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.
Tens of thousands of people resumed travels in and out of China after the country lifted almost all of its border restrictions, ending three years of strict pandemic controls. Photo: Tyrone Siu/Reuters
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.
• 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, +3.10%
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, -1.59%
and German partner BioNTech SE BNTX, +3.30%
once their vaccine moves to the commercial market. For now, vaccines are being purchased and distributed by the U.S. government.
Getting the flu can increase the risk of getting a second infection, such as strep throat. The Wall Street Journal’s Daniela Hernandez explains the science behind that, plus what it means for the rest of the winter and how we can protect ourselves from the tripledemic. Illustration: David Fang
• 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, +1.79%
provided the update in advance of the company’s presentation at the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.
Separately, CureVac CVAC, +24.46%
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, -0.79%
GSK, -0.75%.
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.
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.
• 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.
Tens of thousands of people resumed travels in and out of China on Sunday as the country lifted almost all of its border restrictions, ending three years of strict pandemic controls. Some travelers expressed relief to be reunited with their families. Photo: Tyrone Siu/Reuters
• Pfizer’s PFE, -4.77%
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.
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.
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.
Omicron subvariants continued to account for more new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. in the latest week than did BA.5, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, which are sublineages of BA.5, accounted for 67.9% of cases in the week through Dec. 10, while BA.5 accounted for 11.5%, the data show.
Last week, BQ.1.1 and BQ.1 accounted for 62.8% of all cases in the U.S., while BA.5 accounted for 13.8%.
In the New York region, which includes New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the numbers were even higher, with BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounting for 73.3% of new cases, compared with 10% for BA.5.
In the previous week, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounted for 72.4% of all cases, compared with 6.9% for BA.5.
New York City is again emerging as a hot spot for COVID, according to a New York Times tracker, which shows cases up about 60% in recent weeks and hospitalizations at their highest level since February.
The test-positivity rate in New York City stood at 13% on Thursday, the tracker shows.
Overall, known U.S. cases are up 53% from two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations is up 30% at 37,066, while the daily average for deaths is up 35% to 460.
For now, the numbers remain far below the peaks seen last winter, when omicron first hit, but with flu and other respiratory infections currently sweeping the country and affecting young children, experts are warning people to take precautions.
• A rash of COVID-19 cases in schools and businesses was reported by social-media users Friday in areas across China. This comes after the ruling Communist Party loosened its antivirus rules as it tries to reverse a deepening economic slump, the Associated Press reported. Official data showed a fall in new cases, but after the government on Wednesday ended mandatory testing for many people, those data no longer cover large parts of the population. That was among the dramatic changes aimed at gradually emerging from the zero-COVID restrictions that have confined millions of people to their homes and sparked protests and demands for President Xi Jinping to resign.
• U.S.-listed shares of China Jo-Jo Drugstores Inc. CJJD, +51.20%
rallied on Friday as the stores filled with customers buying cold medicines after COVID restrictions were eased, MarketWatch’s Jaimy Lee reported. The stock was up 22%. The company, which is based in Hangzhou, China, operates drugstores and an online pharmacy in China. It is also a wholesale distributor of pharmacy products and grows and sells herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Some movie theaters in China reopened and COVID-testing booths were dismantled ahead of an announcement by authorities on Wednesday that will scrap most testing and quarantine requirements. The changes come after nationwide protests against Beijing’s zero-COVID policy. Photo: Ng Han Guan/Associated Press
• Pfizer PFE, -0.12%
and German partner BioNTech BNTX, -0.88%
have received fast-track designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a single-dose mRNA-based vaccine candidate targeting both COVID and flu. The companies have already announced that they are in early-stage trials to review the safety and immunogenicity of their combined vaccine in healthy adults. The vaccine will target the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron sublineages, which have become dominant globally, as well as four different flu strains recommended for use in the Northern Hemisphere by the World Health Organization. If approved, the vaccine would be the first to target both COVID and flu.
• A bill to rescind the COVID vaccine mandate for members of the U.S. military and to provide nearly $858 billion for national defense was passed by the House on Thursday as lawmakers scratch one of the final items off their yearly to-do list, the AP reported. The bill provides about $45 billion more for defense programs than President Joe Biden requested, the second consecutive year Congress has significantly exceeded his request, as lawmakers seek to boost the nation’s military competitiveness with China and Russia. The bill is expected to easily pass the Senate and then be signed into law by Biden.
The U.S. leads the world with 99.4 million cases and 1,084,236 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 228.6 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.9% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 42 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 13.5% of the overall population.
Shares of BioVie Inc. rose sharply in premarket trading Tuesday after the clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company reported positive results from a pair of Phase 2 studies assessing the potential of its NE3107 drug candidate in Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.
