New York Times DealBook summit In November, Jassy said he believes Amazon “made the right decision” regarding its rapid infrastructure build out but said its hiring spree is a “lesson for everyone.”

    Even as he spoke, Amazon warehouse workers who helped organize the company’s first-ever US labor union at a Staten Island facility last year were picketing Jassy’s appearance outside the conference venue.

    “We definitely want to take this opportunity to let him know that the workers are waiting and we are ready to negotiate our first contract,” Amazon Labor Union President Chris Smalls said, calling the protest a “welcoming party” for Jassy.

    Salesforce

    (CRM)     will cut about 10% of its workforce from its more than 70,000 employess and reduce its real estate footprint. In a letter to employees, Salesforce

    (CRM)    ’s chair and co-CEO Marc Benioff admitted to adding too much to the company’s headcount early in the pandemic.

    – CNN’s Clare Duffy, Matt Egan, Oliver Darcy, Julia Horowitz, Catherine Thorbecke, Paul R. La Monica, Nathaniel Meyersohn, Parija Kavilanz, Danielle Wiener-Bronner and Hanna Ziady contributed to this report.

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  • Opinion: Women don’t have to die from cervical cancer | CNN

    Opinion: Women don’t have to die from cervical cancer | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: Dr. Eloise Chapman-Davis is director of gynecologic oncology at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and Weill Cornell Medicine. Dr. Denise Howard is chief of obstetrics and gynecology at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital and a vice chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Weill Cornell Medicine. The views expressed in this commentary are their own. Read more opinion on CNN.



    CNN
     — 

    As doctors who specialize in women’s reproductive health, we are on the front lines of a preventable crisis. Imagine treating a woman with advanced cancer who has a five-year survival rate of 17%, knowing that she should have never developed the deadly disease in the first place.

    This is what we are facing with cervical cancer. Yet we have the clinical tools not only to lower but also eliminate nearly all the roughly 14,000 new cases and 4,300 deaths from cervical cancer each year.

    Denise Howard

    We have effective screenings: the traditional Pap smear and the HPV test. If these screening tests are abnormal, additional tests can determine who needs further treatment to prevent the development of cancer. Importantly, we have the HPV vaccine, which protects against high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) types that cause the majority of cervical cancer cases and is nearly 100% effective, according to the National Cancer Institute.

    A report published earlier this month shows the vaccine’s tremendous impact. The US saw a 65% drop in cervical cancer rates from 2012 through 2019 among women ages 20-24, the first to have received the vaccine. The vaccine, combined with screening, could wipe out cervical cancer and make it a disease of the past.

    But the percentage of women overdue for their cervical cancer screening is growing, and, alarmingly, late-stage cases are on the rise.

    We have had the heartbreaking experience of seeing mothers in the prime of life die from this avoidable disease, leaving small children behind — even women who had an abnormal screening but never received follow-up care. It’s devastating to see an otherwise healthy person slowly die from a preventable cancer.

    Simply put, cervical cancer should never occur. This Cervical Cancer Awareness Month, we should commit to making that a reality. Here is what needs to happen.

    Eliminating cervical cancer requires commitment at multiple levels, from public awareness campaigns with culturally appropriate messaging that broadcasts the power of the vaccine and screenings to prevent cancer to resources that ensure all women have easy access to routine health exams.

    Timely screening reminders and systems to prioritize follow-up care are essential. Too many women with abnormal screenings don’t receive their results, reminders or follow-up instructions they understand and, therefore don’t receive the proper treatment. Barriers also include logistical challenges like transportation and language issues. Studies suggest that 13% to 40% of cervical cancer diagnoses result from lack of follow-up among women with an abnormal screening test.

    Gynecology and primary care practices should be vigilant about reaching and monitoring patients with suspicious test findings. Large health systems can leverage the power of the electronic health record to track abnormal tests and ensure these women receive the proper follow-up.

    Pediatricians should encourage parents of children 9 and older to get the HPV vaccine and stress its safety. About 60% of teenagers are up to date on their HPV vaccines, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Physicians not recommending the vaccine and parents’ rising concerns about its safety, despite more than 15 years of evidence that it is safe and effective, have been cited as top reasons why more children aren’t receiving this lifesaving vaccine.

    College campuses should do large-scale, catch-up vaccination outreach. These students are at high risk for contracting HPV, yet only half report having received the full HPV vaccine series. This service should be provided at no cost to students.

    Stark racial disparities also must be addressed. As Black women physicians, we are frustrated that Black women continue to be more likely to die from the disease than any other race, according to the American Cancer Society. The system failures contributing to this tragedy range from Black women receiving less aggressive treatment to barriers around access to affordable routine health care and the high-quality, specialized treatment needed to treat cancer. Everyone deserves access to quality care.

    Older patients should be told that approval of the HPV vaccine has been extended up to age 45 and to discuss with their doctor whether it’s right for them. Insurance providers should cover the cost of the vaccine for these older ages.

    Women should see a gynecologist on a regular basis well into their older years. We see patients with cervical cancer in their 60s and 70s who haven’t been screened in 20 years. Many people stop seeing a gynecologist after childbearing or menopause, but this shouldn’t be the case. Getting quality gynecological exams throughout a woman’s life is critical to preserving it.

    We also need to empower women to be their own advocates through health education. Women should receive their screening result with an explanation of what it means and any next steps clearly delineated. No news after a screening is not good news. In an ideal world, women would see their HPV status as essential information with the power to save their lives.

    Education makes a difference. At NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, we produced a series of easy-to-understand, publicly available videos on cervical cancer and the HPV vaccine. We showed several of the vaccine videos to more than 100 parents in one of our pediatric practices that serves mostly low-income families as part of a pilot study. Their knowledge scores on a questionnaire about the vaccine and HPV that they completed before and after watching the videos increased nearly 80%, and roughly 40% of the unvaccinated children received the HPV vaccine within one month. We aim to expand this effort.

    We have the tools to prevent cervical cancer but fail to use them effectively. It’s unacceptable, and we can no longer ignore the problem. It’s time for a full-scale offensive focused on all fronts to make cervical cancer a disease of the past.

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  • Japan considers downgrading Covid-19 to same level as seasonal flu | CNN

    Japan considers downgrading Covid-19 to same level as seasonal flu | CNN

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    Tokyo
    CNN
     — 

    Japan will consider downgrading Covid-19 to the same category as seasonal influenza this spring, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced Friday.

    Kishida said he had instructed Health Ministry officials to discuss the move and his administration would also review rules on face masks and other pandemic measures.

    “In order to further advance the efforts of ‘living with Corona’ and restore Japan to a state of normalcy, we will transition the various policies and measures to date in phases,” Kishida said.

    While daily Covid-19 cases in Japan have declined in recent weeks, the country still faces around 100,000 new infections a day.

    Covid-19 is categorized as a Class 2 disease, the same status as tuberculosis and avian influenza, according to Japan’s Health Ministry. Officials will now discuss reclassifying it to Class 5 – the lowest rank, which includes seasonal flu.

    Japan fully reopened its borders to overseas visitors last October after more than two years of pandemic restrictions, ending one of the world’s strictest border controls.

    Influenza – or the common flu – and Covid-19 are both contagious respiratory illnesses with simlar symptoms, but they are caused by different viruses and require testing to confirm a diagnosis, the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says on its website.

    According to the CDC, the risk of death or hospitalization from Covid-19 is greatly reduced for most people due to high levels of vaccination and population immunity from previous infections.

    However, the World Health Organization still lists the coronavirus outbreak as a pandemic, and reiterated in its latest update a recommendation for people to wear masks following recent exposure or close contact with Covid-19, and for “anyone in a crowded, enclosed, or poorly ventilated space” to do the same.

    WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on governments last week to continue sharing the sequencing data of the coronavirus, as it remained vital to detect and track the emergence and spread of new variants.

    “It’s understandable that countries cannot maintain the same levels of testing and sequencing they had during the Omicron peak. At the same time, the world cannot close its eyes and hope this virus will go away. It won’t,” he said.

    The news came as South Korea announced it will lift its mask mandate for most indoor areas, with exceptions for public transport and health facilities. The changes will take effect on January 30, South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said Friday.

    The measure will be lifted after the Lunar New Year holiday, when a large number of people are expected to travel, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.

    New Covid-19 cases, severe cases and related deaths are all declining and the country’s medical response capacity remains stable, KDCA added.

    The agency has strongly recommended people wear masks if they have Covid-19 related symptoms, belong to a high-risk group, have been in contact recently with a positive case, or are in a crowded space.

    Masks will still be required on public transport and in health facilities after South Korea eases its indoor mask mandate on January 30, 2023.

    The prime minister said the easing of the mandate could result in a temporary surge of new cases and urged health authorities to stay vigilant.

    South Korea has scrapped most of its pandemic restrictions and eased its outdoor mask mandate in May 2022. It still requires people who test positive to undergo seven days of home isolation.

    The country has also restricted travel from mainland China and implemented testing requirements for people arriving from China, Hong Kong and Macau following Beijing’s easing of Covid restrictions.

