The Food and Drug Administration is recommending that the U.S. decide each June which SARS-CoV-2 strains should be included in an annual fall booster shot.
Doing so would allow updated COVID-19 vaccines to be ready for distribution “no later than September” each year, according to documents published by the regulator.
The FDA’s Vaccines…
The XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant that became dominant in the U.S. last week has gained more ground, according to data from the nation’s main health agency, accounting for 49.1% of new cases in the latest week, up from 43% a week ago.
The subvariant is pulling further ahead of BQ.1.1 and BQ.1, the former dominant strains of the coronavirus that causes COVID, according to the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
BQ.1.1 accounted for 26.9% of new cases, down from 28.8% a week ago, while BQ.1 accounted for 13.3%, down from 15.9% a week ago.
In the New York region, which includes New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, XBB.1.5 accounted for 86.8% of new cases, up from 82.7% a week ago.
The World Health Organization has acknowledged that XBB.1.5, which was first detected in tiny numbers in the U.S. in October, has become the most transmissible variant yet thanks to a growth advantage. The agency said that it appears to have a greater ability to evade immunity than earlier variants.
In its weekly epidemiological update, the agency said the XBB line is one of four omicron subvariants that are showing transmission advantage over other circulating variants. The other three are BF.7, BQ.1 and BA.2.75.
For now, the WHO said it has no additional data on XBB.1.5, but BA.2.75.2 is showing the most neutralization resistance to sera from vaccinated and COVID-infected patients.
In the U.S., the seven-day average of new COVID cases stood at 50,839 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s down 20% from two weeks ago and below the recent peak of 70,508 on Christmas Eve.
The daily average for hospitalizations was down 18% at 39,272. The average for deaths was 498, up 5% from two weeks ago.
Cases are rising in just six states, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, a significant improvement from recent trends. On a per capita basis, Illinois now has the most cases at 31 per 100,000 residents, followed by Kentucky at 30 and Rhode Island at 27.
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:
• Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday announced plans to downgrade the legal status of COVID-19 to the equivalent of seasonal influenza in the spring, a move that would further relax mask requirements and other preventive measures as the country seeks to return to normalcy, the Associated Press reported. Kishida said he has instructed experts and government officials to discuss the details on changing the status of COVID-19. A change would also remove self-isolation rules and other antivirus requirements and allow COVID-19 patients to seek treatment at any hospital instead of restricting them to specialized facilities.
Read also: Moderna is the latest company to produce a promising RSV vaccine
• As Chinese people crowd onto trains and buses ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, which begins on Jan. 21, officials are playing down fears that widespread travel over the popular family holiday will lead to a spreader event, Reuters reported. In comments reported by state media late Thursday, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said the virus was at a “relatively low” level, while health officials said the number of COVID patients in the hospital and in critical condition was on the decline. But there are doubts about China’s official account of an outbreak that has overwhelmed hospitals and funeral homes since Beijing abandoned strict COVID controls and mass testing last month.
• CureVac’s
CVAC,
promising Phase 1 data for flu and COVID-19 vaccine candidates is a signal to investors that its messenger RNA technology is competitive, according to UBS Securities analysts, who upgraded the company’s stock to buy from neutral on Thursday, as MarketWatch’s Jaimy Lee reported. They also more than doubled the price target, to $18 from $8. CureVac had attempted to develop a first-generation COVID vaccine but failed. “As the first data of the 2nd-gen platform’s immunogenicity in humans, this is a major inflection point for the story, and suggests potentially competitive mRNA platform relative to mRNA peers,” the analysts wrote.
Here’s what the numbers say:
The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 668.3 million on Thursday, while the death toll rose above 6.73 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. leads the world with 101.9 million cases and 1,103,681 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 229.5 million people living in the U.S., equal to 69.1% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 50.7 million Americans, equal to 15.3% of the overall population, have had the updated COVID booster that targets both the original virus and the omicron variants.
China has accused “some Western media” of bias and political manipulation in covering China’s abrupt dropping of COVID restrictions, which has led to a wave of new cases of the virus, the Associated Press reported.
An editorial in the Communist Party publication the People’s Daily outlined what it called China’s “optimization and control measures” and blasted reports by media outlets they didn’t identify as “completely biased hype, smear and political manipulation with ulterior motives.”
The news comes as the country braces for the Lunar New Year holiday, which starts Jan. 21, and typically sees people traveling all over the country to visit family.
Experts are concerned that this year’s holiday will become a spreader event, although the editorial stressed that may localities have “passed the peak of the epidemic, and production and life are speeding up to return to normal.”
China has rejected all criticism, foreign and domestic, of its zero-COVID policy and pushed back against World Health Organization calls for more information about the state of its outbreak. Unconfirmed estimates now put the number of new cases at tens of thousands a day, with up to 85% of the population in some provinces having become infected.
In the U.S., the seven-day average of new U.S. COVID cases stood at 54,015 on Wednesday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s down 14% from two weeks ago and well below the recent peak of 70,508 on Christmas Eve.
The daily average for hospitalizations was down 16% at 39,473. The average for deaths was 482, up 6% from two weeks ago. The death rate appears to be steadying after climbing as much as 73% as recently as Tuesday.
The Times trackers posited that the spike in deaths had more to do with data anomalies in recent reporting, which tends to become distorted around holiday periods when hospitals and healthcare centers are more thinly staffed.
Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began
Other COVID-19 news you should know about:
• A hoped-for boom in Chinese tourism in Asia over next week’s Lunar New Year holidays looks set to be more of a blip as most travelers are opting to stay inside China if they go anywhere, the AP reported. From the beaches of Bali to Hokkaido’s powdery ski slopes, the hordes of Chinese often seen in pre-COVID days will still be missing, tour operators say. It’s a bitter disappointment for many businesses that had been hoping lean pandemic times were over, although operators are expecting a return by late February, or early March.
• Hong Kong will no longer require people infected with COVID to quarantine from Jan. 30, removing one of the last major coronavirus restrictions in place in the Asian financial hub, Reuters reported. The scrapping of the isolation requirements is part of a decision to downgrade COVID-19’s status to an endemic disease from a severe respiratory disease and follows a similar move by China on Jan.8.
• Moderna
MRNA,
chief executive Stephane Bancel said his company was in active discussions to supply COVID vaccines to China, Reuters reported separately. Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, he said the talks with Beijing also covered the topic of factories and other products including cancer treatments. “What I really want to understand is how do we help the Chinese government as to what are the needs they have from a healthcare standpoint,” he said.
Here’s what the numbers say:
The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 668 million on Thursday, while the death toll rose above 6.73 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. leads the world with 101.9 million cases and 1,102,286 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 229.4 million people living in the U.S., equal to 69.1% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 49.6 million Americans, equal to 15.9% of the overall population, have had the updated COVID booster that targets both the original virus and the omicron variants.
The World Health Organization has called on China to release more information about its current wave of COVID infections after China said nearly 60,000 people have succumbed to the virus since early December, the Associated Press reported.
The announcement of fatality numbers on Saturday came after weeks of complaints that China was not keeping experts abreast of what was happening.
The announcement “allows for a better understanding of the epidemiological situation,” said a WHO statement. Director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus talked by phone with Health Minister Ma Xiaowei, it said.
“WHO requested that this type of detailed information continued to be shared with us and the public,” the agency said.