The Carson City, Nev., company said the study of NE3107 in Parkinson’s met both main objectives, with patients treated with a combination of the drug and levodopa seeing meaningful improvements in their motor score and an absence of adverse interactions of NE3107 with levodopa.
BioVie said that based on the study findings, it will proceed with planning the Phase 3 program for discussion with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Meanwhile, BioVie said patients treated with NE3107 in the Alzheimer’s study experienced improved cognition and biomarker levels, with no drug-related adverse events observed.
BioVie shares, which closed Monday at $5.21, were recently up 15% to $5.98 in premarket trading.
The head of the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday joined the chorus of people urging China to adopt a more targeted approach to the coronavirus pandemic as the country’s zero-COVID policy sparks protests over lockdowns and hobbles the world’s second-biggest economy.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva urged a “recalibration” of China’s tough “zero-COVID” approach, which is aimed at isolating every case, “exactly because of the impact it has on both people and on the economy,” as the Associated Press reported.
Georgieva made the comments in an interview with the AP on Tuesday, after protests erupted in Chinese cities and in Hong Kong over the weekend, marking the strongest public dissent in decades.
“We see the importance of moving away from massive lockdowns, being very targeted in restrictions,” Georgieva said Tuesday in Berlin. “So that targeting allows [China] to contain the spread of COVID without significant economic costs.”
Georgieva also urged China to look at vaccination policies and focus on vaccinating the “most vulnerable people.”
A low rate of vaccinations among the elderly is a major reason Beijing has had to resort to lockdowns, while the emergence of more-contagious variants has made it increasingly hard to halt the spread of the virus.
In a rare show of defiance, crowds in China gathered for the third night as protests against COVID restrictions spread to Beijing, Shanghai and other cities. People held up blank sheets of paper, symbolizing censorship, and demanded the Chinese president step down. Photo: Kyodo News/Zuma Press
Chinese health officials said Tuesday they are preparing a push to get more older people vaccinated, the Guardian reported. The National Health Commission told reporters it would target more vaccinations at people older than 80 and would reduce to three months the gap between basic vaccination and booster shots for elderly people.
But experts, including President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, have expressed concern that China’s homegrown vaccines are not effective enough. China has not yet approved the vaccines developed by Pfizer PFE, -0.39%,
BioNTech BNTX, +1.16%
and Moderna MRNA, -0.17%
for public use. The shortcomings of China’s vaccines have led Chinese doctors to warn that a lifting of the zero-COVID policy could lead to a massive surge in cases that could overwhelm China’s healthcare system.
Meanwhile, with police out in force, there was little news of protests in Beijing, Shanghai or other cities on Tuesday, the AP reported separately.
In the U.S., known cases of COVID are rising again, with the daily average standing at 41,755 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 6% from two weeks ago. Cases are rising in 22 states, as well as Guam and Washington, D.C., and are flat in Nebraska. They are rising fastest in Arizona, where they are up 82% from two weeks ago, followed by Michigan, where they are up 77%.
The daily average for hospitalizations is flat at 28,135, while the daily average for deaths is up 6% to 314.
Physicians are reporting high numbers of respiratory illnesses like RSV and the flu earlier than the typical winter peak. WSJ’s Brianna Abbott explains what the early surge means for the winter months. Photo illustration: Kaitlyn Wang
• The World Health Organization has issued an emergency-use listing for the Novavax NVAX, +6.19%
protein-based COVID vaccine as a primary series for children ages 12-17 and as a booster for those ages 18 and older, Novavax said Tuesday. The WHO previously granted an emergency-use listing for the Nuvaxovid vaccine in adults ages 18 and older in December 2021, the company said. The new listing also paves the way for adults to get a booster shot of the vaccine about six months after completing the primary two-dose series.
• New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, said Monday his administration has launched a promised review of its handling of the pandemic, the AP reported. The administration hired regional law firm Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads — which has offices in the state as well as Delaware, Pennsylvania and New York — along with management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group to conduct the review. The review is expected to end with a report in late 2023, the governor said.
• A Connecticut program that offered “hero pay” to essential workers at the peak of the pandemic got so many applicants that state lawmakers had to go back into session Monday to provide extra funding and put new limits on who could get the biggest bonuses, the AP reported. Initially, the state had expected to award about $30 million in bonuses to people who had to go to work, in person, in jobs in healthcare, food distribution, public safety and other essential services. But after getting 155,730 applications from eligible people, lawmakers realized they would have to either put more money in or slash benefits.
The U.S. leads the world with 98.6 million cases and 1,079,477 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 228.4 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.8% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 37.6 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 12.1% of the overall population.
Widespread protests across China over the government’s zero-COVID policy dominated pandemic headlines Monday, with Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, weighing in with the view that the strategy does not make public-health sense.
China’s biggest challenge is low vaccination rates — and a vaccine that has not been “particularly effective at all” compared with the ones being used in the West that are made by Pfizer PFE, +0.50%
and its German partner BioNTech BNTX, +5.68%
and by Moderna MRNA, +1.08%,
said Fauci, who is retiring next month.