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  • Grizzly bears test positive for bird flu in Montana, officials say | CNN

    Grizzly bears test positive for bird flu in Montana, officials say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Three grizzly bears were euthanized in Montana after they became ill and tested positive for the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus, according to the state’s Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks.

    These were the first documented cases of bird flu in a grizzly in Montana and the first nationwide for this outbreak of HPAI, according to Dr. Jennifer Ramsey, the department’s wildlife veterinarian.

    The juvenile bears were in three separate locations in the western part of the state during the fall, the Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks said in a statement.

    The bears “were observed to be in poor condition and exhibited disorientation and partial blindness, among other neurological issues,” the statement said. “They were euthanized due to their sickness and poor condition.”

    Avian influenza – commonly called bird flu – is a naturally occurring virus that spreads quickly in birds. There were documented cases of HPAI in a skunk and a fox in Montana last year, and the virus has been seen in raccoons, black bears and a coyote in other states and countries, according to the Montana agency.

    “The virus is spread from one bird to another,” Dr. Ramsey told CNN via email. “These mammals likely got infected from consuming carcasses of HPAI infected birds.”

    “Fortunately, unlike avian cases, generally small numbers of mammal cases have been reported in North America,” Ramsey said. “For now, we are continuing to test any bears that demonstrate neurologic symptoms or for which a cause of death is unknown.”

    While finding three grizzlies with bird flu in a short period of time may raise concerns, Ramsey said it may well be that there have been more cases that haven’t been detected.

    “When wildlife mortalities occur in such small numbers or individuals, and in species like skunks, foxes and bears that don’t spend a lot of time in situations where they are highly visible to the public, they can be hard to detect,” the wildlife veterinarian said.

    “When you get that first detection you tend to start looking harder, and you’re more likely to find new cases,” she said. “When a large number of birds are found dead on a body of water, it gets noticed and reported… when someone sees a dead skunk, they may think nothing of it and not report it.”

    While it’s unknown just how prevalent the virus is in wild birds, “we know that the virus is active basically across the entire state due to the wide distribution of cases of HPAI mortality in some species of wild birds,” Ramsey said.

    The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in November the country was approaching “a record number of birds affected compared to previous bird flu outbreaks,” with more than 49 million birds in 46 states dying or being killed due to exposure to infected birds.

    Human infections with bird flu are rare but are possible, “usually after close contact with infected birds. The current risk to the general public from bird flu viruses is low,” the CDC says on its website.

    The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks is asking people to report any birds or animals acting “unusual or unexplained cases of sickness and/or death.”

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  • Covid broke supply chains. Now on the mend, can they withstand another shock? | CNN Business

    Covid broke supply chains. Now on the mend, can they withstand another shock? | CNN Business

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    Minneapolis
    CNN
     — 

    The pandemic dislodged the global supply chain, hurling once smoothly running businesses, industries and economies into a state of disarray.

    After almost three years of enduring wild swings and extremes, the system is slowly getting up to speed and into better sync: Ocean freight timelines are on a steady decline, ports are less congested, labor strikes have been narrowly averted, product and worker shortages have eased, prices have fallen, warehouses are full (maybe too full), friendshoring, nearshoring and reshoring efforts have accelerated and China has lifted its “zero Covid” policy.

    “We’ve had a fundamental shift that started about six months ago,” said Timothy Fiore, chair of the Institute for Supply Management. “There are certain components, like integrated circuits [and] microcontrollers, that still are impacting manufacturers’ ability to flow material. But, by and large, the pressure has come off.”

    However, plenty of potential roadblocks still loom large.

    Globally, developments in China and Ukraine remain ongoing question marks, especially if the manufacturing megapower suffers another setback or lockdown, or if conditions worsen with Russia’s war in Europe.

    Domestically, exports have weakened and the state of consumer demand remains a wild card, said Phil Levy, chief economist with freight forwarder and consultancy firm Flexport.

    “I would not describe this as a machine that’s humming along at the moment,” he said. “It’s more getting its bearings and trying to figure out what’s next.”

    Among the potential bottlenecks: Warehousing capacity in certain locales, notably Southern California, is pretty near full, he said. Additionally, the inland distribution network — especially rail and areas where transfers are made from one mode to another — has experienced some challenges, he said.

    The system isn’t yet at a steady state where businesses have a good sense of how long it will take for production, shipping and, ultimately, selling.

    “I don’t think we have that,” Levy said. “There’s still a lot of uncertainty about how long it takes to move stuff. When we see the warehouses piled full, is this because demand is too low? Is it because people moved stuff too early? So there’s a lot of stuff that’s still sorting out.”

    Supply chain activity has yet to normalize, but it’s returning to pre-pandemic trajectories, said Zac Rogers, assistant professor of operations and supply chain management at Colorado State University.

    “There’s a sort of reaction-overreaction pattern that always tends to happen anytime there’s a major disruption,” Rogers said. “And Covid is the major-est disruption we’ve had.”

    Early in the pandemic, businesses canceled orders, believing consumer spending would be crushed. However, trillions of dollars were injected into the economy to try to keep consumers and businesses afloat. Americans, stuck at home with fewer outlets for discretionary spending, turned to e-commerce for their shopping.

    The surge in demand for finished goods at a time when supply was severely limited in part due to pandemic-related labor shortages and shutdowns —notably of cities, factories and manufacturing hubs in China — knocked the global logistics system out of whack.

    Ports grew congested, lead times got lengthy, and costs climbed considerably higher as shortages spiked throughout the supply chain.

    “Everyone way over-ordered, and around February and March of [last] year, everything got here — pretty much right in time for the invasion of Ukraine,” Rogers said.

    Gas prices and inflation soared, putting a huge dent in consumer spending.

    “The challenge for the last 10 months in supply chains has been to try to thread the needle between bringing inventories down to a reasonable level, while also not overreacting, yet again, and [landing] back into a shortage situation,” he said. “We’re getting back toward the trend line in a way that we haven’t in the last few years.”

    Helping that along is that supply chains are far more resilient now than they were at the end of 2019, Rogers said.

    “In 2019, we had basically all of our chips in on one hand, which was, things are built in East Asia, come on a boat through the ports in Southern California, they get on trains that go to Chicago and then on other trains or trucks to distribute to the East Coast,” he said.

    And while it’s nearly impossible to divorce from China, companies are embracing different paths for the supply chain, whether it be in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Central America or domestically, Rogers said.

    “Because of that, supply chains are not as brittle as they were three years ago,” he said. “And so if there is another shock — particularly if there’s a China-centric shock — I think we’ll be able to absorb it a little better than we had. … But you can’t price in something like the invasion of Ukraine or a viral outbreak that shuts down the world — no systems are built to handle that smoothly.”

    Rogers is also a researcher and co-author of the Logistics Managers’ Index, a monthly survey of supply chain executives conducted by a team of university researchers and the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals.

    The index’s December reading — which measures inventory levels and costs; warehousing capacity; utilization and prices; and transportation capacity, utilization and prices — came in at 54.6, a 1-point increase following eight months of declines.

    The majority of the LMI metrics were in the range of 40s, 50s and 60s, Rogers said, noting it’s the first time since the onset of the pandemic that the indices haven’t been in the 70s or 80s.

    The container ship Ever Libra (TW) is moored at the Port of Los Angeles on Monday, Nov. 21, 2022. The supply backlogs of the past two years -- and the delays, shortages and outrageous prices they brought with them -- have improved dramatically since summer.

    “If you’re in 40, that’s contraction, but 50s are normal, healthy rates of growth,” he said. “There could be another huge black swan event in a month that throws everything upside down; but for right now, it seems like respondents are predicting steadiness in the supply chain.”

    If anything, the pandemic’s shock to the supply chain should be a wake-up call, said Jack Buffington, director of supply chain and sustainability at First Key Consulting and assistant professor of supply chain management at the University of Denver.

    “I would categorize it as ‘efficiently broken,’” said Buffington, whose own book about supply chains, “Reinventing the Supply Chain: A 21st Century Covenant with America,” had its release delayed due to supply chain issues.

    “All supply chains really are is supply and demand, and there’s been so much disruption in materials and consumer demand related to labor and inflation and geopolitics,” he said. “Inherently, the foundation of the model is broken in comparison to what the demands are for today. The complexities related to a globalized supply chain, human systems aren’t capable of handling it.”

    He added: “Covid wasn’t the cause of the problems with the supply chain, it was a trigger to show how bad it was,” he said.

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  • Parents are not OK after three years of Covid and a brutal winter of children’s respiratory illness | CNN

    Parents are not OK after three years of Covid and a brutal winter of children’s respiratory illness | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    With children back in school and daycare after the holidays, weary parents fear what illness awaits them next during this brutal respiratory virus season.

    Since October, RSV, a respiratory virus which often is most severe in young children and older adults, hit early and cases started rising quickly. Cases of influenza started rising soon after, all while Covid-19 continued to spread, with new variants surfacing.

    The CDC estimates:

    • At least 24 million illnesses and 16,000 deaths have occurred due to the flu this season;
    • About 15% of the US population lives in a county with a “high” community level of Covid-19;
    • There were about 14 RSV hospitalizations for every 100,000 children under 5 in the latest week of complete data – about eight times higher than the overall hospitalization rate.