The National Health Commission said only deaths in hospitals were counted, which means anyone who died at home is not part of the tally. It gave no indication of when or whether it might release updated numbers. China has seen a wave of cases ever since the government ended stringent restrictions on movement in December.
The WHO is now analyzing the data, which covers early December to Jan. 12. So far, the epidemiology is similar to what has been seen in other countries, “a rapid and intense wave of disease caused by known sub-variants of omicron with higher clinical impact on older people and those with underlying conditions,” said the statement.
The agency is hoping to get more information on the exact variants that are circulating. China has reported that two omicron sublineages, dubbed BA.5.2 and BF.7 are spreading but the WHO needs more sequences to be shared with open databases to get fully up to date.
See also: China reports first population drop in decades as birthrates plunge
In the U.S., the seven-day average of new U.S. COVID cases stood at 59,121 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s flat from two weeks ago and below the recent peak of 70,508 on Christmas Eve.
The daily average for hospitalizations was down 8% at 45,052. The average for deaths stood at 562, up 78% from two weeks ago to continue the recent trend.
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.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said its real-time surveillance system has met the statistical criteria to prompt additional investigation into whether there is a risk of ischemic stroke in people ages 65 and older who received the Pfizer/BioNTech
PFE,
BNTX,
bivalent COVID vaccine. “Rapid-response investigation of the signal in the VSD (vaccine safety datalink) raised a question of whether people 65 and older who have received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, Bivalent were more likely to have an ischemic stroke in the 21 days following vaccination compared with days 22-42 following vaccination,” the agency said in a statement. No such signal has been identified with the Moderna
MRNA,
bivalent vaccine, it added.
• Italian tennis player Camila Giorgi has denied allegations that she obtained a false COVID-19 vaccine certificate to allow her to travel, the AP reported. A doctor is under investigation in Italy for supplying false certificates and fake vaccines and Giorgi’s name was revealed in a long list of people implicated by an Italian newspaper. Giorgi is currently competing in the Australian Open.
• The New York State Department of Health is “exploring its options” after a state Supreme Court judge struck down a statewide mandate requiring healthcare workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the AP reported separately. Judge Gerard Neri wrote in a ruling released Friday that Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and the health department overstepped their authority by mandating a vaccine that’s not included in state public health law, the Syracuse Post-Standard reported. The mandate is “null, void, and of no effect,” the judge said. He sided with Medical Professionals for Informed Consent, a group of medical workers impacted by the vaccination mandate.
Here’s what the numbers say:
The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 667.3 million on Tuesday, while the death toll rose above 6.7 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. leads the world with 101.7 million cases and 1,099,885 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 229.4 million people living in the U.S., equal to 69.1% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 49.6 million Americans, equal to 15.9% of the overall population, have had the updated COVID booster that targets both the original virus and the omicron variants.
The XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant that has been dominant in the Northeast for several weeks is now officially dominant across the U.S., according to an update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention early Friday.
XBB.1.5 accounted for 43% of all COVID cases in the week through Jan. 14, pulling ahead of BQ.1.1, which accounted for 28.8% of new cases, and BQ.1, which accounted for 15.9%, the data showed.
Last week, BQ.1.1 was still dominant nationwide, accounting for 33.5% of new cases versus XBB.1.5’s 30.4%.
In the New York region, which includes New Jersey, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, XBB.1.5 now accounts for 82.7% of new cases, up from 72.7% a week ago.
On Thursday, the World Health Organization acknowledged that XBB.1.5, which was first detected in tiny numbers in the U.S. in October, has become the most transmissible variant yet thanks to a growth advantage, and said that it appears to have a greater ability to evade immunity than earlier variants.
However, the immune-escape data is based on preliminary lab-based studies and not on research in humans. And with the only data to review coming from the U.S., the agency said there’s no information yet on clinical severity.
XBB.1.5 is similar to its immediate predecessor XBB.1 but has an additional mutation to its spike protein that may be behind its growth advantage. For now, it does not appear to have any mutation that might lead to more severe disease or death, WHO officials have said. The agency is monitoring it along with five other omicron variants.
On Friday, the WHO updated guidelines on face masks, treatments and patient care in the age of COVID, a reminder that the pandemic is not yet over, even if people are mostly behaving as if it is. Given current global trends, the agency is recommending that people wear face masks when in public settings that are enclosed or poorly ventilated. People who have been exposed to the virus should also wear masks.
“Similar to previous recommendations, WHO advises that there are other instances when a mask may be suggested, based on a risk assessment,” the agency said in a statement. “Factors to consider include the local epidemiological trends or rising hospitalization levels, levels of vaccination coverage and immunity in the community, and the setting people find themselves in.”
The WHO reduced its recommended isolation period for COVID patients and said they can end isolation early if they test negative on a rapid test. Patients with symptoms should isolate for 10 days from the start of symptom onset, but the agency has dropped its advice for an additional three days.
For asymptomatic patients who test positive, the WHO now recommends five days of isolation, compared with 10 days previously.
The WHO extended a strong recommendation for the use of Pfizer’s
PFE,
antiviral Paxlovid for patients with mild to moderate symptoms who are at risk of hospitalization.
The data comes as the seven-day average of new U.S. cases stood at 60,610 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s up 4% from two weeks ago and below the recent peak of 70,508 on Christmas Eve. The daily average for hospitalizations was up 10% to 45,842. The average for deaths was 564, up 61% from two weeks ago.
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 peak of China’s COVID-19 wave is expected to last two to three months and to soon extend over the country’s vast rural areas, where medical resources are relatively scarce, Reuters reported Friday, citing a Chinese epidemiologist. Infections are expected to surge in those areas as hundreds of millions of people travel to their hometowns for the Lunar New Year holiday, which starts Jan. 21. “Our priority focus has been on the large cities. It is time to focus on rural areas,” said Zeng Guang, the former chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a report published in local media outlet Caixin on Thursday.
• Private services offering Chinese travelers access to mRNA vaccines are attracting droves of mainlanders to Hong Kong and Macau, the Guardian reported on Friday, as people seek a booster shot that their government has refused to approve. The government only allowed its citizens to get homegrown vaccines developed by Sinopac and Sinopharm
8156,
throughout the pandemic, but many people are now seeking the greater protection offered by the mRNA vaccines developed by Moderna
MRNA,
and by Pfizer and German partner BioNTech
BNTX,
• Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly plans to return to work at the Statehouse Friday after learning that a COVID-19 test earlier in the week gave her a false positive result, her office said, the Associated Press reported. Kelly has been working in self-isolation at the governor’s residence since the false positive Tuesday. Her office announced that she had tested positive for COVID-19, and she postponed the annual State of the State address from Wednesday to Jan. 24.
Here’s what the numbers say:
The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 666.3 million on Friday, while the death toll rose above 6.7 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. leads the world with 101.6 million cases and 1,099,629 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 229.4 million people living in the U.S., equal to 69.1% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 49.6 million Americans, equal to 15.9% of the overall population, have had the updated COVID booster that targets both the original virus and the omicron variants.
The XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant has a growth advantage over other circulating subvariants of the virus that causes COVID-19, and early data suggest it also has a greater ability to evade immunity than previous ones, according to the World Health Organization.
In its weekly epidemiological update, the agency said the immune-escape data is based on preliminary lab-based studies and not on research in humans.