Fauci recalled that when New York hospitals were overwhelmed by COVID cases three years ago, the decision was made to introduce restrictions, such as social distancing and shutdowns, to help flatten the curve of infections. But he noted that it was a temporary move aimed at buying time to get more people vaccinated and move personal protective equipment to where it was needed.
The first vaccine was distributed in the U.S. in December 2020.
“It seems that in China, it was just a very, very strict, extraordinary lockdown where you lock people in the house, but without, seemingly, any endgame to it,” said Fauci, who is also head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci said one mistake the Chinese government has made is to refuse outside vaccines. “But also, interestingly, they did not, for reasons that I don’t fully appreciate, protect the elderly by making sure the elderly got vaccinated,” he said. “So if you look at the prevalence of vaccinations among the elderly, that was almost counterproductive. The people you really needed to protect were not getting protected.”
The protests have roiled financial markets and caused oil prices to erase their entire year-to-date gain. In a highly unusual move, protesters in Shanghai called for China’s powerful leader Xi Jinping to resign, an unprecedented rebuke as authorities in at least eight cities struggled Sunday to suppress demonstrations that represent a rare direct challenge to the ruling Communist Party, as the Associated Press reported.
The BBC said reporter Ed Lawrence, who was arrested while covering protests, was beaten and kicked by police while in custody.
“We have had no explanation or apology from the Chinese authorities, beyond a claim by the officials who later released him that they had arrested him for his own good in case he caught COVID from the crowd,” the broadcaster said in a statement. “We do not consider this a credible explanation.”
In a rare show of defiance, crowds in China gathered for a third night as protests against COVID restrictions spread to Beijing, Shanghai and other cities. People held blank sheets of paper, symbolizing censorship, and demanded that the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, step down. Photo: Noel Celis/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
In the U.S., known cases of COVID are rising again with the daily average standing at 41,997 on Sunday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 6% from two weeks ago.
Cases are currently rising in 22 states, plus Washington, D.C., and Guam, but are falling elsewhere.
The daily average for hospitalizations is up 4% to 29,053. Hospitalizations are rising in 23 states, the tracker shows.
• The World Health Organization said Monday it is recommending the term “mpox” as a new name for monkeypox disease and that it would use both names for a year while “monkeypox” is phased out. “When the outbreak of monkeypox expanded earlier this year, racist and stigmatizing language online, in other settings and in some communities was observed and reported to WHO,” the agency said in a statement. “In several meetings, public and private, a number of individuals and countries raised concerns and asked WHO to propose a way forward to change the name.” The WHO has responsibility for assigning names to new — and exceptionally, to existing — diseases, under the International Classification of Diseases and the WHO Family of International Health Related Classifications through a consultative process that includes WHO member states, it explained. The new name was decided upon following consultations with global experts, it said.
Residents in Shanghai received the world’s first inhaled COVID-19 vaccine by taking sips from a cup. WSJ’s Dan Strumpf explains how the new type of vaccine works and what it means for China’s reopening. Photo: Associated Press/Shanghai Media Group
• Unrest at one of China’s biggest manufacturing centers may cause a production shortfall this year of possibly 6 million Apple iPhone Pros, according to a source cited by Bloomberg. The Foxconn Technology 2354 facility in Zhengzhou, which makes the majority of Apple’s premium phones, has been struggling for weeks as workers rebel against COVID lockdown policies. Apple AAPL, -2.13%
recently lowered its overall production target from 90 million units to 87 million units. However, Foxconn believes it can make up any shortfall from Zhengzhou in 2023.
• A blood-thinning drug called Apixaban, which has been used for patients recovering from COVID, does not work and can cause major bleeding, according to new research reported by the Guardian. The anticoagulant, given to patients when they are discharged from a hospital after being treated for moderate or severe COVID, is widely used by hospitals across the U.K.’s National Health Service. However, the government-funded Heal-Covid trial has found that the drug does not work. Charlotte Summers, the chief investigator of the trial, said: “These first findings from Heal-Covid show us that a blood-thinning drug, commonly thought to be a useful intervention in the post-hospital phase, is actually ineffective at stopping people dying or being readmitted to hospital.”
The U.S. leads the world with 98.6 million cases and 1,079,199 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 228.4 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.8% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 37.6 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 12.1% of the overall population.
The U.S. is unlikely to suffer the same surge of COVID-19 infections this winter as it did last year, when the omicron variant first emerged and swept across the country, senior health officials said Tuesday.
On Tuesday, Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, addressed reporters for the last time ahead of his retirement, saying that the current combination of infections and vaccinations means there’s “enough community protection that we’re not going to see a repeat of last year at this time.”
