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Tag: MRNA

  • Bivalent Boosters Are Better Against Recent COVID Strains: Pfizer

    Bivalent Boosters Are Better Against Recent COVID Strains: Pfizer

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    Nov. 7, 2022 – If you’re among the 92% or so of Americans yet to get a bivalent COVID-19 booster, here’s some news to consider. The Pfizer/BioNTech updated vaccine triggers a stronger immune response than a fourth dose of their original vaccine, the company says. 

    This evidence supports getting this Omicron-specific booster before a potential COVID-19 surge this winter.

    The bivalent vaccine offers the strongest protection in people older than 55. One month after receiving a booster, those in this age group had four times more neutralizing antibodies against Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants than others who received the original vaccine as a booster.

    The researchers compared neutralizing antibody levels before and after the booster in different age groups. They found that levels increased 13 times in the 36 people in the study older than 55 and almost 10 times in the 38 people ages 18 to 55. By contrast, levels increased three times in the group of 40 people who received the original vaccine as a booster.

    The bivalent product contains two strains of vaccine – one to protect against the original COVID-19 virus and another to protect against these Omicron subvariants. 

    The newly released data is “very encouraging and consistent now with three studies all showing a substantial three- to fourfold increased level of neutralizing antibodies versus BA.5 as compared with the original booster,” says Eric Topol, MD, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, CA, and editor-in-chief of Medscape, WebMD’s sister site.  

    Pfizer/BioNTech announced the updated findings in a Nov. 4 news release.

    The bivalent vaccine is authorized for emergency use in people ages 5 and older. CDC data this week show that 8.4% of eligible Americans have received the bivalent vaccine. The agency also estimates about 2,500 Americans are dying from COVID every week. 

    The safety profile of the Pfizer/BioNTech bivalent booster remains favorable and similar to the original COVID-19 vaccine, the company says. 

    Until recently, the BA.5 Omicron variant was the dominant strain in the United States but is now getting elbowed out by the subvariants BQ.1.1, BQ.1, and BA.4.6, which together make up almost 45% of the circulating virus. 

    Some Skepticism

    “It is important to note that these data are press-release level, which does not allow a view of the data totality,” says Hana El Sahly, MD, professor of molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. 

    “For example, there may be significant differences between the groups, and the release mentions at least one difference that is of importance: the interval since the last vaccination, which often affects the response to subsequent boosting,” she says. The findings are not surprising, El Sahly says. 

    “In the short term, a variant-specific vaccine produces a higher level of antibody against the variant in the vaccine than the vaccines based on the ancestral strains.”

    More research results are warranted. 

    “These data do not indicate that these differences between the two vaccines translate into a meaningful clinical benefit at a population level,” El Sahly says.

    An Uncertain Winter Ahead

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

    The updated data from the Pfizer/BioNTech study are “all the more reason to get a booster, with added protection also versus BQ.1.1, which will soon become dominant in the U.S.,” Topol says. 

    It is unclear when the next surge will happen, as COVID-19 does not always follow a seasonal pattern — at least not yet, El Sahly says. 

    “Regardless, it is reasonable to recommend additional vaccine doses to immunocompromised and frail or older persons. More importantly, influenza vaccination and being up to date on pneumococcal vaccines are highly recommended as soon as feasible, given the early and intense flu season.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    The daily average for new cases stood at 39,090 on Wednesday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 3% versus two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations was up 2% to 27,161, while the daily average for deaths was down 6% to 345. 

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

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

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

    Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

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

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

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

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

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

    Here’s what the numbers say:

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

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

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

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

     

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  • New omicron subvariants accounted for more cases in New York region in latest week than BA.5, CDC data shows

    New omicron subvariants accounted for more cases in New York region in latest week than BA.5, CDC data shows

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    The omicron sublineages named BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 continued to spread in the U.S. in the week through Oct. 29, accounting for 27.1% of new cases nationwide, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

    The two accounted for 42.5% of all cases in the New York region, which includes New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, up from 37% the previous week. That was more than the BA.5 omicron subvariant, which accounted for 35.7% of new cases in the New York area in the latest week.

    The BA.5 omicron subvariant accounted for 49.6% of all U.S. cases, the data show.

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

    Last week, the World Health Organization said that BQ.1 and another sublineage dubbed XBB do not appear to have immune-escape mutations that warrant being designated as variants of concern. However, BA.5 is still a variant of concern that is being closely monitored, said a statement from the WHO’s Technical Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 Virus Evolution.

    Workers in a manufacturing facility that assemble Apple Inc.’s
    AAPL,
    -1.66%
    iPhone in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou appear to have left to avoid COVID-19 curbs, with many traveling on foot for days after an unknown number of employees were quarantined in the facility after a virus outbreak, the Associated Press reported. 