“At present, there is no available information on clinical severity for XBB.1.5,” the WHO said. Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are showing that XBB.1.5 has become dominant in the northeastern U.S.
Six omicron variants are currently being monitored, and they accounted for 76.2% of sequences submitted to a central database in the week through Dec. 25, the update said. The BQ.1 subvariant accounted for 53.4% of those.
The global case tally fell 9%, to 2.9 million new cases, in the week through Jan. 8, although with testing and delays in reporting from some countries result due to the end-of-year holidays, those numbers should be treated with caution, said the WHO.
The number of fatalities reported was down 125, to over 11,000.
In the U.S., the seven-day average of new cases stood at 63,088 on Wednesday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s down 2% from two weeks ago and below the recent peak of 70,508 on Christmas Eve.
The daily average for hospitalizations was up 12% to 46,278. The average for deaths, meanwhile, was 555, which is up 61% from two weeks ago.
Cases are now rising in 28 states, led by Florida, where they are up 90% from two weeks ago. On a per capita basis, New Jersey has the highest rate, at 32 new cases per 100,000 residents, followed by North Carolina, Rhode Island and South Carolina.
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:
• Travelers whose package tours were affected by the imposition of COVID-19 restrictions may be entitled to at least a partial refund, the European Union’s highest court said Thursday, the Associated Press reported. The European Court of Justice weighed in after being asked for its opinion by a court in Germany. The Munich court is considering the case of two people who bought a two-week package vacation on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria that started on March 13, 2020, just as the pandemic hit Europe. They are seeking a 70% refund because of restrictions that were imposed there two days later and their early return home.
• People in China worried on Thursday about spreading COVID to elderly relatives as they planned visits to their hometowns for a holiday travel season that the WHO warns could inflame a raging outbreak, Reuters reported. The Lunar New Year holiday, which starts on Jan. 21, comes a month after China abandoned a strict zero-COVID regime of mass lockdowns that prompted widespread frustration and boiled over into historic protests. The outbreak, which is spreading from China’s megacities to rural areas that have weaker medical resources, is overwhelming some hospitals and crematoriums. The WHO on Wednesday said it would be challenging to manage the virus over a holiday period that is considered the world’s largest annual migration of people.
• A 14th Mississippi child has died from COVID, the state’s department of health said Wednesday, the AP reported. The infant under the age of one was the first person under age 18 to die from COVID-19 in the state in 2023. According to state department of health data, eight children between the ages of 11 and 17 have died since the first cases of the virus were identified in 2020, making that age range the most prone to pediatric deaths in the state so far.
Here’s what the numbers say:
The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 665.8 million on Thursday, while the death toll rose above 6.7 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. leads the world with 101.5 million cases and 1,098,512 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 229.3 million people living in the U.S., equal to 69.1% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 48.2 million Americans, equal to 15.4% of the overall population, have had the updated COVID booster that targets both the original virus and the omicron variants.
China stopped issuing visas for visitors from Japan and South Korea on Tuesday in apparent retaliation for COVID-testing measures imposed on travelers from China, the Associated Press reported.
China had warned it would take action against countries that mandate testing for its citizens, who are now free to travel after the government lifted strict restrictions on movement last month, unleashing a wave of new cases.
At least 10 countries in Europe, North America and Asia have imposed test requirements recently, with officials expressing concern about a lack of information about the Chinese outbreak and the potential for new virus variants to emerge.
Japan and South Korea protested the visa stoppage, the AP reported separately on Wednesday.
South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin said he finds it “significantly regrettable” that China stopped issuing short-term visas to South Koreans and called for China to align its pandemic steps with “scientific and objective facts.”
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno criticized China for “one-sidedly” restricting visa issuances to Japanese nationals “because of a reason that is not related to COVID-19 measures.”
In the U.S., the seven-day average of new cases stood at 63,982 on Tuesday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s down 4% from two weeks ago and below the recent peak of 70,508 on Christmas Eve.
The daily average for hospitalizations was up 15% to 46,900. In an alarming statistic, the average for deaths stood at 580, up 50% from two weeks ago.
Cases are currently rising in 22 states, as well as Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Northern Mariana Islands. In Maryland, cases are up 170% from two weeks ago.
On a per capita basis, New Jersey and Rhode Island are showing the highest rates, with New Jersey recording 32 cases per 100,000 residents and Rhode Island 31.
Cases are also high on a per capita basis in North Carolina and South Carolina, as well as Mississippi and Florida.
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:
• Cyprus has joined the list of countries mandating COVID testing for tourists from China, the AP reported. The health ministry said it was heeding the advice of the European Union’s executive arm in requiring passengers from China to submit results from a PCR test taken 48 hours before their departure. The ministry also recommended the use of protective face masks on all flights to and from Cyprus as well as in any areas where people gather in large numbers.
• The Chinese air-travel regulator is preparing to allow airlines to fly more routes between China and the U.S. following the lifting of COVID travel restrictions, state TV reported Wednesday, as the AP reported. U.S. and Chinese airlines are among some 40 carriers that have submitted applications covering some 700 flights per week involving 34 countries, China Central Television reported on its website. It gave no timeline for when normal flights might resume.
• The Pentagon formally dropped its COVID-19 vaccination mandate Tuesday, but a new memo signed by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also gives commanders some discretion in how or whether to deploy troops who are not vaccinated, the AP reported. Austin’s memo has been widely anticipated since Dec. 23, when a new law gave him 30 days to rescind the mandate. The Defense Department had already stopped all related personnel actions, such as discharging service members who refused the shot. “The Department will continue to promote and encourage COVID-19 vaccination for all service members,” Austin said in the memo. “Vaccination enhances operational readiness and protects the force.”
Here’s what the numbers say:
The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 665.3 million on Wednesday, while the death toll rose above 6.7 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. leads the world with 101.3 million cases and 1,097,660 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 229.3 million people living in the U.S., equal to 69.1% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 48.2 million Americans, equal to 15.4% of the overall population, have had the updated COVID booster that targets both the original virus and the omicron variants.
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon formally dropped its COVID-19 vaccination mandate Tuesday, but a new memo signed by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also gives commanders some discretion in how or whether to deploy troops who are not vaccinated.
Austin’s memo has been widely anticipated ever since legislation signed into law on Dec. 23 gave him 30 days to rescind the mandate. The Defense Department had already stopped all related personnel actions, such as discharging troops who refused the shot.
“The Department will continue to promote and encourage COVID-19 vaccination for all service members,” Austin said in the memo. “Vaccination enhances operational readiness and protects the force.”
Austin said that commanders have the authority to maintain unit readiness and a healthy force. He added, however, that other department policies — including mandates for other vaccines — remain in place. That includes, he said, “the ability of commanders to consider, as appropriate, the individual immunization status of personnel in making deployment, assignment, and other operational decisions, including when vaccination is required for travel to, or entry into, a foreign nation.”
The contentious political issue, which has divided America, forced more than 8,400 troops out of the military for refusing to obey a lawful order when they declined to get the vaccine. Thousands of others sought religious and medical exemptions. Austin’s memo ends those exemption requests.
