The U.S. has reported the lowest number of Covid-19 cases in more than a year, as the nation’s airports over Memorial Day weekend experienced the largest number of travelers since the pandemic began. The 11,976 new cases reported on May 29 were the lowest since March 23, 2020, when 11,238 new cases were reported, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The seven-day average of 21,007 is the lowest since March 31 of last year, when it was 19,363. Friday also saw the TSA report the highest number of travelers since the pandemic began, with more than 1.9 million people taking to the skies for the long weekend. At the same point last year, the TSA counted just 327,000 passengers at its checkpoints. The World Health Organization officially declared Covid-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. The U.S. reported 1,147 Covid cases that day. The pandemic would go on to infect more than 33 million people in the U.S. and kill nearly 600,000 people. Within a week of the WHO declaration, daily TSA travel numbers dropped from 1.7 million to 620,000. By March 25, the number was at 203,000. Since March 11, 2021, the daily number of fliers has remained above 1 million. More than 60% of U.S. adults have at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, while 40.5% of adults are fully vaccinated, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. President Biden announced earlier this month that his administration is aiming to increase the number of adults with at least one dose to 70% by July 4. He also said he wants 160 million American adults fully vaccinated by the same date. “If we succeed in this effort,” Biden said during his announcement, “then Americans will have taken a serious step toward a return to normal.” The CDC recently said fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks in most settings, though masks are still required on airplanes, buses, trains and public transportation. Cities across the country are lifting restrictions on indoor dining and gatherings as cases fall and vaccinations increase. White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci has repeatedly said that he wants to see daily case numbers drop below 10,000 before a broad relaxation of safety measures takes place.
British agents: Wuhan lab leak ‘feasible’ – report
The Vaccines Minister has insisted that the World Health Organization must be able to fully investigate the origins of the pandemic, following reports that British agents believe it is “feasible” that the coronavirus emerged after a laboratory leak. Speaking to Sky News, Nadhim Zahawi said it’s vital that the WHO is “allowed to conduct its investigation unencumbered” as it seeks to better understand how the initial outbreak began, adding that “we should leave no stone unturned”.There has been renewed interest in how the pandemic began this week, after President Joe Biden asked US intelligence agencies to re-investigate the origins and report back in 90 days. Facebook also said it will no longer ban posts claiming Covid-19 was man made. According to a Sunday Times report, Western intelligence – including Britain – at first considered there was only a “remote” chance that it had leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where research is conducted into bat-derived coronaviruses. But there has since been a reassessment, and a lab escape is thought “feasible”, sources revealed. Yet, amid mounting tensions between China and the West, the WHO’s director of emergencies, Dr Mike Ryan, warned on Friday that efforts to better understand how the virus emerged are “being poisoned by politics”. “We would like for everyone out there to separate, if they can, the politics of this issue from the science,” he told a press conference.
10 serious COVID patients given Israeli drug, leave hospital in one day
The data showed a 40% decrease in lung inflammation from treatment – from 55% to 15%, as seen in chest X-rays * Rambam Health Care Campus doctor: ‘Results extremely impressive’
An Israeli biotechnology company has revealed a 100% success rate in the first 10 patients treated with its drug as part of an early-stage clinical trial at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa. The company, Bonus BioGroup, presented the preliminary findings of its Phase I/II trial to peers at the International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy conference in New Orleans last week and shared the results in a statement released to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The Jerusalem Post reviewed the PowerPoint presented at the conference and the five-page letter sent to the exchange. The company’s CEO and director, Dr. Shai Meretzki, told the Post that the team is now working on publishing its results in a peer-reviewed journal. Bonus’ MesenCure, which consists of activated Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (MSCs) that are isolated from the adipose tissue of healthy donors, was found to reduce inflammation, promote the regeneration of the diseased lung tissue and alleviate respiratory and other symptoms in patients