    CNN spoke to parents across the country about the challenges this flu season. They described canceling Christmas, missing trips home to see family and pulling their children out of daycare to keep them safe from illness.

    Here are some of their stories, as told in their own words. Their responses have been edited for length and clarity.

    Michaela Riley from Issaquah, Washington

    I am a single mom living in the suburbs of Seattle. I work for one of the major corporations here. On the outside, I look successful. I have senior in my title, I consistently get promotions and recognition. On the inside, I am breaking from stress related to illness, never getting a real vacation and now the inability to pay for my basic needs.

    I had to work through the holidays, and I had my kids. My parents were going to watch them. Then they got norovirus, which also canceled Christmas. Then my daughter’s father got some horrible flu, so my backup plan for Christmas got canceled. We still hadn’t celebrated Christmas until January 7 because everyone was healing.

    I have 4-year-old and 11-year-old daughters. Basically, all November one of us was sick. My kids got RSV and were so sick for 14 days. After that, I got it. I had no vacation time, so I had to work from home with them. It was a very long, trying time.

    As a single parent, I’ve always been focused on keeping all the balls in the air. But now it is so much harder that what I’m actually doing is making decisions on which ball to drop, just to keep myself going.

    I have used every single vacation day on either my children being sick, me being sick or me having to take one mental health day because I was totally overwhelmed since the beginning of quarantine. I was supposed to go camping last year with the family. I got Covid for the fourth time and had to cancel. I’m going a little bonkers.

    The group I work with has been so supportive of me and understanding of my situation. They honestly helped me during the worst times.

    I have this hashtag for 2023: #BeFree23. Instead of focusing on the struggle, I focus on what’s working in my life. I feel better about 2023. I don’t think anything’s going to change, but changing my mindset is the one thing I have control over.

    Jason Hecht holds his baby, Leon, at a hospital just hours before he was intubated.

    Jason Hecht from Ann Arbor, Michigan

    I am a doctor who works in critical care with a wife who works in primary care. Not only are we struggling on the health care worker side with the massive demands of this season but also struggling far more at home.

    The last month or two have probably been the most mentally and emotionally taxing I’ve ever had in my life. We have a 2-year-old and a 3-month-old. It was our youngest who was sick about a month ago and ended up in the ICU on the ventilator with RSV.

    At the time, we had a healthy, thriving 2-month-old without an issue in the world. To see him so quickly knocked down and be to the point of almost dying in the intensive care unit was very sobering for my wife and I. Seeing your baby that sick – that part alone has been very emotionally draining.

    I was all too aware of how severe his illness was. It was difficult to play the role of father, husband and caretaker because the pull was so strong to go into health care provider mode.

    We had to completely upend our life, pull both kids out of daycare. We’re still struggling to find a reliable source of child care that’s going to be safe for both of them, including our now vulnerable son. We’re still paying for both kids’ daycare spots, even though they aren’t going, because daycare waitlists are so long. As parents and health care workers, we are not coping well.

    We’ve used six or seven weeks of PTO total so far since this happened in November. This was difficult, too, with my wife coming off maternity leave. Her maternity leave has been mostly unpaid, so that was already three months we were going without her paycheck. I don’t have any paternity leave.

    I am very passionate about what I do, and I love being able to help people when they’re at their worst in the ICU. It’s been difficult to have to put all that aside to prioritize only being a parent right now.

    Adriana from Warwick, Rhode Island (She asked that her last name not be used)

    The only reason I waited only two hours in the ER is because my son stopped breathing. Everyone rushed to take care of him. His oxygen levels were at 73. My youngest caught RSV at 7 weeks old.

    My soul left my body when I was in the hospital. I saw there was a respiratory therapist, a pediatrician and two nurses, that they lay down my baby and they started suctioning all the mucus because he was so stuffy, he couldn’t breathe. They put him on oxygen.

    I couldn’t believe how lucky we were that he responded to the treatment as fast as he did.

    Now, I always carry a little oximeter with me. If he gets stuffy or anything like that, I put that on his finger. That’s part of my diaper bag.

    Between my son being hospitalized for one night and the two kids’ deductibles and co-payments, we are $3,000 in debt, just from September until today. He was given just two doses of Tylenol at the hospital and that was almost $300.

    Every time I call the pediatrician’s office, they pretty much triage us over the phone to see if the child is sick enough to grant a visit because of how slammed they are. I have been constantly redialing for several minutes just to get through. When you go into the office, you can see they’re all very tired.

    I think that anything that has to do with kids lately in the country is being overlooked. There’s still the formula shortage. A lot of parents like me, we’re still struggling to find the right formula. I drive all around Rhode Island to find it, and I’m lucky if I can get two cans. My baby is allergic to cow milk protein, so it’s not like I can just get him any formula.

    We usually fly back home for the holidays – I’m from Puerto Rico. But this year we just stayed home. It was a bummer for my oldest because he’s used to spending the holidays with the grandparents.

    Rahman's wife, Tazima Nur, holds their son, Aarish, while he was sick in the ER.

    Mahbubur Rahman from Bonney Lake, Washington

    In the last three months, we got five colds, four ear infections, visited urgent care 10 times and the emergency room four times, once while my kid was sick with RSV. In the last two years, my child had a cold only once.

    This is our first child. He’s a Covid child – he’s not exposed to anywhere because we stayed at home for the last two years. When we started sending him to preschool then this started happening, all things are coming together: face the fear of Covid, viruses like the flu and then, RSV.

    My child had a febrile seizure. His temperature cannot go past 102 and we need to continuously use Tylenol and ibuprofen just to control it. This is happening like every other week. We prepared our car with emergency things for if we need to stay at the hospital. We always pack our bag and put it in our car – like it still is there.

    I am working from home and my wife is not working. Still, we feel like we are exhausted. In the last two months, I think I did like 50% of the work that I usually do. When my son and wife had RSV, my manager actually just told me to manage time whenever I can work, and it does not need to be 9 to 5.

    For the holidays, we had a plan to go back our country, Bangladesh, but we had to cancel the trip. We did not visit our home the last three years. I did in 2019 before Covid and never went back because my wife was pregnant and then my child was born.

    I hope that this will go away, and everything will be better this year. But the fear and the emotions, I think will not go away pretty soon.

    Stephanie Archinas-Murphin and her daughter, Margot, wait in the ER for the third time. This time, Margot was hospitalized.

    Stephanie Archinas-Murphin from Lakewood, California

    My 3-year-old daughter started preschool in September and sure enough she got three viruses – RSV, rhinovirus and pneumonia – all at the same time. She spent four days at the hospital, and it was hell watching her going through it.

    It’s very heartbreaking to just have her come out and experience the world. And now all these things are happening with her getting sick. We want to have a different experience for her.

    We pretty much got everything. My older daughter got the flu, so did my husband and myself. We’ve been on this never-ending journey since October.

    When my youngest was ill, she had to be out for three weeks. My husband was out for two weeks just to be able to take care of her. But when we got hit by the flu after Thanksgiving, my husband didn’t have any time off left. I have a private practice and don’t get PTO, but I had to take the brunt and cancel my clients. That was a dent in our income because I didn’t have any pay. Thankfully, I have some savings, so that helped a lot.

    When I was low on Motrin and my daughter Morgan had the flu, I happened to post it on Instagram. My relative asked if I want some and even dropped off Motrin for me and drove from almost 40 miles away. It was so heartwarming to know that there are people out there who are looking out for me.

    I’m all about taking it one day at a time. I don’t want to overwhelm myself. I’m not going to stop planning or going out, but I’m being mindful that things may change.

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  • China says 60,000 people have died of Covid since early December | CNN

    China says 60,000 people have died of Covid since early December | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Close to 60,000 people have died of Covid in China since the country abruptly abandoned its tight “zero-Covid” policy in early December, a medical official from the National Health Commission (NHC) told a press conference in Beijing on Saturday.

    Jiao Yahui, head of the NHC’s medical affairs department, said China recorded 59,938 Covid-related death between December 8 and January 12. Of those deaths 5,503 came from respiratory failure caused by Covid infections, and 54,435 were people infected with Covid as well as underlying diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases.

    China has previously listed only those Covid patients who succumbed with respiratory failure as having died of Covid. In the month after December 8, China reported only 37 deaths from local Covid cases, according to figures released on the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website – even as the outbreak has overwhelmed hospitals and crematoriums amid apparent Covid surges in multiple cities.

    The World Health Organization and the United States have accused China of “under-representing” the severity of its current outbreak, while top global health officials have also urged Beijing to share more data about the explosive spread of Covid in China, where reports have emerged of overwhelmed hospitals and funeral homes.

    On Saturday, WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke to Chinese Health Minister Ma Xiaowei about the surge.

    Chinese officials shared information including the latest numbers on outpatient clinics, hospitalizations, patients requiring emergency treatment and critical care, and hospital deaths, the WHO said in a statement.

    “WHO is analyzing this information, which covers early December 2022 to January 12, 2023, and allows for a better understanding of the epidemiological situation and the impact of this wave in China,” it said.

    The health organization also requested a more detailed breakdown of data by province over time and asked the Chinese government to continue to share further sequences of the coronavirus with open access databases.