Austin, who instituted the mandate in August 2021 after the Pfizer vaccine was approved by the Food and Drug Administration and as the coronavirus pandemic raged, was staunch in his desire to maintain it insisting the vaccine was necessary to protect the health of the force. He and other defense leaders argued that for decades troops, particularly those deployed overseas, had been required to get as many as 17 different vaccines. No other vaccine mandates were affected by the new law.
But Congress agreed to rescind the mandate, with opponents reluctantly saying that perhaps it had already succeeded in getting the bulk of the force vaccinated. Roughly 99% of active-duty troops in the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps had gotten the vaccine, and 98% of the Army. The Guard and Reserve rates are lower, but generally are more than 90%.
Austin’s memo was unapologetic in his continued support for the vaccine, and his belief that the mandate kept the force healthy and able to protect America. The Pentagon’s vaccine efforts, he said, “will leave a lasting legacy in the many lives we saved, the world-class force we have been able to field, and the high level of readiness we have maintained, amidst difficult public health conditions.”
In addition to ending efforts to discharge troops who refuse the vaccine, Austin’s memo says that those who sought exemptions and were denied will have their records updated and any letters of reprimand will be removed.
Those who were discharged for refusing to obey a lawful order to take the vaccine received either an honorable discharge or a general discharge under honorable conditions. Austin’s memo says that anyone who was discharged can petition their military service to request a change in the “characterization of their discharge” in their personnel records. It does not, however, say what possible corrections could be awarded.
Austin’s decision leaves some discretion to commanders, allowing them to decide whether they can require vaccines in some circumstances, such as certain deployments overseas.
Military officials vividly recall the overwhelming crisis of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, the Navy aircraft carrier that was knocked out of duty and sidelined in Guam for 10 weeks in early 2020 as the emerging virus swept through the ship. More than 1,000 crew members eventually became infected, and one sailor died.
Military leaders worry that if troops begin to refuse the vaccine in large numbers, similar outbreaks could occur. The risk is particularly high on small ships or submarines where service members are jammed into close quarters for weeks or months at a time, or on critical combat missions, such as those involving special operations forces that deploy in small teams.
According to data compiled by the military as of early December, the Marine Corps leads the services with 3,717 Marines discharged. There have been 2,041 discharged from the Navy, 1,841 from the Army and 834 from the Air Force. The Air Force data includes the Space Force.
What’s not clear is if the services, who are facing recruiting challenges, will want — or be able to — allow any of those service members to return to duty, if they still meet all necessary fitness and other requirements.
Lawmakers argued that ending the mandate would help with recruiting. Defense officials have pushed back by saying that while it may help a bit, a department survey during the first nine months of last year found that a large majority said the mandate did not change the likelihood they would consider enlisting.
China on Tuesday suspended visas for South Koreans to enter the country for tourism or business in apparent retaliation for South Korea’s COVID-19 testing requirements for Chinese travelers, the Associated Press reported.
No other details were given, although China has threatened to retaliate against countries that require travelers from China to show a negative result for a test taken within the previous 48 hours.
That has not stopped about a dozen countries from following the U.S. in requiring Chinese travelers produce a test after China lifted most of its strict COVID-related restrictions for the first time since the start of the pandemic. The end of those restrictions has resulted in a surge of new cases.
The World Health Organization and several nations have accused China of withholding data on its outbreak. The testing requirements are aimed at identifying potential virus variants carried by travelers.
Separately on Tuesday, the head of the WHO for Europe said the surge of cases in China is not likely to have a big impact on Europe, although he cautioned against complacency.
Hans Kluge told reporters it was “not unreasonable for countries to take precautionary measures to protect their populations” but called for such measures “to be rooted in science, to be proportionate and nondiscriminatory,” as AFP reported.
In the U.S., the seven-day average of new cases stood at 67,012 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s up 2% from two weeks ago and below the recent peak of 70,508 on Christmas Eve.
The daily average for hospitalizations was up 18% to 47,503. The average for deaths was 467, up 10% from two weeks ago.
Cases are currently rising in 21 states, along with Guam, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They are led by Florida, where cases are up 90% from two weeks ago. On a per-capita basis, New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island are seeing the highest rates. New York has 37 cases per 100,000 people, New Jersey 35 and Rhode Island 31.
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:
• Thailand sent three cabinet ministers to welcome Chinese tourists with flowers and gifts as they arrived Monday at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport after China relaxed travel restrictions, the AP reported. The high-profile event reflected the importance Thailand places on wooing Chinese travelers to help restore its pandemic-battered tourism industry. Before COVID, Chinese visitors accounted for about one-third of all arrivals.
• Moderna Inc.
MRNA,
is considering pricing its COVID vaccine at $110 to $130 per dose, the Wall Street Journal reported. That’s the same price range as mooted by Pfizer Inc.
PFE,
and German partner BioNTech SE
BNTX,
once their vaccine moves to the commercial market. For now, vaccines are being purchased and distributed by the U.S. government.
• India has detected the presence of all the COVID omicron subvariants in the community after testing more than 300 samples since late December, the health ministry said in a statement, Reuters reported. “No mortality or rise in transmission were reported in the areas where these variants were detected,” the ministry said.
A flurry of announcements relating to COVID vaccines dominated headlines on the pandemic on Monday, with Moderna telling investors it expects to generate some $5 billion in sales in 2023.
That’s down from $18.4 billion in sales in 2022. The company plans to boost spending on research and development to $4.5 billion this year, up from $3.3 billion in 2022.
Moderna
MRNA,
provided the update in advance of the company’s presentation at the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.
Separately, CureVac
CVAC,
said preliminary data from its early stage trial for its COVID and seasonal flu shots had positive results to advance to the next stage of clinical testing.
CureVac is developing the shots with GlaxoSmithKline
GSK,
GSK,
CureVac said the shot was well tolerated, and that neutralizing antibodies were beginning at the lowest tested dose for younger adults. The seasonal flu shot was also well tolerated with an increase in antibodies compared to those from a flu vaccine comparator in younger adults, CureVac said.
Ocugen announced positive results in a trial of its COVID vaccine Covaxin, which uses the same vero cell manufacturing platform that has been used in the production of polio vaccines for decades. The Phase 2/3 trial involved 491 U.S. adult participants who received two doses of Covaxin or placebo 28 days apart.
“Covaxin, an inactivated virus vaccine adjuvanted with TLR7/8 agonist, has been demonstrated in clinical trials to generate a broader immune response against the whole virus covering important antigens such as S-protein, RBD, and N-protein; whereas currently approved vaccines in the U.S. target only S-protein antigen,” the company said in a statement.
Chief Executive Dr. Shankar Musnuri said the company is hoping the vaccine will offer an option for those who are still hesitant to take an mRNA vaccine, which uses newer technology.
U.S. cases were lower on Sunday, according to a New York Times tracker. The seven-day average of new cases stood at 67,246, down 1% from two weeks ago.
The daily average for hospitalizations was up 18% at 47,500., the highest level since last March. The average for deaths was 509, up 19% from two weeks ago.
Hospitalizations are becoming concerning, according to the Times trackers, with the Northeast seeing the highest per capita rates, along with the Southeast.
Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began
Other COVID-19 news you should know about:
• China has suspended or closed the social-media accounts of more than 1,000 critics of the government’s COVID response, as the country rolls back harsh anti-virus restrictions and gears up for the coming Lunar New Year holiday, the Associated Press reported. The popular Sina Weibo social media platform said it had addressed 12,854 violations including attacks on experts, scholars and medical workers and issued temporary or permanent bans on 1,120 accounts. The ruling Communist Party had largely relied on the medical community to justify its tough lockdowns, quarantine measures and mass testing, almost all of which it abruptly abandoned last month, leading to a surge in new cases that have stretched medical resources to their limits. The party allows no direct criticism and imposes strict limits on free speech.
• Pfizer’s
PFE,
antiviral Paxlovid has not been included in the Chinese government’s national reimbursement list that would have allowed patients to get it at a cheaper price throughout the country, saying it was too expensive, the AP reported separately. Although it is supposed to be prescribed by medical professionals, that hasn’t stopped people from scrambling to purchase it on their own through any means at their disposal—including buying generic Indian versions of the drug through the internet, according to local media reports.
• The union representing a group of nurses at a New York City hospital reached a tentative contract agreement with its management, but close to 9,000 nurses at several other major hospitals were still preparing to go on strike, the AP reported. The New York State Nurses Association and BronxCare Health System said Saturday that a tentative agreement had been reached; the union said it included pay raises every year of its three-year term as well as staffing increases. Another hospital, Flushing Hospital Medical Center, got to a tentative agreement with nurses on Friday evening.
Here’s what the numbers say:
The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 664.3 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.7 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. leads the world with 101.2 million cases and 1,096,523 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 229.3 million people living in the U.S., equal to 69.1% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 48.2 million Americans, equal to 15.4% of the overall population, have had the updated COVID booster that targets both the original virus and the omicron variants.
The global tally of COVID cases rose 25% in the period stretching from Dec. 5 to Jan. 1 to more than 14.5 million, the World Health Organization said Thursday.
Known case numbers appeared to fall in the latest week, but the WHO said those numbers were not reliable given the reduction in testing and delays in reporting during the year-end holiday period.
BA.5 and its sublineages remained dominant, based on sequences sent to a central database, with six under monitoring, including XBB and its sublineage XBB.1.5, which has become dominant in the U.S., according to data released last Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While XBB.1.5 does not so far appear more lethal than earlier variants, it has spread fast across the U.S., rising from about 1.3% of cases in early December to about 41% in the week through Dec. 31.
“We are concerned about its growth advantage, in particular in some countries in Europe and the Northeast part of the United States, where XBB.1.5 has rapidly replaced other circulating sub-variants,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s COVID technical lead, told reporters on Wednesday, as Politico reported.
U.S. numbers are also likely a little distorted by the holiday season, according to the team running a New York Times tracker.
The seven-day average for new U.S. cases stood at 64,087 on Wednesday, according to the tracker. That’s down 5% from two weeks ago and below the recent peak of 70,508 on Christmas Eve.
The daily average for hospitalizations was up 7% at 44,458. The average for deaths was 457, up 11% from two weeks ago.
Test positivity, meanwhile, has climbed 25% to 16%, and the number of patients in intensive-care units is up 8% to 5,312.
Cases are rising in 21 states, led by Louisiana, where they have climbed 75% from two weeks ago. On a per capita basis, New Jersey and New York are worst hit with an average of 34 cases per 100,000 people in the former and an average of 29 cases per 100,000 people in the latter.
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:
• Chinese hospitals are running out of beds as they struggle with a wave of COVID cases in the wake of the government’s scrapping of what were the most strict restrictions in the world, the Associated Press reported. Patients, mostly older people, laid on stretchers in hallways or took oxygen while sitting in wheelchairs as a COVID-19 outbreak stretched public health facilities’ resources in China’s capital Beijing, even after its reported peak. The Chuiyangliu hospital in the city’s east was packed Thursday with newly arrived patients. Beds ran out by midmorning, even as ambulances continued to bring more people in. Hard-pressed nurses and doctors rushed to take information and triage the most urgent cases.
• The European Union on Wednesday “strongly encouraged” its member states to impose pre-departure COVID-19 testing of passengers from China, in a move that is likely to upset Beijing and has already been criticized by the global airline industry, the AP reported separately. Following a week of talks between EU health experts, the bloc stopped short of agreeing that all 27 member states impose such a travel restriction that members like Italy, France and Spain had already implemented at a national level. Instead, it only urged nations to do so. China has already vehemently rejected such actions, warning of “countermeasures” if such policies were to be imposed across the bloc.
• The collapse of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin during a Monday game has given rise to another series of unfounded claims about COVID vaccines, showing that vaccine misinformation remains a threat to public safety three years after the pandemic began, BBC News reported. In what has become a familiar pattern since vaccines became available about two years ago, several influential accounts used the event to spread anti-vaccination content. They included the Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who tweeted: “Before the COVID vaccines we didn’t see athletes dropping dead on the playing field like we do now… Time to investigate the COVID vaccines.” The idea that young, healthy athletes have never collapsed suddenly before COVID vaccines is easily disproved, said the BBC.
• Hong Kong will start to reopen its border with mainland China on Sunday and allow tens of thousands of people to cross from each side every day without quarantine, the city’s leader said, as the AP reported. The city’s land and sea border checkpoints with the mainland have been largely closed for almost three years under China’s “zero-COVID” strategy, which has restricted entry to the country, isolated infected people and locked down areas with outbreaks. The reopening is expected to provide a much-needed boost to Hong Kong’s economy.
Here’s what the numbers say:
The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 662.4 million on Thursday, while the death toll rose above 7.5 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. leads the world with 101 million cases and 1,094,010 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 229.1 million people living in the U.S., equal to 69% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 47 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 15.1% of the overall population.
European Union officials were working Wednesday to coordinate a response to China’s current surge of COVID cases and were likely to agree on travel restrictions that may upset both Beijing and airlines.
The Chinese government has already slammed the countries that have imposed a COVID test requirement on passengers from China and has threatened countermeasures if more are introduced, the Associated Press reported.
EU Commission spokesman Tim McPhie said Wednesday that most EU nations are in favor of testing prior to departure and are seeking an official position later in the day.
There are concerns that China’s wave may allow for new, potentially more evasive and risky variants of the coronavirus to emerge, although so far, data are showing the variants circulating in China are already in Europe.
See also: Isolated and humiliated, Russia is biggest geopolitical threat of 2023: Eurasia Group
On Wednesday the International Air Transport Association, which represents some 300 airlines worldwide, lent its powerful voice to the protests.
“It is extremely disappointing to see this knee-jerk reinstatement of measures that have proven ineffective over the last three years,” said IATA Director General Willie Walsh.
“Research undertaken around the arrival of the omicron variant concluded that putting barriers in the way of travel made no difference to the peak spread of infections. At most, restrictions delayed that peak by a few days,” Walsh said.
EU nations are also expected to agree to test wastewater from planes flying in from China to determine whether it contains variants that are not yet prevalent in Europe.
In the U.S., the seven-day average for new COVID cases has continued to fall and stood at 60,417 on Tuesday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s down 10% from two weeks ago and below the recent peak of 70,508 on Christmas Eve.
The daily average for hospitalizations was up 8% to 44,504. The average for deaths was 310, down 24% from two weeks ago.
The New York Times tracker notes there is reason to believe current case and death counts could be artificially low, as the people who track those numbers take time off around the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Hospitalization data are not typically affected by holiday reporting breaks.