But Fauci urged those Americans who have not yet gotten their updated booster to do so quickly, telling them it’s the best one so far. Only 35 million Americans have received the bivalent booster since it was rolled out in September.
“[What] may be the final message I give you from this podium is that please, for your own safety, for that of your family, get your updated COVID-19 shot as soon as you’re eligible,” Fauci said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that the new boosters, which target the original virus as well as the latest omicron variants, provide an additional 30% to 56% protection against symptomatic infection, depending on a person’s age, how many prior vaccine shots they have had and when they had them, as the Associated Press reported.
The people who get the greatest benefit from the new booster are those who got two doses of the original COVID-19 vaccine at least eight months earlier and never got a prior booster, said the CDC’s Ruth Link-Gelles, who led the study.
The original shots have offered strong protection against severe disease and death no matter the variant, but their protection against mild infection wanes. The CDC’s analysis has tracked only the first few months of the new boosters’ use, so it’s too early to know how long the added protection against symptomatic infection will last.
But “certainly as we enter the holiday season, personally I would want the most possible protection if I’m seeing my parents and grandparents,” Link-Gelles said. “Protection against infection there is going to be really helpful, because you potentially would stop yourself from getting a grandparent or other loved one sick.”
The Biden administration announced a six-week campaign urging people — especially older people — to get the boosters, saying the shots could save lives as Americans gather for the holidays.
Physicians are reporting high numbers of respiratory illnesses like RSV and the flu earlier than the typical winter peak. WSJ’s Brianna Abbott explains what the early surge means for the winter months. Photo illustration: Kaitlyn Wang
In the U.S., known cases of COVID are rising again, with the daily average standing at 42,220 on Tuesday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 7% from two weeks ago. Cases are rising in 25 states, led by Washington state, where they are up 279% from two weeks ago.
The daily average for hospitalizations is flat at 27,923, while the daily average for deaths is up 3% to 319.
• Employees at the world’s biggest Apple AAPL, +0.59%
iPhone factory were beaten and detained in protests over contract disputes amid antivirus controls, according to witnesses and videos posted on social media Wednesday, as tensions mount over Beijing’s severe zero-COVID strategy, the AP reported. Videos reportedly filmed at the factory in the central city of Zhengzhou showed thousands of people in masks facing rows of police in white protective suits with plastic riot shields. Police kicked and hit one protester with clubs after he grabbed a metal pole that had been used to strike him. Frustrations have boiled over into protests in some parts of China where shops and offices have been closed and millions of people confined to their homes for weeks at a time with little warning. Videos on social media show residents in some areas tearing down barricades set up to enforce neighborhood closures.
Footage shows police in protective suits beating workers at the Foxconn facility in Zhengzhou, China. The world’s biggest Apple iPhone factory had been under COVID-19 lockdowns in recent weeks. Screenshot: Associated Press
• The Ohio Supreme Court has dismissed a lawsuit challenging Gov. Mike DeWine’s authority to end Ohio’s participation in a federal pandemic unemployment aid program ahead of the federal government’s 2021 deadline for stopping the payments, the AP reported. The court’s unanimous decision on Tuesday called the case “moot” without any additional explanation. At issue before the court was a weekly $300 federal payment for Ohioans to offset the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The federal government ended that in September of last year, but DeWine stopped the payments two months earlier, saying the need was over.
• Infections from antibiotic-resistant pathogens known as superbugs have more than doubled in healthcare facilities in Europe, an EU agency said on Thursday, providing further evidence of the wider impact of the COVID pandemic, Reuters reported. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said reported cases of two highly drug-resistant pathogens increased in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, then sharply jumped in 2021.
• The National Institutes of Health has set up a website for people to anonymously self-report the results of at-home COVID-19 tests, whether positive or negative. The site, MakeMyTestCount.org, will gather the data and then share the information, stripped of personal identifiers, with the public-health systems that track COVID-19 test results provided by healthcare providers and laboratories. The widespread use of at-home COVID tests in 2022 meant the U.S. had a more limited understanding of COVID surges than in the past.
The U.S. leads the world with 98.4 million cases and 1,077,800 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 228.2 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.7% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
A fresh analysis of data on the immune response generated by the bivalent COVID-19 booster showed strong results against the newer omicron sublineages, Pfizer and German partner BioNTech said Friday.
The bivalent booster targets the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron variants as well as the original virus, and it also appears to be effective against the sublineages dubbed BA.4.6, BA.2.75.2, BQ.1.1 and XBB.1.
The data, which have been posted on the preprint server bioRxiv, show that the booster induces a greater increase in neutralizing-antibody titers than the companies’ original COVID vaccine.
“Based on these findings, the Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent booster may help to provide improved protection against COVID-19 due to Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages as well as new sublineages that continue to increase in prevalence,” the companies said in a joint statement.