suffering from life-threatening respiratory distress brought on by COVID-19. “So far, the results of the treatment with the drug MesenCure are extremely impressive and an improvement over the results of other treatments,” said Dr. Shadi Hamoud, principal investigator in the clinical trial and deputy director of the Department of Internal Medicine E at Rambam. He said the results were so promising that the hospital was already examining use of the treatment for other indications. Bonus reported on 10 COVID-19 patients between the ages of 45 to 75, all with severe symptoms. Ninety percent of them also had comorbidities. The data showed a 40% decrease in lung inflammation from treatment – from 55% to 15%, as seen in chest X-rays. Additionally, patients showed significantly improved respiratory function, with blood oxygen saturation showing a 95% increase and lung functioning returning to almost entirely normal levels after only one month. Meretzki shared a laboratory image of a healthy lung, a sick lung and lung treated with MesenCure. “The treated lung looks almost identical to the normal, healthy lung – complete healing, complete prevention of damage to the lung,” Meretzki said. Most strikingly, patients were discharged from the hospital after a median duration of only one day following injection. And there were no adverse effects associated with MesenCure, the company reported. Meretzki said the trial followed patients for 30 days post administration of the treatment. All but one had survived. The patient who died did not pass away from COVID-19 but a comorbidity. Many COVID-19 patients die because of an increase in the production of inflammatory molecules called cytokine, rather than the virus itself, Meretzki explained. When the immune system secretes too many cytokines, a so-called “cytokine storm” can erupt. Such an excessive immune response ravages healthy lung tissue, leading to acute respiratory distress syndrome or failure, and eventually death. Bonus was founded in 2008. It has been working with MSCs for a decade from its Haifa headquarters, where it developed its core product, a tissue-engineered bone graft that is also based on MSCs. Meretzki said that MSCs are cells that are “found in every one of us; they are responsible for damage control and a variety of day-to-day activities.”
When the coronavirus outbreak started in early 2020, Bonus started investigating the potential of MSCs to possibly reduce the cytokine storm in COVID-19 patients. The Phase II trial is slated to continue at Rambam and include another 50 patients. However, because of the low-level of infection in Israel, Bonus has applied for approval to carry out the trial in Europe as well, Meretzki said. He told the Post that the Phase II trial should be completed quickly once the remaining patients are fully enrolled. There are still a high number of serious COVID cases worldwide. As of May 28, Meretzki shared, there were 93,956 serious cases out of 14,603,155 total cases – about 0.6%.
TSA screened 2 million travelers on Friday of Memorial Day Weekend
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened nearly 2 million travelers Friday heading into the Memorial Day weekend, a sign that more Americans are beginning to travel as coronavirus vaccines become more widespread.
TSA spokesperson Alexa Lopez confirmed that 1.96 million passengers, airport workers and aircrew were screened Friday and that the agency was “creeping up to 2 million.” The figure marks the highest number of passengers screened during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Yesterday 5/28, @TSA screened 1.96 million passengers, airport workers, &aircrew with an average wait time of less than 4 minutes. We’re creeping up to 2 million. Please wear your mask, respect TSA/airport/airline crew, arrive early & pack your patience!
— AA Alexa Lopez (@TSA_Comms_AA) May 29, 2021
The influx of passengers comes as traveling starts to rebound after over a year of decline during the coronavirus pandemic. More than 1.5 million people traveled through U.S. airports in March — the first time since the beginning of the pandemic that air travel had reached that level. Travel is expected to continue to rise as vaccines become more widespread in the U.S. “We’re very excited about the reemergence of travel, the chance for Americans to reunite with family and friends whom they haven’t seen for some time. … There’s going to be a tremendous amount of people traveling this weekend,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said. “Patience is required.”Figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated Friday showed that over half of the total U.S. population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The CDC said earlier this month that people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 are not required to wear masks in most settings, both indoors and outdoors. However, the TSA has announced that the federal mask mandate for all transportation networks, including on airplanes, in airports, on buses and on rail systems, would be extended through September.