    Jiao, the medical official, said fever clinical visits and Covid hospitalizations in China have already peaked.

    According to the NHC, fever clinic visits – both in cities and rural areas – have been declining since the peak when more than 2.86 million people visited them on December 23, 2022.

    On January 12, 477,000 people visited fever clinics across China, Jiao said Saturday.

    The NHC said hospitalizations of Covid-19 patients also peaked on January 5, 2023, when 1.63 million people was hospitalized, and 1.27 million Covid patients were still in hospital as of January 12, Jiao added.

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  • White House Covid-19 Response Team’s chief science officer to retire | CNN Politics

    White House Covid-19 Response Team’s chief science officer to retire | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Dr. David Kessler, chief science officer for the White House Covid-19 Response Team, is retiring, according to a statement from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

    “For decades, Dr. Kessler has worked tirelessly to address our nation’s most challenging public health issues, and his work during the COVID-19 pandemic has been no different,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in the statement Friday.

    “Whether he was leading our effort to develop and distribute safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, or sharing his perspective during daily strategy sessions and data deliberations, Dr. Kessler’s contributions to our COVID-19 response have helped save lives. I am grateful for the wisdom he has shared with us and wish him the best in his future endeavors,” Becerra continued.

    Kessler’s government career began when President George H.W. Bush appointed him to lead the US Food and Drug Administration in 1990; he oversaw the rollout of the agency’s iconic Nutrition Facts label on packaged foods and helped streamline its drug approval process. After stepping down from the FDA in 1997, he became dean of the Yale School of Medicine and then joined the University of California, San Francisco.

    President Joe Biden chose Kessler for the Covid-19 response team in 2021. He was also co-chair of the Biden transition’s coronavirus task force and that administration’s head of Operation Warp Speed, the group formed under President Donald Trump to speed vaccine development and distribution.

    “Every day for two years, David has been laser focused on ensuring we had enough vaccines and treatments for the American people,” Dr. Ashish Jha, the response team coordinator, said Friday on Twitter. “An extraordinary public servant. We will miss him.”

    Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff, tweeted, “There has been no more valued and trusted wise advisor to the @POTUS on scientific and medical matters than Dr. Kessler. He will be GREATLY missed.”

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  • ‘This is the last thing we need:’ Millions of businesses hammered by the pandemic need to start paying back Covid loans | CNN Business

    ‘This is the last thing we need:’ Millions of businesses hammered by the pandemic need to start paying back Covid loans | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    At Teddy & The Bully Bar restaurant near downtown Washington, DC, business has never been the same since the pandemic hit.

    “It’s very challenging,” owner Alan Popovsky said. “I’m still going to be climbing the hill for quite some time. Probably for the rest of my life.”

    The pandemic closed two of Popovsky’s four restaurants in the area. He said government loans saved the other two. But with city centers struggling to bring back commuters and foot traffic, he said revenue is still down more than 45%, and they’re fighting to stay open.

    To make matters worse, it’s time to start paying back those loans.

    “We just got over paying back the landlord,” Popovsky said. “It’s really a feeling that you’re just a hamster spinning on a wheel.”

    At the start of the pandemic, as business stalled, nearly 3.8 million small business owners took out Economic Injury Disaster Loans (known as EIDL loans) from the federal government, averaging roughly $100,000 per loan, according to the Small Business Administration. Unlike some other pandemic programs, these 30-year loans, carrying an interest rate of 3.75% for businesses, were intended to be paid back.

    After more than two years of deferrals, the first EIDL loan monthly payments have started to come due. Around 2.6 million businesses across the country will owe money by the end of January.

    Popovsky said he owes the federal government roughly $780,000, and started receiving monthly bills for more than $3,700 in October.

    “We can’t afford anything, but what we’re doing is paying the interest only right now,” he said. “We have not made a dent on the principal.”

    A new survey from the National Federation of Independent Business found only 36% of their small business members have reached their pre-pandemic sales levels, while 31% of businesses are still below 75% of their pre-crisis sales.

    Coming out of the pandemic, small businesses have faced difficult hurdles, like staffing shortages, supply chain issues and inflation.

    Now add a possible looming recession, just as these EIDL loans come due.

    “The challenges are immense for many of them and they’re having to navigate a lot of those headwinds,” said Holly Wade, executive director of the NFIB Research Center. “It is one more cost that they’re going to have to deal with, and some small business owners, unfortunately, are going to struggle with meeting those obligations.”

    Lisa Klein, who owns a physical therapy practice in the Washington, DC, area, said Covid-19 is still keeping some patients away.

    Lisa Klein, who owns and operates an outpatient physical therapy practice with offices in Virginia and in Washington, DC, said her practice is still trying to claw its way back after Covid-19, which is keeping some patients away or forcing costly last-minute cancellations.

    “The costs of everything have gone up,” Klein said. “The whole business is still suffering, and this is just kind of adding insult to injury.”

    Klein took out a $200,000 EIDL loan at the start of the pandemic but returned half of it after a year as the interest began piling up. The SBA estimates that businesses have accrued between $32 billion and $34 billion in interest over the 30-month deferment period.

    She’s now paying nearly $1,000 a month, with a total balance of just under $80,000.

    “It’s like you’re swimming and trying to catch up and get your head above water, and you just keep getting hit by something else,” Klein said. “But we have no choice, because if we don’t keep paying it, it’s going to accrue more interest.”

    Struggling businesses can declare hardship and make partial payments of 10% of the regular monthly payment with a minimum of $25 for six months, according to the SBA. But interest will keep accruing, forcing owners like Klein to weigh short-term protection against a big bill further down the line.

    Borrowers are still responsible for repaying loans even if their business closes, unless the debt has been discharged in bankruptcy, according to the SBA. For EIDL loans over $200,000, a personal guaranty was required for individuals with 20% or more ownership in the business.

    Popovsky said he has considered shutting down Teddy & The Bully Bear but has felt inspired to keep fighting by the memory of his father as well as his co-founder, Melvyn, who passed away in 2014, just one year after the restaurant opened.

    “I feel them saying keep pushing on, Alan, keep pushing on,” he said. “I feel like they’re the wind beneath my wings.”

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  • How much should people worry about Covid’s newly-dominant XBB.1.5 variant? Our medical analyst explains | CNN

    How much should people worry about Covid’s newly-dominant XBB.1.5 variant? Our medical analyst explains | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A new Covid-19 variant, XBB.1.5, is spreading rapidly throughout the United States. In December 2022, the proportion of new Covid-19 infections due to this Omicron offshoot have increased from 4% to 18%, according to a January 6 release from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and is projected to rise further still. In some parts of the country, it constitutes more than half of all new infections. According to the World Health Organization, XBB.1.5 is the most transmissible form of Omicron yet.

    What should people know about XBB.1.5? Do vaccines and treatments work against it? Can tests pick it up? Will hospitals become overwhelmed again? Should kids wear masks to school again? And could there be even more worrisome variants that emerge in the future?

    To guide us through these questions, I spoke with CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician, public health expert and professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. She is also author of “Lifelines: A Doctor’s Journey in the Fight for Public Health.”

    CNN: What should people know about the latest Covid-19 variant, XBB.1.5?

    Dr. Leana Wen: People should not be surprised that there is a new variant. The more viruses replicate, the more they mutate. Most mutations do not confer evolutionary advantage and won’t spread further, but some do.

    There are three key questions to ask about new variants. First, is it more contagious? Second, does it cause more serious disease? And third, is it more immune-evasive, meaning it undercuts the protection of existing vaccines and treatments?

    The mutations XBB.1.5 has acquired have made it more contagious. A more transmissible strain has the evolutionary advantage that it will spread faster than others, and therefore could displace other strains. This is a trend seen throughout the coronavirus pandemic — new, even more transmissible strains replacing their predecessors and becoming dominant.

    The good news is that, thus far, this strain does not appear to cause more severe disease. Like other Omicron descendants, it probably causes milder illness compared with the Delta variants that predated Omicron.

    There are some studies that suggest XBB.1.5 is more immune-evasive compared with previously dominant Omicron strains. Further research is underway to identify the degree of immune protection afforded by existing vaccines; the White House’s Covid-19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said that “data suggests that if you’ve been vaccinated, if you’ve gotten that updated bivalent booster, you’re still going to have a good amount of protection,” during an interview Friday with CNN’s Kate Bolduan.

    But even if it turns out these vaccines don’t hold up as well against infection with XBB.1.5, they will probably protect well against severe illness — which underscores the need for people to receive the updated booster if they are eligible.

    CNN: Can tests pick up this new variant?

    Wen: PCR tests definitely can, and there’s no reason to think that this variant won’t be picked up by rapid home antigen tests. If you have symptoms or are exposed to someone with the coronavirus, you should certainly get tested. The tests won’t show you which strain you picked up, but they should detect circulating variants.

    CNN: Do existing treatments work against XBB.1.5?

    Wen: Antiviral treatments like Paxlovid should work against XBB.1.5. Unfortunately, monoclonal antibody treatments probably don’t. In November, the US. Food and Drug Administration withdrew their authorization of the last remaining monoclonal antibody because of its lack of efficacy against new variants. And on January 6, the agency issued a statement that the preventive antibody Evusheld may be ineffective against XBB.1.5.