Specifically, one month after a booster dose of the bivalent COVID-19 vaccine, neutralizing-antibody titers against the sublineages increased 3.2-fold to 4.8-fold compared with the original COVID vaccine.
Neutralizing-antibody titers against BA.4.6, BA.2.75.2, BQ.1.1 and XBB.1 increased 4.8-fold to 11.1-fold from prebooster levels following a booster dose of the bivalent vaccine.
The companies PFE, -0.72% BNTX, +0.08%
said BA.5 is still the most prevalent sublineage in the U.S., accounting for nearly 30% of cases at time of publication, while the emerging BA.1.1 sublineage accounts for nearly 25% of cases and is spreading globally.
In the New York region, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounted for 64.8% of new cases, while BA.5 accounted for 14.0%.
The bivalent booster has been granted emergency-use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for people ages 5 and older and has also been allowed in the European Union for that group.
The news comes as U.S. COVID cases have been rising again, although the daily average edged lower on Thursday to 39,562, according to a New York Times tracker, down 1% from two weeks ago.
Cases are rising in roughly half the states and falling in the rest, but there are wide discrepancies between individual states. In Nebraska, cases are up 540% from two weeks ago, the tracker shows, followed by Arizona, where they are up 110%; California, where they have climbed 53%; and Colorado, where they are up 50%.
Meanwhile, Kentucky is seeing a 54% decline in cases from two weeks ago, and Michigan cases are down 48%.
The daily U.S. average for hospitalizations is up 2% to 27,818, while the daily average for deaths is down 4% to 325.
Physicians are reporting high numbers of respiratory illnesses like RSV and the flu earlier than the typical winter peak. WSJ’s Brianna Abbott explains what the early surge means for the winter months. Photo illustration: Kaitlyn Wang
• China’s southern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou is planning to build quarantine facilities for nearly 250,000 people to fight surging COVID outbreaks, even as the national government tries to reduce the impact of zero-COVID controls that have confined millions of people to their homes, the Associated Press reported. Guangzhou, a city of 13 million and the biggest of a series of hotspots across China with outbreaks since early October, reported 9,680 new cases in the past 24 hours. That was about 40% of the 23,276 cases reported nationwide.
• Racial disparities in COVID cases and deaths have widened and narrowed over the course of the pandemic, but age-adjusted data still show that Black, Hispanic and American Indian/Alaska Native people have been at higher risk for cases, hospitalizations and deaths, according to a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation. “While disparities in COVID-19 vaccinations have narrowed over time and have been reversed for Hispanic people, they persist for Black people,” the report found. The pattern is also evident in uptake of the new bivalent booster, with Black and Hispanic people about half as likely as white people to have had one. Black people are also less likely to have access to antivirals, antibody treatments and other therapies.
• The Indian Health Service announced Thursday that all tribal members covered by the federal agency will be offered a vaccine at every appointment when appropriate under a new vaccine strategy, the AP reported. Throughout the pandemic, American Indians and Alaska Natives have had some of the highest COVID vaccination rates across the country. But Indigenous people are especially vulnerable to vaccine-preventable illness, and IHS officials recently noted that fewer patients have been getting vaccines for COVID-19. Monkeypox is now an additional health concern.
• Novavax NVAX, -6.11%
said its COVID vaccine has received expanded authorization in Canada as a booster for adults aged 18 and older who had it as their primary shot. The protein-based vaccine has already been approved as a booster in the U.S., European Union and U.K., among other countries, Novavax said.
The U.S. leads the world with 98.3 million cases and 1,076,683 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 228.2 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.7% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 35.3 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 11.3% of the overall population.
If 80% of children ages 5 and older get their COVID booster shots by the end of 2022, it could prevent about 29 million missed days of school and almost 51,000 hospitalizations, according to a new report.
“We expand our previous analysis to include the impact on pediatric hospitalizations, pediatric isolation days, and school absenteeism (among children ages 5 to 17), demonstrating both the health benefits of vaccination and the importance of vaccination uptake for maintaining uninterrupted in-school education,” the authors wrote in the report.
The number of days absent from school was calculated based on five days of required isolation for children in that age group who experience mild symptomatic illness and 10 days for children who have severe illness or require hospitalization.
Source: Commonwealth Fund
An effective booster campaign would considerably reduce the strain on pediatric hospitals this winter, many of which are currently seeing high numbers of children with respiratory syncytial virus, known as RSV, and the flu, the authors wrote.
“Throughout the pandemic, children have experienced direct health burdens as well as enormous upheaval in their personal and educational lives,” the report said. “Accelerated vaccination campaigns that achieve high coverage across all ages have the potential to prevent a possible imminent surge in COVID-19, protecting children both directly and indirectly and providing them with additional stability in terms of school attendance and other social engagement.”
The report comes as known U.S. cases of COVID are climbing again for the first time in a few months. The daily average for new cases stood at 39,459 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 4% versus two weeks ago.