Vietnam identifies new, highly transmissible variant of coronavirus
https://youtu.be/OvKxFUDF8DI
Vietnam has detected a new, highly transmissible variant of the coronavirus, the Vietnamese Health Ministry announced Saturday. The variant, which is believed to have spurred a recent wave of COVID-19 infections in the country, has a mix of characteristics from both the strains first found in the United Kingdom and India, according to VnExpress, an international newspaper. Specifically, Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said the new variant is a version of the one first found in India with mutations that originally belonged to the U.K. variant, according to the news outlet. The new variant is highly contagious when spread through the air, and Long said viral cultures revealed the virus was able to replicate very quickly. “The Ministry of Health would announce the new coronavirus variant on the global genome map,” Long said, according to VnExpress. The variant has yet to be named. The news from Vietnam comes as India continues to struggle after the coronavirus overwhelmed hospitals and created a dearth of medical supplies in the country. In a potential sign of a coming reprieve, Reuters reported Saturday that the South Asian country has seen a decrease in cases for the first time in 45 days. India reported 173,790 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours. However, the wire service noted, the death toll rose to 3,617. The Indian variant, B.1.617, is thought to be the main cause of an explosion of cases in the country. U.S health officials, including the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, Anthony Fauci, said coronavirus vaccines are effective against the Indian variant. It remains unclear if a vaccine will stand up to the new variant announced by health officials in Vietnam.
Wrong to say tens of thousands died unnecessarily from COVID, UK minister says
The number of coronavirus deaths in the UK would have been halved if lockdown had been introduced a week earlier, a former government adviser has said.
Prof Neil Ferguson, whose advice was crucial to the decision to go into lockdown, said the outbreak had been doubling in size every three or four days before measures had been taken. The prime minister said it was still too early to make such a judgement. “We will have to look back on all of it and learn the lessons that we can.”
Boris Johnson added: “A lot of these things are still premature. This epidemic has a long way to go.”
‘Limited information on virus’
Chief scientific officer Sir Patrick Vallance said important questions about the measures taken “still needed to be addressed”.
The UK’s chief medical adviser, Prof Chris Whitty, said looking back at “how we improve on what we do” was routine. “Part of the problem… at that stage is that we had very limited information about this virus,” he added. In the UK, lockdown began on 23 March. The number of people known to have died with coronavirus in the UK stands at 41,128. Prof Ferguson, from Imperial College London, told a committee of MPs: “Had we introduced lockdown measures a week earlier, we would have reduced the final death toll by at least a half.
“So whilst I think the measures, given what we knew about this virus then, in terms of its transmission, were warranted… certainly had we introduced them earlier, we would have seen many fewer deaths.” Prof Ferguson, who resigned as a government adviser last month after allegedly breaching lockdown rules, indicated many lives in care homes could have been saved.
“We made the rather optimistic assumption that somehow the elderly would be shielded,” be said.
But “that simply failed to happen”. Prof Ferguson said the government’s Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (Sage) had “anticipated in theory” the risk to people living in care homes. And it had been discussed in meetings as early as February. But the “only way you can really protect care homes is to do extensive testing to make sure it doesn’t get in”. And more was now understood about how the virus was transmitted, Care home workers often worked at more than one facility and might be spreading infection between residences, for example. Coronavirus was growing “exponentially” in February and March.
Scientists have told BBC News an estimated 100,000 people were being infected every day in England by the time it went into lockdown.
Introducing measures a week earlier would have significantly cut that figure and in turn saved lives. Why this did not happen is one of the major questions about the government’s handling of this pandemic. It is far easier to look back than to make the decision in the moment. There was a lack of information and the scale of the outbreak within the UK was not clear. But other scientists were making the case for the UK to go into lockdown weeks before it happened. Discussing the timing of the lockdown on BBC Radio 4’s More or Less programme, mathematician Kit Yates said there had been an “overreliance” on certain models when determining how fast the epidemic had been doubling. “Some members of [pandemic modelling group] SPI-M have communicated their concerns to me that some of the modelling groups had more influence over the consensus decisions than others,” he said. This meant “some opinions or estimates that may have been valid didn’t get passed on up the chain.