The number of patients with COVID in intensive-care units rose 11% in two weeks, to 5,350. Meanwhile, the test-positivity rate climbed to 16% and has increased by 25% over the past two weeks. Higher test-positivity rates suggest many new COVID cases are not being counted, as results of at-home testing may not be reported to case trackers.
Overall, cases are currently rising in 17 states, led by Mississippi, where they have climbed 78% from two weeks ago. Measured on a per-capita basis, New Jersey and New York are faring the worst, along with several southern states, including Virginia, Mississippi and South Carolina.
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:
• Shares of Lucira Health Inc.
LHDX,
more than quadrupled Tuesday after it submitted an application for emergency-use authorization to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for over-the-counter use of a molecular COVID-19 and flu test, Dow Jones Newswires reported. The test was granted emergency-use authorization for point-of-care use in a healthcare setting in November. The company now “intends to make the test broadly available to consumers both online as well as in pharmacies.”
• Salesforce Inc.
CRM,
has become the latest big tech player to say it hired too aggressively during the COVID pandemic; it is now planning to lay off about 10% of its workforce, MarketWatch’s Emily Bary reported. The company will also exit some real estate and cut back on office space, it disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The plan is aimed at reducing operating costs, boosting operating margins and driving “profitable growth.” “As our revenue accelerated through the pandemic, we hired too many people leading into this economic downturn we’re now facing, and I take responsibility for that,” the company’s co-chief executive, Marc Benioff, said in a letter to employees that was also filed with the SEC. The company had 73,541 employees as of Jan. 31, 2022, according to its last annual filing with the SEC.
Read: Here are the companies in the layoffs spotlight; Salesforce joins Intel, Google, HP, Amazon, Cisco
• Pfizer Inc.
PFE,
has gone from being a COVID darling to a “show-me” launch story, according to Bank of America analysts, who downgraded the stock to neutral from buy on Wednesday, citing declining COVID revenues and uncertainty about how new products will perform. Analysts are expecting revenue from Pfizer’s COVID vaccine Comirnaty and its antiviral Paxlovid to decline by about $32 billion from 2022, wider than the consensus number of a decline of $25 billion. “While new launches can partially address the $17 billion LOE (loss of exclusivity) hole in 2025 to 2030, longer term growth is unclear,” the analysts wrote in a note to clients.
Here’s what the numbers say:
The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 666.8 million on Tuesday, while the death toll rose above 6.69 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. leads the world with 100.8 million cases and 1,094,010 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 229.1 million people living in the U.S., equal to 69% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 47 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 15.1% of the overall population.
XBB.1.5 accounted for 40.5% of all cases in the week through Dec. 31, outstripping the two former dominant strains, BQ.1.1 and BQ.1. The former accounted for 26.9% of cases, while the latter accounted for 18.3%.
The XBB.1.5 subvariant has spread quickly. It accounted for just 1.3% of new cases in the first week of December and has more than doubled its share every week since then.
In the New York region, which includes New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, it accounted for 72.2% of new cases in the latest week.
While the subvariant appears more infectious than earlier ones, data do not suggest it’s more risky. But experts are urging Americans to keep up with vaccine boosters, which are still the best protection against severe illness and death.
Overall, in the U.S., the seven-day average for new COVID cases has continued to fall and stood at 58,928 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s down 11% from two weeks ago and below the recent peak of 70,508 cases recorded on Christmas Eve.
The daily average for hospitalizations was up 8% to 44,841. The average for deaths was 317, down 23% from two weeks ago.
The New York Times tracker notes that there’s reason to believe official case and death counts are artificially low, as many of those who track the numbers take time off around the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Hospitalization data, however, are not typically affected by holiday reporting breaks.
The number of patients with COVID in intensive-care units rose 11% in two weeks to 5,350. Meanwhile, the test-positivity rate climbed to 15% and has increased by 23% over the past two weeks. Higher test-positivity rates suggest that many new COVID cases are not being reported, as the results of at-home testing may not be reported to case trackers.
Cases are currently climbing in 15 states, led by South Carolina, where they are up 52% from two weeks ago. Measured on a per-capita basis, infection rates are worst in New Jersey and New York, along with South Carolina, Virginia and Kentucky.
See also: Isolated and humiliated, Russia is biggest geopolitical threat of 2023: Eurasia Group
In China, the government has lashed out at other countries for imposing COVID testing requirements on passengers from China and is threatening countermeasures against those countries, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
“We believe that the entry restrictions adopted by some countries targeting China lack scientific basis, and some excessive practices are even more unacceptable,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a daily briefing Tuesday.
“We are firmly opposed to attempts to manipulate the COVID measures for political purposes and will take countermeasures based on the principle of reciprocity,” she added.
Australia and Canada this week joined a growing list of countries that are asking travelers from China to take a COVID test before boarding a flight, a move taken in response to the current wave of cases that began after the Chinese government relaxed what were some of the most stringent pandemic restrictions in the world.
The U.S., the U.K., India, Japan and a number of European countries have announced a testing requirement amid fears that the current wave could produce new variants that may prove resistant to existing vaccines.
Sweden, which has taken over the EU’s rotating presidency, has called a meeting of the EU’s crisis-management mechanism in Brussels Wednesday, at which travel restrictions will be discussed with the aim of agreeing on a common policy.
Chinese health officials said last week that they had submitted data to GISAID, a global database for sharing coronavirus data.
The versions of the virus fueling infections in China “closely resemble” those seen in different parts of the world between July and December, GISAID said Monday.
The EU has offered to help China with its outbreak, including by donating vaccines, according to a separate AP report. The European Commission said Tuesday that over the past several days, the bloc had reached out to Beijing to offer help, including by providing expertise, medical information and vaccine donations. No specific information was immediately available. The Financial Times first reported the news.
Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began
Other COVID-19 news you should know about:
• A German doctor was sentenced Monday to two years and nine months in prison for illegally issuing more than 4,000 people with exemptions from wearing masks during the pandemic, the AP reported. A regional court in the southwestern town of Weinheim confirmed Tuesday that the doctor was convicted of “issuing incorrect health certificates” to people from across Germany, most of whom she had never met or examined. In addition to the prison sentence, she received a three-year work ban and was ordered to pay 28,000 euros ($29,550), the sum she had received for issuing the medical certificates.
• Minnesota health officials have closed their COVID-19 vaccination site at the Mall of America, the largest vaccination location in the state, the AP reported. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that health officials closed the site on Friday evening following a visit from Gov. Tim Walz. More than 236,000 doses of vaccine had been administered there since it opened in February 2021.
Here’s what the numbers say:
The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 666.12 million on Tuesday, while the death toll rose above 6.69 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. leads the world with 100.7 million cases and 1,092,679 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 229.1 million people living in the U.S., equal to 69% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 47 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 15.1% of the overall population.
By Xavier Fontdegloria
The U.S. manufacturing sector contracted in December at the steepest pace since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic as demand remained subdued and production weakened, data from a purchasing managers survey showed Tuesday.
The S&P Global U.S. manufacturing PMI decreased to 46.2 in December from 47.7 in November, posting the lowest reading since the initial Covid-19 lockdown period in May 2020 and unchanged from the preliminary reading.
The index suggests factory activity shrank in December for a second consecutive month as any reading below 50.0 indicates contraction.