Cases are rising the most in the Southwest, led by Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico — states that are also seeing hospitalization numbers climb by more than 30% in the last two weeks.
The daily average for U.S. hospitalizations was up 1% at 27,662.
On a brighter note, the daily death tally continues to fall and is down 13% to 302 from two weeks ago.
Physicians are reporting high numbers of respiratory illnesses like RSV and the flu earlier than the typical winter peak. WSJ’s Brianna Abbott explains what the early surge means for the winter months. Photo illustration: Kaitlyn Wang
• China’s ruling party called for strict adherence to its hard-line “zero-COVID” policy Tuesday in an apparent attempt to guide public perceptions after regulations were eased slightly in places, the Associated Press reported. The news may disappoint Chinese citizens who have clashed with police and COVID workers to show their frustration over lockdowns and restrictions on movement. The People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, said in an editorial that China must “unswervingly implement” the policy that requires mass obligatory testing and places millions under lockdown in an attempt to eliminate the coronavirus from the nation of 1.4 billion people.
• Japan will lift a ban on international cruise ships that has lasted more than two and half years, transport officials said Tuesday, the AP reported separately. The ban was imposed following a deadly coronavirus outbreak on the cruise ship Diamond Princess at the beginning of the pandemic. The Transport Ministry said cruise-ship operators and port authorities associations have adopted antivirus guidelines and that Japan is now ready to resume its international cruise operations and to receive foreign ships at its ports.
The new bivalent vaccine might be the first step in developing annual COVID shots, which could follow a similar process to the one used to update flu vaccines every year. Here’s what that process looks like, and why applying it to COVID could be challenging. Illustration: Ryan Trefes
• Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen tested positive for COVID-19 after meeting with world leaders, including President Joe Biden, at a summit of Southeast Asian nations last week, the Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Hun Sen held one-on-one talks with Biden on Saturday on the sidelines of the regional discussions in Phnom Penh. Biden — who is on a five-day trip to Asia to attend a series of summits — then traveled to Bali, Indonesia, where he sat down on Monday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping for a face-to-face meeting that stretched over three hours.
• Australia will overturn a three-year ban on tennis player Novak Djokovic entering the country, paving the way for the former top-ranked player to take part in the 2023 Australian Open, CNN reported, citing a source with direct knowledge of the matter. Australian Immigration Minister Andrew Giles will lift the ban, the source said.
The U.S. leads the world with 98 million cases and 1,074,691 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 227.8 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.6% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 31.4 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 10.1% of the overall population.
China counted more than 10,000 fresh COVID cases on Friday sparking further restrictions on movement, but also eased some travel requirements in a move welcomed by financial markets.
Beijing closed city parks and imposed other restrictions, even as millions of people remained under lockdown Friday in the West and south of China, the Associated Press reported.
The country reported 10,729 new cases on Friday, almost all of them testing positive while showing no symptoms. More than five million people were under lockdown Friday in the southern manufacturing hub Guangzhou and the western megacity Chongqing.
The government said Friday it was reducing the amount of time incoming passengers would be required to undergo quarantine. The U.S. Embassy this week renewed its advisement for citizens to avoid travel to and within China unless absolutely necessary.
Incoming passengers will only be quarantined for five days, rather than the previous seven, at a designated location, followed by three days of isolation at their place of residence, according to a notice from the State Council, China’s cabinet.
It wasn’t immediately clear when and where the rules would take effect and whether they would apply to foreigners and Chinese citizens alike.
Relaxed standards would also be applied to foreign businesspeople and athletes, in what appeared to be a gradual move toward normalization. The news will be welcomed by Chinese citizens frustrated by the government’s zero COVID policy that has kept many in their homes sometimes for months at a time, and forced them to take regular tests.
In the U.S., known cases of COVID are climbing again for the first time in a few months. The daily average for new cases stood at 40,835 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 9% versus two weeks ago.
As always, case numbers vary from state to state and some are seeing sharp spikes, led by Nevada, where cases have soared 176% from two weeks ago, the tracker shows. That’s followed by Utah, where they are up 77%, New Mexico at 62% and Oklahoma at 54%.
Cases are rising in 32 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. They are up by double digits in 27 of those states.
The daily average for hospitalizations was up 3% at 27,989, while the daily average for deaths is down 9% to 326.
• Four German regions — Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria, Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein — plan to scrap rules requiring people infected with the coronavirus to isolate at home, arguing that the pandemic has evolved and it’s time for a different approach, the AP reported. The health ministry pointed to declining infections, effective vaccinations, a high degree of population immunity, milder illnesses and the example of countries such as Austria that have loosened rules. “The decision doesn’t mean that we will give free rein to infections,” said Bavarian state health minister Klaus Holetschek. “People who test positive will in the future have to put on a mask outside their own apartment. And of course, the principle still goes that people who are sick stay at home.”
