More than 1.8 million people passing through TSA checkpoints for the first time since the pandemic began

 

Richmond Federal Reserve Bank President Thomas Barkin stated on Thursday that he is hopeful that the United States is on the brink of completing its recovery from the coronavirus crisis, especially given that America’s recovery has outpaced most of the world countries. Barkin also noted that the inflation expectations and the business outlook are not pointing to persistent multi-year jump inflation, the current price pressures are part of a transitory inflation increase. The Fed official also pointed out that the overall economic growth can be compromised by the disruptions in supply chains, despite the speedy spending and consumer confidence recovery.

U.S. stocks rebound following rout, bond yields edge down

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. shares rebounded on Thursday after falling for three consecutive days and benchmark Treasury yields edged lower as investors snapped up technology stocks and shrugged off worries over rising prices, for now. By early morning, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.5%, the S&P 500 was up 1.4%, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.3%. Yields on 10-year Treasuries, which had climbed 7 basis points overnight in the biggest daily rise in two months, edged lower in early trade to stand at 1.6744%. “We’re certainly oversold here, so remember our 5-percent maxim: buy every S&P 500 down 5 percent close after the first one,” said Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research.

ASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to 473,000, a new pandemic low and the latest evidence that fewer employers are cutting jobs as consumers ramp up spending and more businesses reopen. The decline — the fourth in the past five weeks — coincides with a rash of states led by Republican governors that have blamed expanded jobless benefits for a slowdown in hiring and are acting to cut off the additional aid. Thursday’s report from the Labor Department showed that applications declined 34,000 from a revised 507,000 a week earlier. The number of weekly jobless claims — a rough measure of the pace of layoffs — has fallen significantly from a peak of 900,000 in January. Last week’s unemployment claims marked the lowest level since March of last year, when the viral pandemic erupted across the economy. The decline in applications is coinciding with a steadily improving economy. More Americans are venturing out to shop, travel, dine out and congregate at entertainment venues. The reopening has proceeded so fast that many businesses aren’t yet able to staff up as quickly as they would like. In April, employers added 266,000 jobs, far fewer than expected. The surprisingly tepid gain raised concerns that businesses may find it hard to quickly add jobs as the economy keeps improving and that regaining pre-pandemic employment levels could take longer than hoped. In Thursday’s report on jobless claims, the government said nearly 16.9 million people were receiving unemployment aid during the week of April 24, the latest period for which data is available. That is up from 16.2 million in the previous week and suggests that hiring wasn’t strong enough last month to pull people off unemployment. The rise in unemployment recipients occurred mostly in California and Michigan, where more than 600,000 people were added to the federal jobless benefit program that was set up for gig workers and contractors. The hiring slowdown has led to a political backlash against several federal expansions to unemployment benefits, including an extra $300 in weekly benefits paid for by the federal government, on top of state payments that average about $320. The supplement was included in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus measure, approved in March, and is set to expire the week of Sept. 6. But so far, 12 states — all with GOP governors — have announced that they will stop paying the extra benefit as soon as June or July. In Tennessee, for example, Gov. Bill Lee said the state will stop issuing the payment July 3. In Missouri, Gov. Mike Parson said on Twitter that it will end June 12. The 12 states will also end their participation in two federal benefit programs: One that has made gig workers and the self-employed eligible for assistance for the first time, and a second that provides extra weeks of aid. Together, those programs cover 12.5 million people nationwide. Businesses have cited the extra $300 as a reason they are struggling to hire. An analysis by Bank of America economists found that people who had earned up to $32,000 in their previous jobs can receive as much or more income from jobless aid. Some unemployed people say the extra benefit allows them to take more time to look for work, which can make hiring harder. There are other factors that help explain why many people who are out of work might be reluctant to take jobs. Some worry that working in restaurants, hotels or other services industries will expose them to the virus, according to government surveys. In addition, many women, especially working mothers, have had to leave the workforce to care for children who are still in online school for at least part of the week. The Century Foundation, a think thank, estimates that the move by the 12 states will cut off benefits for 895,000 people. In addition to Tennessee and Missouri, the other states are: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming. In some states, the impact will fall the hardest on African-Americans, the Century Foundation calculates. Half the unemployment benefit recipients in Alabama and South Carolina are Black; in Mississippi, two-thirds are. Biden earlier this week disputed the notion that the $300 payment is to blame for the drop-off in hiring last month. But he also urged the Labor Department to work with states on renewing requirements that recipients of unemployment aid must search for jobs and take a position if offered. The job search rule was suspended during the pandemic, when many businesses were closed and employment opportunities were few. A majority of states have now reinstated it. “Anyone collecting unemployment, who is offered a suitable job must take the job or lose their unemployment benefits,” Biden said.