The contraction in activity was led by faster downturns in output and new orders, and companies attributed weak client demand to increasing economic uncertainty and high inflation, the report said.
“The manufacturing sector posted a weak performance as 2022 was brought to a close,” said Sian Jones, senior economist at S&P Global.
Concerns about the economic outlook turned firms more cautious in terms of hiring, and December saw job creation increasing only slightly and largely linked to skilled hires, she said.
Weaker activity at year-end led to easing price pressures, according to the survey. Both input and output inflation moderated at factory gates, and supply-chain bottlenecks were less apparent than earlier in the year.
“Slower upticks in inflation signal the impact of Federal Reserve policy on prices, but growing uncertainty and tumbling demand suggest challenges for manufacturers will roll over into the new year,” Ms. Jones said.
Write to Xavier Fontdegloria at xavier.fontdegloria@wsj.com
This year is going to be tougher on the global economy than 2022, the International Monetary Fund’s chief, Kristalina Georgieva, has warned.
“Why? Because the three big economies, U.S., EU, China, are all slowing down simultaneously,” she said in an interview that on the CBS Sunday morning news program “Face the Nation.”
“We expect one-third of the world economy to be in recession,” she said, adding that even for countries that are not in recession, it “would feel like recession for hundreds of millions of people.”
The U.S. may end up avoiding a recession, but the situation looks more bleak in Europe, which has been hit hard by the war in Ukraine, she said. “Half of the European Union will be in recession,” Georgieva added.
Purchasing manager index numbers for manufacturing published on Monday showed negative readings across Europe, Turkey and in South Korea. S&P Global data due Tuesday are expected to show similarly bad numbers for Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, the U.K., Canada and the U.S.
The IMF currently projects a global growth rate of 2.7% in 2023, slowing from 3.2% in 2022. Last October, the IMF cut its outlook for global economic growth for 2023, reflecting the ongoing drag from the war in Ukraine as well as inflation and the resulting high interest rates from central banks.
The economic slowdown in China may have an impact around the world. The world’s second largest economy weakened in 2022 because of lockdowns and restrictions imposed on businesses and consumers under its zero-COVID policy which disrupted supply chains and damaged trade flows.
Data published on Saturday showed that China’s reversal of its extraordinarily strict COVID policy meant economic activity in December fell to the slowest pace since February 2020 as the coronavirus overwhelmed the healthcare system, dampening consumption and production in the process.
“For the first time in 40 years China’s growth in 2022 is likely to be at or below global growth,” Georgieva said. “Before COVID, China would deliver 34, 35, 40% of global growth. It is not doing it anymore,” she said, adding that it is “quite a stressful” period for Asian economies.
See: China announces U-turn on strict zero-COVID measures
From the archives (November 2022): Protests expand over zero-COVID policies in China
“When I talk to Asian leaders, all of them start with this question, ‘What is going to happen with China? Is China going to return to a higher level of growth?’ ” she said.
The next couple of months will “be tough for China, and the impact on Chinese growth would be negative,” Georgieva said, adding that she expects the country to move gradually to a “higher level of economic performance, and finish the year better off than it is going to start the year.”
While many have been focused on the apparent explosion of COVID cases in China, and the lack of reliable data from China’s government, there are signs suggesting the U.S. situation is also getting worse even as case counts and deaths are falling.
At first look, initial fears of another COVID surge in the U.S. over the holidays may be overblown. About a week after the year-end holiday gatherings began, the seven-day average of new COVID cases fell to a more than three-week low of 58,354 on Thursday, down 9% from two weeks ago and down 17% from a recent peak of 70,508 on Christmas Eve, according to a New York Times tracker.
And the daily average for deaths fell has fallen to a three-week low of 355, and has dropped 5% in two weeks.
But as the NYT tracker has been warning, case and death counts could be “artificially low” this week, as officials who track those numbers take vacation for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Therefore, hospitalization data, which is typically not affected by holidays, should remain more reliable.
And by that measure, the numbers are getting worrisome.
The daily average of hospitalizations rose to 41,620 on Thursday, up 3% from two weeks ago but also the highest number seen since mid-August.
There are 29 states that have seen hospitalizations increase from two weeks ago, including 20 states that have seen double-digit percentage increases, led by South Carolina at 54%, West Virginia at 52% and Louisiana at 47%.
The number of severe COVID cases is also seeing a troubling rise, the daily average of COVID-related patients in intensive care units (ICUs) climbed to 5,080 on Thursday. That’s up 10% from two weeks ago, and the most seen since July 30.
Another sign that the fall in case counts is artificial is that the test positivity rate has been rising, to a four-month high above 14% on Thursday, with 41 states seeing double-digit positivity rates.
“Higher test positivity rates are a sign that many infections are not reported — even if they are tested at home. This results in a more severe undercount of cases,” the NYT tracker said.
Stay up to date on COVID news through MarketWatch’s daily “Coronavirus Update” column.
Meanwhile in China, amid a “lack of adequate and transparent” data from China’s government, there is reason to believe the situation will still get a lot worse before it gets better.
U.K. health firm Airfinity estimates that new daily COVID cases in China is currently running at about 1.8 million, based on data from China’s regional provinces, and on new-case trajectories from areas that also lifted zero-COVID policies, such as Hong Kong.
That case number is expected to more than double, to about 3.7 million a day, in mid-January, Airfinity estimates, before another surge in March takes the number up to about 4.2 million per day.
As a result of the concerns over surging case counts, Spain joined the growing number of countries that are requiring COVID tests for air passengers arriving from China, as the Associated Press reported. This comes after the European Union said Thursday that it is “assessing” the situation in China.
The U.S. will also require those arriving from China to take a PCR test, starting Jan. 5, while Japan started requiring a test on Friday. Other countries requiring a test for air passengers from China include Italy, India and South Korea.
The BBC reported that the U.K. was set to announce that travelers will need to show a negative COVID test before they board a plane from China.
In other COVID news, China’s National Medical Products Administration has given emergency approval to Merck & Co. Inc.’s
MRK,
COVID antiviral molnupiravir. That joins Pfizer Inc.’s
PFE,
Paxlovid, which has already been approved for use in China. Merck’s stock, which fell 0.4% in afternoon trading Friday, has soared 44.0% in 2022, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
has lost 9.4%.
Novavax Inc.
NVAX,
said Friday that it has initiated a Phase 2 trial for its COVID-19-Influenza Combination (CIC) vaccine candidate in people aged 50 through 80. “We believe that like influenza, COVID-19 will also be seasonal moving forward, and that there is room in the market for new alternatives to provide better protection against the impact of influenza, particularly in older adults, and to explore the potential to combine this with protection from COVID,” said Chief Executive Stanley Erck. Novavax’s stock, which eased 0.3% Friday, has plunged 93.2% year to date while the S&P 500 index
SPX,
has dropped 20.1%.
China’s top drug regulator said Friday that it approved Merck & Co.’s Molnupiravir for emergency use on Thursday, as the country grapples with waves of infections after Beijing abruptly reversed its stringent Covid-19 restrictions earlier this month.
The National Medical Products Administration said it is requiring the approval holder to continue relevant research, complete conditional requirements and submit follow-up research results in a timely manner, according to a statement posted on its website Friday.