    Videos circulating on Chinese social media platforms showed people who are allegedly Foxconn workers climbing over fences and carrying their belongings down a road.

    Separately, visitors to Shanghai Disneyland were left stranded at the park on Monday after the resort halted operations to comply with COVID-19 restrictions amid a new outbreak of the virus.

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

    The daily average for new cases stood at 36,869 on Sunday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 2% from two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations was up 3% to 27,415, while the daily average for deaths was down 6% to 352. 

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

    Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

    • With a downcast earnings season passing the halfway mark, results from financial-technology companies and vaccine makers will arrive this week amid questions about consumer spending as well as demand for COVID drugs, MarketWatch’s Bill Peters reported. Pfizer Inc.
    PFE,
    -1.82%
    will report earnings on Tuesday, followed by Moderna Inc.
    MRNA,
    -0.47%
    on Thursday. Analysts will have their eye on the state of COVID-19 vaccine and treatment sales and on what executives are anticipating for the full year, as they prepare for a private market for COVID medications and as more people shrug off the pandemic. Pfizer executives, during a call last week, said they intended to charge between $110 and $130 for a single-dose vial of the vaccine for U.S. adults when government purchases end. But they said they believe anyone who has health insurance shouldn’t have to pay anything out of pocket.

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

    • A number of young children are being hospitalized because of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, and it’s happening at an unusual time of year and among older children than in years past, MarketWatch’s Jaimy Lee reported. COVID may be a contributing factor, in part because many children were not exposed to RSV last season and also because a prior COVID infection or exposure may change the way a baby’s immune system responds to RSV and may lead to more severe illness from an RSV infection, according to Asuncion Mejias, a principal investigator with the Center for Vaccines and Immunity at the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

    • On Saturday, more than 3,000 people took part in the first Pride march in South Africa since the COVID pandemic , celebrating the LGBT community and defying a U.S. warning of a possible terror attack in the area, the AP reported. The U.S. government this week warned of a possible attack in the Sandton part of Johannesburg, where the march took place. The South African government expressed concern that the U.S. had not shared enough information to give credibility to the alleged threat. Police said all measures had been taken to ensure safety in the area.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 630.2 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.58 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 97.5 million cases and 1,070,266 fatalities.

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

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

     

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  • CDC shoots down false claims it will mandate COVID-19 vaccines for schoolchildren, saying states make that decision

    CDC shoots down false claims it will mandate COVID-19 vaccines for schoolchildren, saying states make that decision

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    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has refuted claims that it’s planning to add the COVID-19 vaccine to immunization schedules for schoolchildren, saying that the authority for that decision lies with states and other local entities.

    The false claim spread after it was shared by Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a tweet this week, as the Associated Press reported. 

    Carlson tweeted that the agency would make the vaccine mandatory in order for children to attend school, a claim the CDC quickly shot down. While an advisory committee to the CDC voted to recommend that the vaccine be added to immunization schedules, the CDC “only makes recommendations for use of vaccines, while school-entry vaccination requirements are determined by state or local jurisdictions,” CDC spokeswoman Kate Grusich told the AP.

    Grusich explained that the action was meant to streamline clinical guidance for healthcare providers by adding COVID-19 vaccines to a single list of all currently licensed, authorized and routinely recommended vaccines.

    “It’s important to note that there are no changes in COVID-19 vaccine policy,” she said.

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

    The daily average for new cases stood at 38,077 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 8% from two weeks ago. Cases are currently rising in 14 states, as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

    The daily average for hospitalizations was down 2% to 26,669, although hospitalizations are rising in almost all northeastern states as cold weather arrives. The daily average for deaths was down 7% to 360.

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

    Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

    • Pfizer
    PFE,
    +4.42%
    is planning to sell the COVID vaccine it developed with German partner BioNTech
    BNTX,
    +9.88%
    for $110 -$130 a dose once the U.S. market for COVID-19 shots becomes commercial, likely in the first quarter of next year, MarketWatch’s Jaimy Lee reported. Pfizer and BioNTech are currently paid $30.50 per vaccine dose by the U.S. government, which contracted with the companies, as well as with other vaccine makers like Moderna
    MRNA,
    +9.07%
    and Novavax
    NVAX,
    +11.35%    ,
    and then made the COVID-19 shots available at no cost to people in the U.S. during the public-health emergency. The emergency declaration in the U.S. isn’t expected to be renewed next year, which will lead to the formation of an official commercial market for COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments. 