New drug helps COVID-19 patients breathe on their own.

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. New drug helps COVID-19 patients breathe on their own. When a new monoclonal antibody drug was added to treatments being given to hospitalized COVID-19 patients who were still breathing on their own, the drug – lenzilumab from Humanigen Inc – significantly improved their odds of not needing invasive mechanical ventilation, researchers found. The 540 patients in the randomized trial were already receiving a variety of standard treatments. Half of them also received lenzilumab via three intravenous infusions. In a paper posted on Wednesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review, the research team reported that patients in the lenzilumab group had a 54% better chance of surviving without needing mechanical ventilation. In patients receiving steroids and Gilead Sciences antiviral drug remdesivir, the addition of lenzilumab improved survival without the need for mechanical ventilation by 92%. In patients under age 85 whose immune system was in the early stages of triggering a life-threatening inflammatory response, lenzilumab improved the odds of ventilator-free survival by nearly three-fold. Humanigen Chief Executive and study coauthor Dr. Cameron Durrant said his team believes the results “indicate a substantial improvement in COVID-19 treatment.” (https://bit.ly/3tzY2YU) Virus might insert genetic fragments into patients’ genetic code A controversial new paper based on laboratory experiments suggests a possible explanation for why some COVID-19 survivors still test positive on viral RNA tests months later. Small fragments of genetic instructions from the coronavirus might get integrated into infected cells’ genome. In the experiments, the fragments that got inserted into the cell’s genetic code came mainly from the tail-end of the viral genome and cannot induce the cell to create infectious virus. However, they might be enough to trigger a positive result on COVID-19 PCR tests. “There is no evidence that the process of these integrations into the genome causes harm,” said study leader Rudolf Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT, adding that the researchers believe that is very unlikely. Other experts have said the findings, reported on Thursday in the journal PNAS, likely reflect unintended effects of experimental methods. The researchers have so far seen the phenomenon only in test tubes. They are trying to find direct evidence for SARS-CoV-2 sequences integrated into the genome in patients, “but these experiments are technically very challenging,” Jaenisch said. The vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech BNTX.O> and Moderna use messenger RNA to teach cells to make a protein that resembles a site on the virus. But the cell quickly breaks down the RNA and gets rid of it. “There is no evidence that vaccine RNA could integrate and we believe that this is highly unlikely,” Jaenisch said. The high risks of complications from COVID-19 “would be a very strong incentive to get the vaccine,” he said, citing negligible risk from the shots. (https://bit.ly/3tDs9P8) Home monitoring may keep COVID-19 patients out of hospital A home monitoring program for patients with COVID-19 may be associated with lower odds of hospitalization, according to a new study. At the Cleveland Clinic, doctors remotely monitored 3,975 COVID-19 patients for up to 14 days after a positive test. In a study published on Thursday in JAMA Health Forum, they compared patterns of healthcare use by these patients and by 3,221 similar patients who did not participate in the program. A month after diagnosis, participants in the home monitoring program were 27% less likely than nonparticipants to have been hospitalized, although they had about a two-fold higher likelihood of outpatient visits with the home monitoring program. “As the pandemic continued and we learned more and more about the outcomes of the program, and the natural course of COVID infections in groups of patients, we were able to fine tune the program to those with highest risk,” said Dr. Anita Misra-Hebert, director of the Clinic’s Healthcare Delivery & Implementation Science Center. The trial was not randomized and does not provide conclusive evidence of the program’s value. Instead, the researchers write, the results “support the need for randomized trials to evaluate home monitoring programs … after COVID-19 diagnosis.” (https://bit.ly/3uvHpyW; https://bit.ly/3bdJg3L)

https://youtu.be/yc_7n7my7ek

Shares in BioNTech BNTX, 2.80% surged 8% in premarket trading on Monday, after the German biotechnology group reported first-quarter earnings. Jointly with Pfizer PFE, 0.88% 0Q1N, -2.43%, BioNTech co-developed the first COVID-19 vaccine to receive the green light from regulators following large-scale clinical trials. The group reported revenue of €2.05 billion ($2.49 billion) in the first three months of the year, outpacing expectations for €1.7 billion, according to FactSet consensus. Revenue in the same period in 2020 was €27.7 million. Net profit surged €1.13 billion in the first quarter of 2021, up from €53.4 million in 2020. BioNTech said that it had supplied more than 450 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to 91 countries or territories as of May 6, with signed agreements for more than 1.8 billion doses in 2021. The estimated revenue from COVID-19 vaccine deliveries, based on the currently signed contracts, is €12.4 billion. The group said there was no evidence that its COVID-19 vaccine needed to be adapted to deal with variants of the virus that have been identified.