• Sanofi SAN, -5.22%
won European Union approval for its COVID vaccine booster, jointly made with British partner GSK GSK, -5.65%
GSK, -6.01%,
after a drawn-out development effort that saw the pair fall behind now-dominant vaccine suppliers, Reuters reported. The shot with the brand name VidPrevtyn Beta can be given to people who have already had a primary course of vaccination from other approved shots, the French drugmaker and the European Medicines Agency said in separate statements. Shipments are ready to be distributed to European countries under advance purchase agreements, Sanofi said. The company said last year that the European Union and Britain had ordered a combined 75 million doses of the shot, contingent on approval.
• U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor rejected a bid to prevent New York City from enforcing its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for municipal workers against a group of teachers, firefighters and others who challenged the policy, Reuters reported separately. The justice denied an emergency request, received by the court on Nov. 4, to block the policy by individual municipal workers, as well as a group called New Yorkers For Religious Liberty, while their appeal of lower court decisions siding with the city proceeds.
The U.S. leads the world with 97.9 million cases and 1,074,485 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 227.8 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.6% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 31.4 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 10.1% of the overall population.
First the good news: Pfizer Inc. and Germany-based partner BioNTech SE said updated trial data for their omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent booster showed a “substantially higher” immune response in adults than the original COVID-19 vaccine.
The companies said the Phase 2/3 clinical-trial data, collected one month after the boosters were given, also demonstrated that safety and tolerability profiles were similar to those of the original vaccine.
The news sent Pfizer’s stock PFE, +0.51%
rallying 1.7% and BioNTech’s U.S.-listed shares BNTX, +4.97%
“As we head into the holiday season, we hope these updated data will encourage people to seek out a COVID-19 bivalent booster as soon as they are eligible in order to maintain high levels of protection against the widely circulating Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages,” said Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla.
Only 8.4% of eligible Americans have received updated COVID booster shots, while 68.5% of the total population have completed the original primary series of vaccinations, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The bivalent booster has been authorized for emergency use in the U.S. by the Food and Drug Administration for people age 5 and older and has also been granted marketing authorization in the European Union for those age 12 and older.
In another piece of good news, Pfizer and BioNTech shares were also lifted by a report in The Wall Street Journal that the Chinese government has agreed to approve the companies’ COVID-19 vaccines for foreign residents in China and has also held talks to approve those vaccines for the broader population.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that China was working on a plan to end the practice of penalizing airlines that bring COVID-infected people into the country.
The seven-day average of new COVID cases topped 40,000 for the first time in a month and hospitalizations have also ticked higher, with more than half of U.S. states showing increases over the past two weeks.
According to a New York Times tracker, the daily average of new cases rose to 40,101 on Thursday from 38,208 on Wednesday, and was up 6% from 14 days ago.
The New York Times
Nevada has seen a 96% jump in daily cases, followed by Tennessee with a 69% increase and Louisiana with a 68% rise, leading the 28 states that saw cases increase over the past two weeks.
Still, daily cases were less than one-third of the summer high of more than 130,000 reached during the surge of the BA.5 variant, the data show.
The daily average of COVID-related hospitalizations rose 2% to 27,252, while the number of people with COVID in intensive-care units (ICUs) fell 2% to 3,110.
The daily average of COVID-related deaths fell 6% to a four-month low of 339.
On a global basis, the total number of COVID cases has increased to 631.91 million, while deaths have reached 6,598,197, according to data provided by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. has seen a total of 97.69 million cases and 1,072,245 deaths.
Hospitalizations are rising again in New York City with the spread of new COVID-19 subvariants that are better at evading immunity. Cases of flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, are also increasing.
State data show about 1,100 patients hospitalized with COVID as of Oct. 24, up from 750 in mid-September, as the New York Times reported. Case numbers have held steady, although with many people testing at home where data are not being collected, those numbers are not reliable.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the omicron sublineages named BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounted for 42.5% of all cases in the New York region in the week through Oct. 29, up from 37% the previous week.
That was more than the BA.5 omicron subvariant, which accounted for 35.7% of new cases in the New York region in the latest week. The two sublineages were not even registering as recently as three weeks ago, demonstrating just how fast they are spreading.
Experts are also concerned about a nationwide surge in RSV, which can cause breathing difficulties in small children and older adults and for which there is currently no vaccine.
There was good news from Pfizer Inc., however, which said Tuesday that data from a late-stage trial of an RSV vaccine had proved effective in preventing severe illness in children up to 6 months old.
The Phase 3 trial found that the vaccine, given to pregnant mothers, achieved vaccine efficacy of 81.8% in infants from birth through the first 90 days of life. The trial found efficacy of 69.4% through the first 6 months of life.
Pfizer PFE, +3.14%
said it expects to make its first U.S. regulatory application for the vaccine by the end of 2022 and to follow on with other regulatory bodies. It will also submit the results of the trial for peer review in a scientific journal.