    • Johnson & Johnson
    JNJ,
    +1.91%
    said the volume of surgical procedures is returning to prepandemic levels in many parts of the world, a trend that cheered Wall Street and could bode well for other medical-technology heavyweights like Stryker Corp.
    SYK,
    +0.57%
    and Zimmer Biomet Holdings
    ZBH,
    +0.18%    .
    J&J, which reported earnings this week, said its medical-technology business had a “strong September,” with U.S. sales of hip and knee implants and other surgical devices rising 7.7% to $3.3 billion in the third quarter of the year. “We are seeing procedures recovering,” Ashley McEvoy, worldwide chair of J&J’s MedTech business, told investors during this week’s earnings call. “In the U.S., we started to see surgical procedures tick up, predominantly at the latter part of the quarter.”

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

    • “As China’s ruling Communist Party holds a congress this week, many Beijing residents are focused on an issue not on the formal agenda: Will the end of the meeting bring an easing of China’s at times draconian ‘zero-COVID’ policies that are disrupting lives and the economy?” the AP reported. It appears to be wishful thinking. As the world moves to a postpandemic lifestyle, many across China have resigned themselves to lining up several times a week for COVID tests, restrictions on travel to other regions and the ever-present possibility of a community lockdown.

    • Fantasy Fest, a 10-day annual party, is kicking off in Key West, Fla., on Friday, with a full slate of events for the first time since the pandemic started, the AP reported. “Due to the COVID pandemic, this will be the first full Fantasy Fest since 2019,” the festival’s board chair, Steve Robbins, said. “So I know our guests and staff are excited about getting back to the real Fantasy Fest.” Dozens of themed events are set for the festival, including a nighttime parade Oct. 29 featuring floats and elaborately costumed marching groups. Participants are encouraged to draw costume ideas from the festival’s theme, “Cult Classics & Cartoon Chaos,” and to portray characters inspired by favorite cartoons and television or film productions with a cult following.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 626.9 million on Friday, while the death toll rose above 6.57 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 97.2 million cases and 1,067,190 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 226.5 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.2% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 111.4 million have had a booster, equal to 49.1% of the vaccinated population, and 26.8 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 40.6% of those who received a first booster.

    The CDC reports that some 19.4 million people have had a dose of the updated bivalent booster that targets omicron and its subvariants along with the original virus.

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  • Pfizer sets new prices for its COVID-19 vaccines. The cost? $110 to $130 per dose

    Pfizer sets new prices for its COVID-19 vaccines. The cost? $110 to $130 per dose

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    Pfizer Inc.
    PFE,
    +4.17%
    said Thursday that it plans to sell the COVID-19 shot it developed with BioNTech SE
    BNTX,
    +7.14%
    for $110 to $130 per dose once the U.S. market for COVID-19 shots becomes commercial, likely in the first quarter of next year.

    Pfizer and BioNTech are currently paid $30.50 per vaccine dose by the U.S. government, which contracted with the companies (as well as other vaccine makers like Moderna Inc.
    MRNA,
    +6.57%
    and Novavax Inc.
    NVAX,
    +8.88%
    ) and then made the COVID-19 shots available at no cost to people in the U.S. during the public-health emergency.

    The emergency declaration in the U.S. isn’t expected to be renewed next year, which will lead to the formation of an official commercial market for COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments. That said, this change doesn’t mean most Americans will be on the hook to pay for their shots in 2023 and beyond.

    A recent Kaiser Family Foundation analysis said most people with private insurance won’t be expected to pay anything out of pocket for the vaccines, though the costs may eventually be baked into the price of health-insurance premiums, as is done with flu shots. People with Medicare will have their shots covered by Medicare Part B, while those with Medicaid should also have coverage of COVID-19 vaccines. It’s the uninsured who may find it difficult to find free vaccines and boosters in the future.

    Wall Street analysts cheered the news, saying Pfizer’s pricing plan came in above expectations. It also bodes well for Moderna’s stock. SVB Securities upgraded the company to market perform from underperform, though the company has not yet announced its pricing plans for its COVID-19 shots.

    “Presuming that MRNA prices as a rational duopolist, this substantially improves the company’s ability to meet 2023 revenue guidance,” SVB analyst Mani Foroohar told investors.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

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

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

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

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

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

    Here’s what the numbers say:

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

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

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

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  • Moderna Stock Takes Off on Cancer Vaccine News

    Moderna Stock Takes Off on Cancer Vaccine News

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    Moderna


    stock shot up after


    Merck


    said it is exercising an option to work on a personalized cancer vaccine with the Covid-19 vaccine maker.

    Merck (ticker: MRK) will pay


    Moderna


    (MRNA) $250 million for the joint development and future commercialization of the vaccine, which is currently in Phase 2 clinical trials. The two companies had announced a “strategic collaboration” in June 2016.