https://youtu.be/8VRjXgQv7AU

TOLD YOU SO

• CDC updated its guidance on how coronavirus spreads to include transmission through fine particles that travel more than 6FT through the air, or aerosols
• Experts have warned for months that it likely spread this way, not just through close contact and ‘droplets’
• It comes after the CDC said that fully vaccinated people can stop wearing masks outside, but amid confusion over how to tell who is and isn’t vaccinated

U.S. health officials have finally acknowledged that coronavirus is airborne and can travel more than six feet in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines updated Friday. ‘COVID-19 spreads when an infected person breathes out droplets and very small particles that contain the virus. These droplets and particles can be breathed in by other people or land on their eyes, noses, or mouth,’ the guidance reads. ‘People who are closer than 6 feet from the infected person are most likely to get infected.’ Previously, the CDC warned that coronavirus spread primarily through close contact, coughs and sneezes, not through what’s known as ‘airborne transmission.’ Viruses that are airborne are tiny enough to travel farther distances as aerosols, rather than larger ‘droplets.’ Evidence has mounted for months that coronavirus travels this way, but the CDC largely punted on the issue, saying it was still assessing the data, until now. The agency’s advice also continues to move away from warning about the risk of contracting the virus from surfaces, though the new guidance does acknowledge their potential to become contaminated. The CDC acknowledged back in October that there was the possibility of airborne transmission, but downplayed this risk, saying that the risk of transmission was low at distances greater than six feet all though such cases had been documented. Indoor settings among close contacts remain the primary hotbed for the spread of coronavirus. The CDC’s new guidance at last acknowledges how the virus can travel long distances in a fine mist and inhaled. With plenty of anecdotal stories of people mysteriously developing COVID-19 without any known close contacts being infected, aerosol transmission seemed like it would inevitably be recognized as a mode of spread. CDC’s updates also come at a poignant moment, a week after it advised that fully vaccinated people can safely go without a mask for just about any outdoor activity, regardless of the vaccination status of those around them – unless they are in a crowd. However, the agency still says that unvaccinated people need to continue to wear masks outdoors, unless they are exercising with members of their own household or with fully vaccinated friends and family. It also said that fully vaccinated people can ditch their masks during small indoor gatherings with other fully vaccinated people – which President and first lady Joe and Jill Biden, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris were pictured doing for the first time in the past two weeks. The change was long-anticipated and welcome, but also left confusion in its wake because the U.S. does not require people to carry proof of vaccination, meaning there’s no way to tell who is and isn’t vaccinated. Like any form of transmission, aerosol transmission is less likely to occur outdoors than in. But the newly articulated warning about the ability of the virus to spread further than six feet in fine particles comes at a time when more Americans – vaccinated or unvaccinated – are going maskless. The CDC has finally removed language specifying that the virus spreads with ‘close contact.’ And many experts have said that the CDC has been slow to change much of its guidance throughout the pandemic. ‘CDC. has now caught up to the latest scientific evidence, and they’ve gotten rid of some old problematic terms and thinking about how transmission occurs,’ Virginia Tech aerosol expert Linsey Marr told the New York Times. Experts clarified that the risk of aerosol spread of coronavirus is still very low outdoors because ample space and wind tend to quickly carry away and disperse particles of the virus. That means that you’re less likely to come into contact with any viral particles and, if you do, the concentration is less likely to be enough to infect you because the risk of contracting the virus increases with the volume you encounter. But if you are indoors, especially in a poorly ventilated room, the virus is liable to linger in the air and remain a threat – a danger the CDC has finally acknowledged. The new information has significant implications for indoor environments, and workplaces in particular, Dr. Michaels said. Virus-laden particles “maintain their airborne properties for hours, and they accumulate in a room that doesn’t have good ventilation.” “There’s more exposure closer up,” Dr. Michaels said. “But when you’re further away, there’s still a risk, and also these particles stay in the air.” Donald Milton, an aerosol scientist at the University of Maryland, agreed that federal officials should provide better guidelines for keeping workplaces safe.

“We need better focus on good respirators for people who have to be close to other people for long periods of time,”

Dr. Milton said. “A surgical mask, even if it’s tucked in on the edges, is still not really going to give you enough protection if you’re elbow to elbow all day long with other people.”

Health care workers, bus drivers and other workers may also require respirators, Dr. Michaels said. Customers in retail stores should continue to maintain distance from one another and to wear masks, he added; good ventilation is paramount in these settings.