    On a policy level, it’s critical there are urgent investments into better treatments. There are many people vulnerable to severe outcomes due to Covid-19, and we need to have a wider range of effective treatments available for them.

    CNN: Could hospitals become overwhelmed again?

    Wen: Covid-19 infections could rise in the coming weeks due to a combination of this new variant and the fact that many people will have traveled and gathered over the holidays. I don’t think the surge will be nearly as bad as the initial Omicron wave in early 2022, though, because of the large proportion of Americans who have by this point already contracted Covid-19 and have some baseline immunity to it.

    If you have symptoms or are exposed to someone with the coronavirus, you should certainly get tested, says Dr. Leana Wen.

    Increasing booster rates, particularly among the elderly, will help blunt the rise in hospitalizations. It’s a major problem that only about a third of Americans ages 65 and older have received the updated bivalent booster, which has been shown in a recent study to reduce hospitalization by 73% in this age group.

    CNN: How much should people worry about XBB.1.5?

    Wen: It depends on the individual. There are many people who are not concerned about contracting Covid-19. They may be young and healthy and unlikely to become severely ill due to the coronavirus. Maybe they have just recovered from a previous infection and are protected against serious illness for several months. Or maybe the downside of continuing precautions is significant to them. I don’t think it’s wrong for people to proceed with their pre-pandemic routines, considering that XBB.1.5 is not likely to be the last variant of concern we see — and that it doesn’t appear to cause more severe disease.

    On the other hand, there are many people who are worried about becoming severely ill from Covid-19. People who are elderly or who have underlying health conditions should speak with their physician about their risk of severe illness due to Covid-19. If they are at high risk even after getting the bivalent booster, they should consider additional precautions to avoid infection while this highly transmissible variant is circulating. That includes asking others to take a rapid test prior to socializing and wearing a high-quality N95 or equivalent mask while in crowded indoor places.

    CNN: Some school districts are bringing back mask mandates. Should kids wear masks to schools again?

    Wen: This will depend on the family. If everyone is generally healthy, the parents or caregivers are going to work without a mask and all members are socializing freely with others outside of school, then it wouldn’t add much more protection to mask in the classroom.

    On the other hand, families that are still taking many precautions because of, for example, a severely immunocompromised household member might decide to all mask while in in crowded indoor spaces.

    My children have not been masking in school since the beginning of this school year, and I don’t currently plan for this to change. We would reconsider if a new variant emerges that causes much more severe disease, but that does not appear to be the case with XBB.1.5.

    CNN: Could there be even more worrisome variants that emerge in the future?

    Wen: Yes. This is the reason why genomic surveillance is so important. We need to identify and study new variants as they emerge. This is part of our “new normal”— there will be new variants that, from time to time, lead to surges of infections. The key is to make sure people are still protected against severe disease and to keep hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. And we must make sure everyone makes use of the tools we have available, including vaccines.

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  • Uganda declares end of Ebola outbreak | CNN

    Uganda declares end of Ebola outbreak | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Ugandan authorities have officially declared the end of a recent Ebola outbreak after 42 consecutive days with no new cases.

    A formal declaration was made during a televised ceremony held in the central Mubende district, the epicenter of the outbreak, on Wednesday.

    According to the World Health Organisation, an Ebola outbreak is over if there are no new cases after 42 days, which is twice the incubation period.

    “Today, 11th January 2023 marks 113 days since the start of the Ebola outbreak in Uganda,​” said the health minister Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng Ocero.

    “I urge the population to remain vigilant, implement the standard operating procedures and to report any person in the community that presents with Ebola-like symptoms,” she stressed.

    The outbreak, the eighth in Ugana’s history, killed 55 people, said Aceng Ocero. There were a total 143 confirmed cases and 22 probable cases, she added.

    Ugandan Red Cross workers in Mubende, the epicenter of the outbreak.

    To combat the outbreak, officials launched aggressive contact-tracing to track down relatives and friends who handled the bodies of victims or attended funerals.

    Some escaped from quarantine facilities, others traveled as far as the capital Kampala, and a few visited traditional healers and witchdoctors for treatment instead.

    Cases were eventually confirmed in nine districts, including Kampala, according to the health ministry.

    Contact tracers pictured on October 12.

    The Ebola virus is transmissible – but not as transmissible as some other infectious diseases, like Covid-19. It can spread from person to person through direct contact with blood or other bodily fluids such as saliva, sweat, semen or feces, or through contaminated objects like bedding or needles.

    Ebola symptoms include fever, aches and pains, and fatigue, which then can progress to diarrhea, vomiting and unexplained bleeding.

    In 2012 an outbreak in the Kibaale district in the west of the country led to 17 deaths out of 24 confirmed cases, but was declared over in less than three months.

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  • Satellite images capture crowding at China’s crematoriums and funeral homes as Covid surge continues | CNN

    Satellite images capture crowding at China’s crematoriums and funeral homes as Covid surge continues | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Satellite images taken over a number of Chinese cities have captured crowding at crematoriums and funeral homes, as the country continues its battle with an unprecedented wave of Covid-19 infections following its dismantling of severe pandemic restrictions.

    The images – taken by Maxar in late December and early January and reviewed by CNN – show a funeral home on the outskirts of Beijing, which appears to have constructed a brand-new parking area, as well as lines of vehicles waiting outside of funeral homes in Kunming, Nanjing, Chengdu, Tangshan and Huzhou.

    The scene at the same home last week, showing more cars parked along streets near the entrance.

    China recently moved away from its strict zero-Covid approach to the virus, which had sparked mass unrest after more than two years of tight controls on citizens’ personal lives.

    China’s strict policy shielded its population from the kind of mass deaths seen in Western nations – a contrast repeatedly driven home by the Communist Party to illustrate the supposed superiority of its restrictions.

    Since those rules were lifted, people have regained freedom to travel around their country

    The satellite pictures are consistent with CNN’s reporting and witness accounts shared to social media concerning overcrowding in funeral homes and crematoriums.

    CNN has reported first-hand in Beijing on the makeshift facilities being used to store the deceased, as overworked staff try to keep up with the volume of crates containing yellow body bags, and families report waiting for days to bury or cremate their loved ones.

    A Tangshan City funeral home in January 2020, before the pandemic swept the country.

    The same home last week, where many more vehicles are parked.

    Meanwhile, China’s official Covid-19 death toll since it eased restrictions remains strikingly low – with only 37 deaths recorded since December 7.

    As reports of overwhelmed hospitals and funeral homes roll in, China is facing accusations from the World Health Organization (WHO) and US that it is under-representing the severity of its current outbreak, as top global health officials urge Beijing to share more data about the explosive spread.

    “We continue to ask China for more rapid, regular, reliable data on hospitalizations and deaths, as well as more comprehensive, real-time viral sequencing,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news briefing in Geneva Wednesday.

    “WHO is concerned about the risk to life in China and has reiterated the importance of vaccination, including booster doses, to protect against hospitalization, severe disease, and death,” he said.

    Speaking in more detail, WHO executive director for health emergencies Mike Ryan said the numbers released by China “under-represent the true impact of the disease” in terms of hospital and ICU admissions, as well as deaths.

    He acknowledged that many countries have seen lags in reporting hospital data, but pointed to China’s “narrow” definition of a Covid death as part of the issue.

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  • What the return of Chinese tourists means for the global economy | CNN Business

    What the return of Chinese tourists means for the global economy | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    In the years before Covid, China was the world’s most important source of international travelers. Its 155 million tourists spent more than a quarter of a trillion dollars beyond its borders in 2019.

    That largesse fell precipitously over the past three years as the country essentially closed its borders. But, as China prepares to reopen on Sunday, millions of tourists are poised to return to the world stage, raising hopes of a rebound for the global hospitality industry.

    Although international travel may not return immediately to pre-pandemic levels, companies, industries and countries that rely on Chinese tourists will get a boost in 2023, according to analysts.

    China averaged about 12 million outbound air passengers per month in 2019, but those numbers fell 95% during the Covid years, according to Steve Saxon, a partner in McKinsey’s Shenzhen office. He predicts that figure will recover to about 6 million per month by the summer, driven by the pent-up wanderlust of young, wealthy Chinese like Emmy Lu, who works for an advertising company in Beijing.

    “I’m so happy [about the reopening]! ” Lu told CNN. “Because of the pandemic, I could only wander around the country for the past years. It was difficult.”

    “It’s just that I’ve been stuck inside the country for a little too long. I’m really looking forward to the lifting of the restrictions, so that I can go somewhere for fun! ” the 30-year-old said, adding that she wanted to visit Japan and Europe the most.

    As China announced last month it would no longer subject inbound travelers to quarantine starting January 8, including residents returning from trips abroad, searches for international flights and accommodations immediately hit a three-year high on Trip.com

    (TCOM)    .

    Bookings for overseas travel during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, which falls between January 21 and January 27 this year, have soared by 540% from a year ago, according to data from the Chinese travel site. Average spending per booking jumped 32%.