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  • 1 in 5 of Americans don’t know about new omicron-targeting COVID boosters, survey finds

    1 in 5 of Americans don’t know about new omicron-targeting COVID boosters, survey finds

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    About half of the American public has heard little or nothing about the new COVID-19 bivalent booster, a new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation has found. The new booster targets the omicron variants that have become dominant around the world.

    One in five of those surveyed said they had heard “nothing at all” about the new boosters. Some 17% said they had heard “a lot” about the boosters, while 33% said they had heard “some” about the new shots. About a third said they’d already gotten the new booster or intended to do so as soon as possible.

    “Intention is somewhat higher among older adults, one of the groups most at risk for serious complications of a coronavirus infection,” the authors wrote. “Almost half (45%) of adults ages 65 and older say they have gotten the bivalent booster or intend to get it ‘as soon as possible.’”


    Source: Kaiser Family Foundation

    The news will likely disappoint health experts who cheered the regulatory authorization of the new boosters in August. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency-use authorization to boosters developed by Moderna
    MRNA,
    +1.36%
    and by Pfizer
    PFE,
    -0.07%
    and German partner BioNTech
    BNTX,
    +1.53%
    for use in people aged 12 and older who have had an initial series of a COVID vaccine, including those who have already had one or more booster doses.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that all adults get one of the bivalent boosters at least two months after completing a primary series of shots. So far, some 7.6 million people in the U.S. have received it, according to the CDC.

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

    Once again, the country’s partisan divide is evident, with 6 in 10 Democrats saying they’ve already had the shot or will get it soon, compared with 1 in 8 Republicans.

    “Notably, 20% of Republicans say they will ‘definitely not’ get the new COVID-19 booster dose, while a further 38% of Republicans are unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated and therefore not eligible for the new updated COVID-19 booster dose,” the survey authors said.

    Also read: A common virus is putting more children in the hospital than in recent years

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

    The daily average for new cases stood at 47,569 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 26% from two weeks ago and now at the lowest level since late April. Cases are rising in 14 states and are sharply higher in several. Montana leads the count with a 75% rise in the last two weeks, followed by Washington with a 48% rise. Cases are up by double digits in Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and New Jersey.

    The daily average for hospitalizations was down 13% to 28,639, while the daily average for deaths was down 11% to 407.

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

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

    Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

    • The U.K. is the only G-7 country whose economy is smaller now than before the pandemic, the Guardian reported, citing data released Friday by the Office for National Statistics. The ONS released figures showing that rather than the economy being 0.6% larger than it was in February 2020, a combination of a deeper recession during the pandemic and a weak recovery had left it 0.2% smaller. All the other major economies in the G-7, including France and Italy, recovered strongly enough to be larger than they were in February 2020.

    • Taiwan is the latest country to end mandatory COVID quarantines for people arriving from overseas, the Associated Press reported. Officials said that beginning Oct. 13, the previous weeklong quarantine requirement would be replaced with a seven-day self-monitoring period. A rapid antigen test will still be required upon arrival, but people showing no symptoms will be allowed to take public transportation. 

    • Germany’s health ministry is warning of a rise of COVID cases heading into the fall and is urging older people in particular to get a second booster shot, the AP reported separately. Other European countries such as France, Denmark and the Netherlands are also recording an increase in cases, German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach told reporters in Berlin. “We are clearly at the start of a winter wave,” he said.

    COVID-19 lockdowns, corruption crackdowns and more have put China’s economy on a potential crash course with the U.S. and the rest of the world, the Wall Street Journal’s Dion Rabouin explains. Illustration: David Fang

    • The first Chinese mRNA-based COVID vaccine has received government approval — in Indonesia, the New York Times reported. The shot, developed by Walvax Biotechnology
    300142,
    +0.49%    ,
    Suzhou Abogen Biosciences and the Chinese military, was cleared this week by Indonesia for emergency use. Countries all over the world, including Indonesia, have embraced mRNA vaccines, and they are considered among the most effective vaccines that the world has to offer. But more than two years into the pandemic, they are not yet available in China, which has relied on an increasingly draconian “zero-COVID” approach to keep cases and deaths from the virus low.

    • Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and a supporter of Russia’s war on Ukraine, has tested positive for COVID-19, the church’s press service said on Friday, Reuters reported. The church said Kirill, 75, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, had canceled all his planned trips and events and had “severe symptoms” requiring bed rest and isolation. It said his condition was “satisfactory.”

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 617.3 million on Friday, while the death toll rose above 6.54 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 96.3 million cases and 1,059,291 fatalities.

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

     

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