Inflation questions keep stocks in check
LONDON/SYDNEY (Reuters) – World stocks were pinned down on Thursday as investors awaited U.S. data expected to offer clues on inflation, with further pressures widely seen as sparking a scaling back of central banks’ giant stimulus packages. The Euro STOXX 600 lost 0.2%, with German shares down 0.5% and London’s main index making slim losses. France gained 0.1%. Losses of around 0.2% in energy stocks were offset by 1.2% gains in the mining sector, while British bank HSBC gained 0.1% after a move to exit U.S. retail banking to focus on Asia. Wall Street futures gauges pointed to losses of around 0.2%. In focus was U.S. gross domestic product and jobless claims numbers expected later in the day. Investors also held back major bets before the monthly U.S. personal consumption report, due on Friday. “We still believe inflation will not be transient, but will persist – this is where I think we differ with central banks,” said Jeremy Gatto, a portfolio manager at Unigestion.
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Fed will act if upward inflation pressure persists – Clarida Wall Street closes mixed as rebound stalls
Fed will act if upward inflation pressure persists – Clarida
Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida on Wednesday said it may take longer to reopen the economy than it did to shut it down during the coronavirus pandemic and his concerns range from the possibility of both higher inflation and weaker employment than economists expect. The Fed has been hit by two major data surprises. Last Friday’s weaker-than-expected April job report and Wednesday’s hotter-than-expected April consumer prices. In a discussion with the National Association for Business Economics, Clarida said he was surprised by the strength of the government report that showed the consumer price index jumped 0.8% in April. As the economy reopens, “we could have more persistent imbalances between aggregate demand and supply that would put more persistent upward pressure on inflation than we and outside forecasts expect,” Clarida said Wednesday after the inflation data was published. If stronger demand relative to supply persisted and pushed up inflation higher than the Fed’s stable 2% target, the central bank would not hesitate to act, he said.
Wall Street closes mixed as rebound stalls
Major stock markets on Wall Street closed mixed on Tuesday following a tumultuous trading session. Earlier, big tech companies erased gains recorded through the day, with Amazon coming under fire following the announcement that Washington DC was suing it over antitrust issues. Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida stated that the Fed would react if the upward inflation pressure, caused by the country’s reopening, continued. The Dow Jones closed with a decrease of 0.24%, with Merck & Co losing 1.99%. The Nasdaq 100 ended the session 0.12% in the green, as Moderna rose by 3.10%. The S&P 500 was down 0.21%, with Seagate Technology Holdings plc declining 4.74%.
U.S. consumer confidence holds steady; housing showing strain as prices surge
https://youtu.be/2UOHmq6XBMI
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. consumer confidence hovered at a 14-month high in May as optimism about job prospects tempered concerns about rising inflation and diminishing government financial support. Though the survey from the Conference Board on Tuesday suggested the pace of economic growth remained robust in the second quarter, the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic recession, which started in February 2020, is bumpy. The housing market, one of the star performers, is showing signs of fatigue, with new single-family homes sales dropping in April amid a dearth of properties, which is boosting prices at the fastest pace in more than 15 years. The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index slipped to a reading of 117.2 this month from 117.5 in April, the highest level since February 2020. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index at 119.2. Effective May, the Conference Board switched to an online from a mail survey. Data from January through April was revised to reflect the results of the online survey. The dip mirrored other sentiment surveys, which were pulled down by worries that rising inflation would erode consumers’ purchasing power. Consumers’ expectations for the future may be less bright because the tailwind from Americans spending their $1,400 stimulus checks could be fading. Earlier this month, the Commerce Department reported that retail sales in the U.S. flattened out in April after soaring in March, when many Americans received those government checks and boosted their spending. Economists have said that rising confidence should bolster overall economic growth as consumers, who account for 70% of economic activity, spend more as lockdown restrictions are eased or abandoned altogether in many places. Recent government data shows that the nation’s gross domestic product — its total output of goods and services — is expected to continue to rise. Following a 4.3% gain in the fourth quarter of 2020, the government’s first estimate of the January-March quarter came in at a brisk 6.4% annual rate. Some economists expect even bigger growth in the current April-June quarter — an annual pace of 10% or more — driven by a surge in people traveling, shopping, dining out and resuming their pre-pandemic spending habits.