    The top destinations are in the Asia Pacific region, including Australia, Thailand, Japan and Hong Kong. The United States and the United Kingdom also ranked among the top 10.

    “The rapid buildup in … [bank] deposits over the past year suggests that households in China have accumulated significant cash holdings,” said Alex Loo, a macro strategist for TD Securities, adding that frequent lockdowns have likely led to restraints on household spending.

    There could be “revenge spending” by Chinese consumers, mirroring what happened in many developed markets when they reopened early last year, he said.

    That’s good news for many economies battered by the pandemic.

    “We estimate that Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore would benefit the most if China’s travel service imports were to return to 2019 levels,” said Goldman Sachs analysts。

    Hong Kong — the world’s most visited city with just under 56 million arrivals in 2019, most of them from mainland China — could see an estimated 7.6% boost to its GDP as exports and tourism income increase, they said. Thailand’s GDP may be boosted by 2.9%, while Singapore would get a lift of 1.2%.

    Elsewhere in the world, Cambodia, Mauritius, Malaysia, Taiwan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, South Korea and Philippines are also likely to benefit from the return of Chinese tourists, according to research by Capital Economics.

    Hong Kong has suffered particularly acutely from the closure of its border with mainland China. The city’s pillar industries of tourism and real estate have been hit hard. The financial hub expects GDP to have contracted by 3.2% in 2022.

    The city government announced Thursday that up to 60,000 people would be allowed to cross the border daily each way, starting Sunday.

    Several other Southeast Asian countries reliant on tourism have kept entry rules relatively relaxed for Chinese tourists, despite the record Covid-19 outbreak that has swept through China in recent weeks. They include Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines.

    “This is one of the opportunities that we can accelerate economic recovery,” Thailand’s health minister said this week.

    New Zealand has also waived testing requirements for Chinese visitors, who were the second largest source of tourist revenue for the country before the pandemic.

    But other governments are more cautious. So far, nearly a dozen countries, including the United States, Germany, France, Canada, Japan, Australia and South Korea, have mandated testing.

    The European Union on Wednesday “strongly encouraged” its members states to require a negative Covid test for visitors from China before arrival.

    There is clearly “conflict” between the tourism authorities and the political and health officials in some countries, said Saxon, who leads McKinsey’s travel practice in Asia.

    Airlines and airports have already blasted the EU’s recommendations for testing requirements.

    The International Air Transport Association, the airline industry’s global lobby group, together with airports represented by ACI Europe as well as Airlines for Europe, issued a joint statement on Thursday, calling the EU move “regrettable” and “a knee-jerk reaction.”

    But they welcomed the additional recommendation to test wastewater as a way of identifying new variants of the disease, saying it should be an alternative to testing passengers.

    Besides restrictions, it will take time for international travel to fully rebound because many Chinese must renew their passports and apply for visas again, according to analysts.

    Lu from Beijing said she was still considering her travel plans, taking into consideration the various testing requirements and the high price of flying.

    “The restrictions are normal, because everyone wants to protect people in their own country,” she said. “I’ll wait and see if some policies will be eased.”

    Liu Chaonan, a 24-year-old in Shenzhen, said she had initially wanted to go to the Philippines to celebrate the Chinese New Year, but didn’t have time to apply for the visa. So she switched to Thailand, which offers quick and easy electronic permits.

    “Time is short and I need to leave in about 10 days. People may choose some visa-friendly places and countries to travel to,” she said, adding that she plans to learn scuba diving and wants to buy cosmetics. Her total budget for the trip could exceed 10,000 yuan ($1,460).

    Saxon said he expected China’s outbound international travel to fully recover by the year end.

    “Generally, individuals are pragmatic and countries will welcome Chinese tourists due to their spending power,” he said, adding that countries may remove restrictions quickly when the Covid situation improves in China.

    “It will take time for international tourism to get going, but it will come rushing back, when it happens.”

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  • World’s largest iPhone factory bounces back from Covid disruption that hurt Apple | CNN Business

    World’s largest iPhone factory bounces back from Covid disruption that hurt Apple | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Production at the world’s biggest iPhone factory, disrupted since October by China’s Covid-19 restrictions and worker protests, is now running at nearly full capacity, according to a Chinese state media report.

    The sprawling campus in central China, owned by Apple

    (AAPL)     supplier Foxconn, was running at 90% of planned production capacity at the end of December, the Henan Daily newspaper reported Tuesday. It cited an interview with Wang Xue, deputy general manager of the facility, which is also known as iPhone city.

    “At the moment, the order books look good, and the orders will peak from now until a few months after Chinese New Year,” he was quoted as saying. The Lunar New Year will begin on January 22.

    Foxconn hasn’t yet responded to CNN’s request for comment about the report.

    The company said last month it was working on restoring production, which had been badly affected by supply disruptions caused by Covid restrictions. Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives estimated in November that the disruptions in Zhengzhou had been costing Apple roughly $1 billion a week in lost iPhone sales.

    According to a UBS report in November, the wait time for the latest 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max in the United States touched 34 days just before the Christmas holidays because of supply chain constraints in China. The UBS analyst called the wait time “extreme.”

    The Henan Daily separately quoted an executive responsible for Foxconn’s logistics as saying that, in the first two days of January, the volume of inbound and outbound shipments had reached the highest level in a year.

    The report of a nearly full resumption of production comes one month after China abruptly ended three years of pandemic controls, setting off a huge wave of Covid infections.

    According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, a letter from Foxconn founder Terry Gou played a major role in persuading Chinese leaders to accelerate plans to dismantle the country’s Covid-19 policies. Gou was quoted as warning that strict Covid controls would threaten China’s central position in global supply chains.

    Gou’s office told CNN that it “denies the report and its contents.”

    Wang was quoted by the Henan Daily as saying iPhone City currently had about 200,000 workers on site. The employees were each eligible for a maximum of 13,000 yuan ($1,883) per month in bonuses, he said, without specifying their base salaries.

    The troubles for Foxconn started in October when workers left the campus, located in the central Chinese province of Henan, because of concerns about Covid-related working conditions and shortages of food. Short on staff, bonuses were offered to workers to return.

    But violent protests broke out in November when the newly-hired staff said management reneged on their promises. Workers clashed with security officers, before the company eventually offered them cash to quit and leave the site.

    Analysts said the production woes at iPhone City would speed up the pace of Apple’s supply chain diversification away from China.

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  • Xi Jinping estimates China’s 2022 GDP grew at least 4.4%. But Covid misery looms | CNN Business

    Xi Jinping estimates China’s 2022 GDP grew at least 4.4%. But Covid misery looms | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    China’s economy grew at least 4.4% in 2022, according to leader Xi Jinping, a figure much stronger than many economists had expected. But the current Covid wave may hobble growth in the months ahead.

    China’s annual GDP is expected to have exceeded 120 trillion yuan ($17.4 trillion) last year, Xi said in a televised New Year’s Eve speech on Saturday. That implies growth of more than 4.4%, which is a surprisingly robust figure.

    Economists had generally expected growth to slump to a rate between 2.7% and 3.3% for 2022. The government had maintained a much higher annual growth target of around 5.5%.

    “China’s economy is resilient and has good potential and vitality. Its long-term fundamentals remain unchanged,” Xi said. “As long as we are confident and seek progress steadily, we will be able to achieve our goals.”

    In his remarks, Xi made a rare admission of the “tough challenges” experienced by many during three years of pandemic controls. Many online commentators noted that his tone appeared softer and less self congratulatory than his New Year’s addresses over the past two years.

    In 2020, Xi devoted much time to praising China’s economic achievements, highlighting that it was the first major global economy to achieve positive growth. Last year, he emphasized the country had developed rapidly and that he had won praise from his counterparts for China’s fight against Covid.

    However, in 2022, China’s economy was hit by widespread Covid lockdowns and a historic property downturn. Its growth is likely to be at or below global growth for the first time in 40 years, according to Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

    Chinese policymakers have vowed to seek a turnaround in 2023. They’re betting that the end of zero-Covid and a series of property support measures will revive domestic consumption and bolster growth.

    But an explosion of Covid infections, triggered by the abrupt easing of pandemic restrictions in early December, is clouding the outlook. The country is battling its biggest-ever Covid outbreak.

    Last week, Beijing announced it will end quarantine requirements for international arrivals from January 8, marking a major step toward reopening its borders.

    The sudden end to the restrictions caught many in the country off guard and put enormous strain on the healthcare system.

    The rapid spread of infections has kept many people indoors and emptied shops and restaurants. Factories have been forced to shut down or cut production because workers were getting sick.

    Key data released Saturday showed factory activity in the country contracted in December by the fastest pace in nearly three years. The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slumped to 47 last month from 48 in November, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

    It was the biggest drop since February 2020 and also marked the third straight month of contraction for the index. A reading below 50 indicates that activity is shrinking.

    The non-manufacturing PMI, which measures activity in the services sector, plunged to 41.6 last month from 46.7 in November. It also marked the lowest level in nearly three years.

    “For the next couple of months, it would be tough for China, and the impact on Chinese growth would be negative,” said Georgieva in an interview aired by CBS News on Sunday. “The impact on the region would be negative. The impact on global growth would be negative.”