Write to Singapore Editors at singaporeeditors@dowjones.com
Corrections & Amplifications
This item was corrected at 0856 GMT to reflect China’s top drug regulator said it approved Merck & Co.’s Molnupiravir for emergency use on Thursday. The original version incorrectly said the approval came on Wednesday in the first paragraph.
China is facing an international backlash amid reports of an unchecked surge in COVID-19 cases in the country, as well as criticism over the government’s decision to stop providing daily COVID data.
A growing number of countries, including the U.S., have announced COVID-testing requirements for people traveling from China, as the outbreak there increases the risk that new coronavirus variants could emerge and spread.
Read: MarketWatch’s daily ‘Coronavirus Update’ column
Don’t miss: Lack of data on China’s COVID-19 surge stirs global concern
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday that it was implementing a requirement for a negative COVID-19 test or documentation of recovery for passengers from China, Hong Kong and Macau boarding flights to the U.S.
“CDC is announcing this step to slow the spread of COVID-19 in the United States during the surge of COVID-19 cases in the [People’s Republic of China] given the lack of adequate and transparent epidemiological and viral genomic sequence data being reported from the PRC,” the agency said in a statement. “These data are critical to monitor the case surge effectively and decrease the chance for entry of a novel variant of concern.”
Japan said that starting Dec. 30, a COVID-19 test will be required on arrival for those who have stayed in China. excluding Hong Kong and Macau, within seven days of arrival, and for all who arrive directly from China, again excluding Hong Kong and Macau. Those who do test positive will be required to isolate at a government-designated facility.
The European Union said it is assessing the surge in cases in China and would be will ready to use the “emergency brake” if necessary, the Associated Press reported. The EU tried to soothe fears, however, by saying the BF.7 omicron variant that was prevalent in China was already active in Europe and does not pose an immediate danger.
Italy is already requiring COVID tests for all airline passengers arriving from China. More than half of those tested on arrival at Milan’s Malpensa Airport in recent days have tested positive, the AP reported.
On the bright side, Italy said the positive tests of people arriving from China didn’t include any new coronavirus variants of concern, Bloomberg reported.
India and South Korea have also announced test mandates for airline passengers arriving from China.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., new cases and deaths have been falling, while hospitalizations and test-positivity rates are increasing.
The seven-day average of new COVID cases fell to a three-week low of 64,410 on Wednesday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s down from a recent peak of 70,508 on Christmas Eve and down 2% from two weeks ago.
The daily average of COVID-related deaths fell to 345 on Wednesday, also a three-week low, and is down 24% from two weeks ago.
The New York Times tracker cautioned that reports for cases and deaths could be artificially low this week as U.S. officials who track the data take time off over the holidays. Hospitalization data, which is not typically affected by holiday breaks, is more reliable.
The daily average of COVID-related hospitalizations rose to 40,497 from 39,880 on Tuesday and has increased 1% from two weeks ago. And more worrisome, the number of COVID patients in intensive-care units jumped 10% from two weeks ago to 4,997, the most since early August.
The test-positivity rate rose to above 14% on Wednesday, a four-month high, and has increased by 18% in two weeks. Higher test-positivity rates suggest that many new COVID cases, such as those found through at-home testing, are not being reported to official case trackers, the New York Times said.
While many are cheering China’s scrapping of its stringent zero-COVID policy earlier this month, an increasing number of reports suggest that the latest official tallies of new cases only represent a fraction of the real numbers.
On Friday — before announcing over the weekend that it would no longer provide daily COVID data — China reported about 4,000 new cases for the entire country, as the New York Times reported.
At the same time, local media reported that a health official said there were about half a million cases a day in the city of Qingdao alone. The city of Dongguan estimated it was seeing about 250,000 to 300,000 new cases a day, and the city of Yulin reported 157,000 new cases last Friday, the New York Times report said.
A public-health expert at the University of Hong Kong said that based on data from Hong Kong’s COVID outbreak earlier this year, China could be facing tens of millions of new cases a day, the New York times report said.
That jibes with other reports that some hospitals in China are being overwhelmed with severe cases. Vaccination rates in the country have been relatively low, especially among the elderly.
Even as reports of a nationwide surge in cases increase, so do reports of restrictions that are being lifted.
On Wednesday, Hong Kong will stop requiring PCR COVID tests for arriving travelers and will also end the requirement for vaccine passes in order to enter some public venues.
The lifting of the requirements come as government data showed that 95% of Hong Kong’s population have had at least one shot of a COVID vaccine, while 83% have had three doses.
In the U.S., 80.8% of Americans have had at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, 69% of the population has been fully vaccinated, but only 14.6% have received an updated bivalent booster dose.
For new COVID cases, the seven-day average ticked up to 67,215 on Tuesday from 66,014 on Monday and has edged up 2% from two weeks ago, according to a New York Times tracker.
The daily average for COVID-related hospitalizations was 39,432 on Tuesday, down from 40,156 the day before and down 1% from two weeks ago. Deaths dropped to a two-week low of 388, down 18% from two weeks ago.
On a negative note, the test-positivity rate rose to a four-month high above 14%, which suggests that many new COVID infections are not being reported.
The number of COVID-related patients in intensive-care units fell to 4,871 on Tuesday from Monday’s 4½-month high of 4,931 but has increased 8% from two weeks ago.
China has turned a corner in its zero-Covid policy, lifting quarantines for foreign travelers from early next year, but that has come with cost as cases are surging and hospitals are packed.
The National Health Commission said over the weekend that it will drop the COVID-19 quarantine requirement for passengers arriving in China from abroad, starting Jan. 8. That was a major step in China’s lifting of the zero-COVID policy that have kept foreigners locked out, and its citizens locked in, for more than 2 1/2 years.
“It feels like China has turned the corner,” said Colm Rafferty, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, in a statement, as the Associated Press reported.
While many welcome the lifting of the zero-COVID policy, it has also triggered a surge in cases and has led to hospitals in many smaller cities and towns being overwhelmed. The jump in severe cases comes as China’s health authorities struggle to vaccinate the elderly, amid fears of potential side effects.
In other China COVID news, China Meheco Group Co., which distributes Pfizer Inc.’s
PFE,
Paxlovid COVID-19 vaccine in China, said over the weekend that Paxlovid can only be purchased at hospitals. That limits broader sales of the drug, including through e-commerce channels.
Back in the U.S., the latest data showed that the daily average of new cases and deaths have slipped during the Christmas holiday weekend, while hospitalizations have leveled off.
The seven-day average of new cases was 66,014 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s down from 70,508 on Dec. 24, and down 1% from two weeks ago.
However, case counts could be artificially low during as officials who track the numbers take vacation for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Also, rising test positivity rates suggest many new COVID cases are not reported, as many who test at home don’t report results to health officials.
The daily-average test positivity rate climbed to a four-month high of 14% on Monday, up 14% from two weeks ago.
COVID-related hospitalizations dipped to 40,156 on Monday from 40,969 on Saturday, but had ticked up 3% from two weeks ago. Meanwhile, COVID patients in intensive care units (ICUs) increased to a 4 1/2-month high of 4,931 on Monday, up 11% from two weeks ago.
The daily average of deaths eased to 426 on Monday from 428 on Christmas Eve, and has declined 9% in two weeks.
The number of Americans who have been fully vaccinated was 229.99 million, or 69% of the total population, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while only 14.6% of Americans have received the updated (bivalent) booster dose.