The daily U.S. average for new COVID cases stood at 37,665 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker, which was flat as compared with two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations was up 2% to 27,184, while the daily average for deaths was down 3% to 348.
Workers at the world’s biggest assembly site for Apple’s iPhones walked out as Foxconn has struggled to contain a COVID-19 outbreak. The chaos highlights the tension between Beijing’s rigid pandemic controls and the urge to keep production on track. Photo: Hangpai Xinyang/Associated Press
• The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Hong Kong stocks appeared to be rallying after an anonymous post on Chinese social media suggested that the government may intend to soften pandemic-related restrictions beginning in March. Other outlets also reported on the rumor. American depositary receipts for Chinese companies surged on the news.
• Pfizer’s COVID antiviral Paxlovid brought in $7.5 billion in sales in the third quarter of the year, compared with a FactSet consensus of $7.6 billion. The drug company also reiterated guidance for Paxlovid revenues in 2022, saying it still expects $22 billion in sales for the year. The FactSet consensus is $22.5 billion. Pfizer raised its full-year revenue guidance for the company’s Comirnaty COVID vaccine by $2 billion to $34 billion. The guidance includes doses expected to be delivered in fiscal 2022, primarily under contracts signed as of mid-October.
AZN, +0.90%
COVID vaccine Vaxzevria has been granted full marketing authorization in the European Union, Dow Jones Newswires reported. The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical giant said Vaxzevria has been shown to be effective against all forms of the virus. Vaxzevria was originally granted conditional marketing authorization due to the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic, it said.
The U.S. leads the world with 97.5 million cases and 1,070,429 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 226.9 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.4% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 22.8 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 7.3% of the overall population.
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.
• 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.
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.
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.
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.
• 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.
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.
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.
(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.
The U.S. is at risk of prolonging the COVID pandemic if it fails to back an initiative that aims to get vaccines, diagnostics and treatments to lower-income countries, a congressional group has told President Joe Biden.
In a letter to Biden from the group led by Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, the group urged him to back the World Trade Organization’s agreement in June to ease exports of lifesaving therapies.
“With more than 600 million shots in arms, 21,500 free testing sites, the ability to order at-home tests for free, and more treatments available now than at any point in the pandemic, the outlook in the United States is better than ever. Unfortunately, however, the prospect for many low-income countries is not so positive — putting the United States’ own success in jeopardy,” the lawmakers wrote.
The letter was sent ahead of a meeting of the WTO council for trade-related aspects of IP rights that is due to kick off Thursday.
The group noted that lower-income countries are facing a higher risk of severe illness, hospitalization and death as only a small percentage of their populations are vaccinated. Just 19% of people in those countries are vaccinated, compared with about 75% in high-income countries, according to the Multilateral Leaders Taskforce on COVID-19, a joint initiative of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Health Organization and the WTO.
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 the data are not being collected.
The daily average for new cases stood at 43,149 on Wednesday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 23% from two weeks ago. Cases are rising in most northeastern states by 10% of more, while cases in the western states Montana, Washington and Oregon are rising.
The daily average for hospitalizations was down 11% at 27,184, while the daily average for deaths is down 8% to 391.
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
• China’s huge Xinjiang region has been hit with sweeping COVID travel restrictions ahead of a key Communist Party congress later this month, the Associated Press reported. Trains and buses in and out of the region of 22 million people have been suspended, and passenger numbers on flights have been reduced to 75% of capacity in recent days, according to Chinese media reports. The region is home to minorities who have been forced into prison-like re-education centers to force them to renounce their religion, typically Islam, and allegedly subjected to human-rights abuses.
• Five current or former Internal Revenue Service workers have been charged with fraud for illegally getting money from federal COVID-19 relief programs and using a total of $1 million for luxury items and personal trips, prosecutors said, the AP reported. The U.S. attorney’s office in Memphis said Tuesday that the five have been charged with wire fraud after they filed fake applications for the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, which were part of a federal stimulus package tied to the pandemic response in 2020.
• Peloton Interactive Inc. PTON, +3.84%
said it plans to cut about 500 jobs, roughly 12% of its remaining workforce, in the company’s fourth round of layoffs this year as the connected fitness-equipment maker tries to reverse mounting losses, the Wall Street Journal reported. After enjoying a strong run early on in the pandemic, Peloton has struggled since the start of the U.S. recovery, and CEO Barry McCarthy, who took over in February, said he is giving the unprofitable company another six months or so to significantly turn itself around and, if it fails, Peloton likely isn’t viable as a stand-alone company.
The U.S. leads the world with 96.6 million cases and 1,061,490 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.
Some 7.6 million people have had a shot of one of the new bivalent boosters that target the new omicron subvariants that have become dominant around the world.