    Analysts are also expecting the economy to face a bumpy start in 2023 — with a likely contraction in the first quarter, as surging Covid infections dampen consumer spending and disrupt factory activity.

    However, some forecast the economy will rebound after March, as people learn to live with Covid. Many investment banks now forecast China’s 2023 growth to top 5%.

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  • Opinion: A New Year’s resolution we all need to embrace | CNN

    Opinion: A New Year’s resolution we all need to embrace | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: Sophia A. Nelson is a journalist and author of the book “Be the One You Need: 21 Life Lessons I Learned Taking Care of Everyone but Me.” The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.



    CNN
     — 

    It’s the start of another year, and we are still working our way through a once-in-a-generation, life-changing pandemic almost three years after it began. We’ve all been affected by Covid-19’s scourge of sickness, hospitalization, death, loneliness, isolation, work dislocation and family disruption. Perhaps, like me, you even got sick with the coronavirus and are living with its long-term effects.

    When Covid-19 hit, workers in teaching, nursing, hospitality and retail — occupations where women predominate — bore a fair part of the burden associated with the disease. And no group felt this more acutely than Black and brown women.

    Women struggle to balance self-care against filling the needs of their families. But for Black women, juggling those competing needs often comes against a backdrop of intergenerational trauma and suppression of their emotions.

    In the Black community, women have perfected obsessive selflessness to an art form. We end up exhausted, emotionally drained — and in many cases, unhealthy — because we are conditioned to serve the needs of others and display superhuman strength — to our own detriment. I have lost friends, sorority sisters and mentors to hypertension-induced strokes, heart attacks, diabetes complications and plain old exhaustion from a lack of meaningful self-care.

    The effects of environmental stress on Black women are severe. One study found that by the time a Black woman reaches her 50s, the toll of stress on her body has resulted in an additional seven years of biological aging compared with White women. Black women are more likely to die from breast cancer, heart disease and diabetes, too.

    Northwestern University clinical psychologist Inger Burnett-Zeigler addressed the downside of viewing the strong Black woman as a “cultural icon” in her book, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen: The Emotional Lives of Black Women.”

    “Some Black women do not have the necessary tools to cope with their feelings in a healthy way and, as a result, may engage in unhealthy coping strategies such as eating unhealthy foods, drinking alcohol, using illicit drugs, being sedentary or a workaholic. While these behaviors may offer a Band-aid to the problem, they are not a long-term solution,” she said in an interview discussing the work that was published last year.

    In short, for Black and brown women, focusing on self-care is a matter of survival. But some of us needed the additional wake-up call that came from confronting the pandemic.

    My own Covid-19 journey started in February 2020 when I came down with an early case before we had testing or vaccines. I contracted the disease while speaking at a conference in Louisiana. I was sick for a week with a high fever, respiratory distress and other complications.

    I got a second, milder case in August 2021 after being vaccinated and boosted. I was lucky enough not to have to be hospitalized during either episode, but I still suffer the effects of long Covid-19, including some heart valve damage and residual issues with my right lung. Living with these infirmities means prioritizing the vital self-care I might otherwise have ignored.

    By self-care, I don’t mean going to the beach or taking a vacation. That is respite.

    The kind of self-care I want to see Black women practice is the kind that liberates the soul. The kind that allows us to be our authentic selves. The kind that frees us to wear our hair how we want, to speak our truths, to seek healthier romantic partners and build better friends. And it’s the kind of self-care that lasts a lifetime.

    The good news is that despite the heaviness of our times, we see examples of prominent Black women saying enough is enough — it’s time to put our wellness first. Women such as Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, tennis star Naomi Osaka and actress Taraji P. Henson have spoken openly about the importance of their mental health to their overall well-being.

    As a Black woman now in her 50s, it took me years to learn that although my family and friends matter, I matter most of all. I’ve learned that I have a right to joy, to peace and to self-care, too. I wrote about those hard-knock lessons in my fourth book, “Be the One You Need.”

    My hope was that by sharing just a few of my own life experiences, I can help educate and inspire a new generation of Black girls and women to embrace lives filled with self-care, hope, joy, physical and emotional wellness.

    But even if you’re neither Black nor a woman, these lessons can benefit you as well. Start by asking yourself three important questions: What do I want? What do I need? How am I really feeling? Your inner voice will provide the answers. Trust that you will find the courage to follow through on the wisdom you already possess.

    Here are three more things to bear in mind as you focus on your emotional wellness this new year:

    1. Self-care is a life strategy for success. It’s about setting healthy boundaries and ensuring that those boundaries are respected by others. It requires that you change you first and that you accept you can never change others.

    2. Prioritize your mental and emotional health above all else. You’re no good to anyone if you’re not good to yourself. Your mental and emotional well-being is one of the many “health verticals” you must tend to, just as you might regularly monitor your weight, heart health or blood pressure.

    3. “No” is a complete sentence. This one has really saved me a lot of heartache, unspoken resentment and time. I no longer do the things I do not want to do, to please others. I reserve my energy for only those things and people that are worth my energy.

    Women in general, and Black women specifically, often find it hard to say no. But it’s what you sometimes must do, even when your kids have endless requests, your boss has demands, and friends who have supported you in the past are in a crisis. And the reason for centering your own needs is implied in the subtitle of my book “Life Lessons I Learned Taking Care of Everyone but Me.” It’s simply not sustainable.

    Generations of Black women have watched our mothers, grandmothers and aunts do, give, run, lift, build up, sacrifice, protect and offer up themselves to anyone and everyone in need. This new year, we all have an opportunity to do better for ourselves.

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  • The year that brought Silicon Valley back down to earth | CNN Business

    The year that brought Silicon Valley back down to earth | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    On the first trading day of 2022, Apple hit a new milestone for the tech industry: the iPhone maker became the first publicly traded company to hit a $3 trillion market cap, with Microsoft and Google not far behind. As eye-popping as that valuation was, there were headlines speculating about how long it would be before Apple and its rivals topped $5 trillion.

    The tech industry, already dominant, only seemed destined to grow even bigger at the start of this year. The spread of the Omicron variant suggested a continued pandemic-fueled demand for digital goods and services, which had buoyed many tech companies. Near 0% interest rates meant startups still had easy access to the funding that had fueled their high valuations and risky ventures.

    But the year is ending on a much different note. A perfect storm of factors have forced a dizzying reality check for the once high-flying tech sector, making it one of the biggest losers of 2022.

    Over the course of the year, pandemic-era demand for many tech tools shifted; inflation soared; interest rates rose and fears of a looming recession weighed on consumer and advertiser spending, the latter of which makes up the core business of many household names in tech.

    The result was a bloodbath unlike anything the tech industry has seen in the past decade. Tech stocks plunged, amid a broader market downturn. Tens of thousands of rank-and-file tech workers lost their livelihoods amid mass layoffs, both at tech giants like Amazon and Facebook-parent Meta as well as at smaller tech companies like Lyft, Peloton and Stripe. The crypto world all but imploded. And an entire industry known for burning cash on ambitious moonshots instead started shutting down projects and announcing cost-cutting efforts.

    Even the title of world’s richest man, which previously belonged to serial tech founder Elon Musk, ended up passing to Bernard Arnault, the chairman of French luxury goods giant LVMH, after Musk’s chaotic purchase of Twitter appeared to sour investors on his car company, Tesla.

    The sharp shift in sentiment not only removed the air of invincibility for the industry; it also exposed some of its underlying myths. For years, Silicon Valley has held up its founders as visionaries who can see far into the future. But suddenly, many of its most prominent founders had to admit a harsh truth: they couldn’t even predict two years ahead.

    As Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg put it in a memo to staff last month announcing the company would cut 11,000 employees: “Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected.”

    He was far from the only one in the industry caught off guard.

    When the pandemic upended the broader economy in early 2020, tech firms only seemed to grow bigger and more powerful as people were forced to live out their lives online. Facebook (now Meta) could afford to nearly double its headcount and make multi-billion-dollar bets on a future version of the internet dubbed the metaverse. Amazon similarly went on a hiring spree and doubled its fulfilment center footprint to meet the surge in online shopping demand.

    “At the start of Covid, the world rapidly moved online and the surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth,” Zuckerberg wrote in his memo to staff last month. “Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments.”

    Then the market shifted.

    “People are terrible at predicting the future, and we always think that what’s happening now is going to happen forever,” Angela Lee, a professor at Columbia Business School who teaches venture capital, leadership, and strategy courses, told CNN. “But the reality is that the pandemic was a black swan event, and none of us knew what would happen going forward.”

    One by one, the visionaries of Silicon Valley issued mea culpas. The founders of Stripe, Twitter and Facebook each took turns admitting they either grew their companies too quickly or were overly optimistic about pandemic-fueled growth in their sector.

    “We were much too optimistic about the internet economy’s near-term growth in 2022 and 2023 and underestimated both the likelihood and impact of a broader slowdown,” Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe, wrote in a note to employees last month announcing 14% of the staff would be cut.

    It wasn’t only a shift in consumers living their lives offline again that hurt the industry. The tech sector was particularly pummeled by the impacts of rising interest rates this year. Silicon Valley as a whole is arguably more sensitive to interest rate hikes than other industries, as many tech companies rely on easy access to funding to pursue their ambitious projects, typically before even turning a profit.

    In a move to tame inflation, the Fed approved seven-straight rate hikes in 2022. Since the beginning of the year, the tech-heavy Nasdaq index shed more than 30% as of Dec. 21. By comparison, the Nasdaq soared more than 40% in 2020 and a further 20% in 2021. And the S&P 500’s Information Technology sector shed more than 28% this year through Dec. 21, considerably higher than the broader S&P 500’s fall of just 19% over that same period.

    Apple’s market cap now hovers just above $2 trillion. Amazon’s stock has shed some 50% year to date. And shares for Meta have been hit even harder, losing nearly two thirds of their value in 2022. Once a trillion-dollar business last year, Meta has since seen its market value drop below companies like Home Depot.

    The shift in sentiment for tech has also hit the next generation of companies that aspire to be household names.

    Global venture funding hit a nine quarter low of $74.5 billion in the third quarter of 2022, according to data from analytics firm CB Insights. This marked the largest quarterly percentage drop in a decade (34%), and a 58% decline from the investment peak reached in the fourth quarter of 2021.

    In another sign of how this played out in the startup world: more than two new unicorns (startups valued at $1 billion or more) were born on average per business day in 2021, according separate data from CB Insights. That rate dropped to a pace of less than one new unicorn for every other business day in the third quarter of 2022, per CB Insights’ most recent analysis, the lowest since the first quarter of 2020.

    Lee, who is also the founder of investing network 37 Angels, said when she met with tech founders this year, “I have said these words, which is, ‘I might have done this deal last year, but I am not going to do it now.’ And I’ve heard a lot of other people say that as well.”

    While the belt tightening might be painful for tech founders, Lee says she views it as a good thing for the tech industry overall. Many industry insiders have long said these sorts of corrections can help weed out some of the excess in the market and ensure more financially viable companies are the ones that survive.

    “Right now, there are like a lot of headlines that are just like, ‘The sky is falling, the end is near,’ and the way that I describe it is more of like a return to normalcy,” said Lee, noting that most charts tracking VC spending (from the number of mega-rounds to the number of IPOs) had a huge hump in 2020 and 2021 when interest rates were low, and now these charts are starting to look like how they did in 2019.

    “I would just call it like a ‘return to sanity,’ versus like, ‘the sky is falling,’” Lee said. “I do not think venture is cratering, or the tech industry is cratering as an industry.”

    But for now, at least, there appears to be no end in sight to the pain for Silicon Valley and those who work in it.

    In his own memo acknowledging job cuts at Amazon, CEO Andy Jassy said the layoffs at Amazon, reported to total some 10,000 roles, would continue into 2023. At a conference last month, he called the earlier hiring spree a “lesson” for everybody.

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  • Novak Djokovic back in Australia following high-profile visa ban | CNN

    Novak Djokovic back in Australia following high-profile visa ban | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Novak Djokovic is back in Australia, according to a spokesperson with Tennis Australia, nearly a year after his high-profile visa ban from the country over his stance on the Covid-19 vaccination.

    The 21-time grand slam champion is slated to open his 2023 tennis season next week in Adelaide for the Adelaide International 1. It comes more than a month after Australian officials said that Djokovic’s three-year ban from entering the country would be overturned.

    The Serbian was deported from Australia in January after former immigration minister Alex Hawke found the tennis star posed a risk to public health and order because, as a celebrity sportsman who had previously expressed opposition to people being compelled to get the Covid-19 vaccine, he could be seen as an “icon” for anti-vaxxers.

    The minister’s decision to deport the former world No. 1 men’s player meant he was initially banned from reentry for three years.

    On Monday, Tennis Australia CEO Craig Tiley said, “We will welcome him back to Australia.”

    As for the reception Djokovic should expect to receive from Aussies, Tiley said, “I have a great deal of confidence in the Australian public. I think we have a very well-educated sporting public particularly those that come for tennis. They love their tennis. They love seeing greatness. They love seeing great athleticism, great matches.

    “I have a lot of confidence that the fans will react like we hope they would react and have respect for that,” he added.

    CNN has reached out to the tennis star for comment.

    Djokovic has won nine men’s singles titles at the Australian Open, more than anyone else in history. He is entered to play in the 2023 edition next month.

    Djokovic’s high-profile visa saga overshadowed the Australian Open earlier this year, pitting one of tennis’ biggest stars against the Australian government and dividing opinion in the country, which had enacted tough pandemic border restrictions.

    The government revoked the Serbian’s visa shortly after his arrival in Melbourne on January 5 because he was not vaccinated against Covid-19.

    Djokovic said he was under the impression he could enter the country because two independent panels associated with Tennis Australia and the Victorian state government had granted him an exemption on the grounds he had been infected with the virus a few weeks prior to his arrival.

    But the federal government argued that was not a valid reason for an exemption under its rules.

    A judge later ruled that border officers had been “unreasonable” when they canceled Djokovic’s visa and ordered his release from an immigration detention center.

    But his visa was then revoked for a second time and after losing his bid to challenge the decision, the tennis star left Australia.

    Despite his return to action in selected tournaments following the ordeal, the player’s Covid-19 vaccination stance restricted his participation in others.

    In July, Djokovic won his 21st grand slam title, beating Nick Kyrgios in the final at Wimbledon.

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  • Why eggs have been so expensive this year | CNN Business

    Why eggs have been so expensive this year | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN Business
     — 

    Several grocery items have gotten more expensive this year. But nothing comes close to the rise in egg prices.

    In the year through November, not adjusted for seasonal swings, egg prices jumped 49%, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    Since early this year, a deadly avian flu has been reducing poultry flocks — specifically turkeys and egg-laying hens. That’s one reason for the unrelenting increase in prices. But the situation has been exacerbated by elevated feed and energy costs for producers, in addition to high demand in the supermarket.

    Experts think that the peak has passed, but until these conditions improve, expect to pay more for eggs in the grocery store.

    Avian flu has been a problem in the US for several months now, but in recent weeks wholesale prices have been hitting records.

    As of last week, “prices have been escalating for nine consecutive weeks… setting new record highs on a daily basis since the week of Thanksgiving,” said Karyn Rispoli, editor of the Egg Price Current for Urner Barry, which offers food market data.

    On Friday, Midwest large eggs, the benchmark for eggs sold in their shells, hit $5.46 per dozen, Rispoli said, citing Urner Barry’s data. This time last year, Urner Berry’s data shows, that price was around $1.70.

    One reason for the increase? Not enough supply.

    “There’s simply not been enough production to support the incredibly strong retail demand we’ve seen this year,” Rispoli said. Supply has been constrained by the deadly bird flu.

    The current outbreak of Highly-Pathogenic Avian Influenza started in the US around February, and has persisted throughout the year. The last major bird flu outbreak in the United States was in 2015. But that one was contained by June of that year, noted Brian Earnest, lead economist for animal protein in CoBank.

    “This year, we’ve continued to see flock depopulations throughout the entire year, and there’s an expectation that we’ll continue to see it into 2023,” he said, noting that he expects “we’re going to see a tight supply situation and elevated pricing environment moving forward.”

    About 60 million birds are gone because of the disease so far, according to the USDA. Of those, about 43 million are egg-laying hens, according to USDA data provided by the American Egg Board, a farmer-funded group which markets eggs.

    Still, farmers have been able to moderate the losses. “Our producers learned a lot of hard lessons from 2015,” said Emily Metz, CEO of the American Egg Board. Some farmers have been able to repopulate their flocks, decreasing the net impact on flock sizes and egg supplies. As of early December, there were about 308 million hens laying eggs for consumption, down from about 328 million in December 2021, according to the USDA.

    The supply squeeze isn’t the only thing contributing to higher egg prices, said Metz. Higher fuel, feed and other producer cost are also driving up wholesale prices, she said. And then there’s that high demand for eggs, which spikes this time of year.

    People buy more eggs around the holidays, when they’re baking and cooking more, and eating breakfast at home more often.

    Wholesale prices tend to go up in the winter because of those habits, noted Earnest. That has “brought about a very strong market condition.”

    Year-round demand for eggs has also also been strong.

    Even while prices have soared, sales of eggs have only ticked down about 2% by unit in retail in the year through December 4th, according to data from IRI, a market research firm.

    Shoppers have been accepting high prices at the grocery store as they pull back on restaurant visits. And even though eggs have gotten more expensive, they still cost less than other proteins.

    A deadly avian flu has led to the death of millions of poultry this year.

    As that peak holiday demand passes, wholesale prices are expected to fall.

    “Based on current trade values and market conditions, it appears that the market may have finally reached its peak,” said Rispoli. Friday’s wholesale prices were the same as Thursday’s, the first time pricing held steady since October, she said.

    “Several suppliers have reported to us… that they are seeing their orders slow,” in the week leading up to Christmas, she added. By then, “most grocers have pulled in whatever inventory they’ll need for the holidays.”

    It might take another three to six months for prices to moderate in retail, said KK Davey, president of thought leadership at IRI and NPD, and even longer for prices to come down to what they were last year.

    “It may take some more time,” he said.

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