Raphael Stevens

This week, the U.S. Covid death toll hit its highest level in about a year, rising 39% over the past two weeks, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Though the highly contagious omicron variant generally produces milder infections than previous strains, the pandemic isn’t over.
“There’s nothing mild about what’s going on in our hospital and in our ICUs, particularly if you are unvaccinated or unboosted,” said Dr. Ken Silverstein, chief physician executive of ChristianaCare health system in Delaware.

For the first time in its 130-year history, the ChristianaCare health system in Wilmington, Delaware, implemented “crisis standards of care” in January to help it treat an onslaught of patients, as a fresh wave of Covid infections hit the Northeast.
This week, the U.S. Covid death toll hit its highest level in about a year, rising 39% over the past two weeks, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Though the highly contagious omicron variant generally produces milder infections than previous strains, officials say the pandemic isn’t over, and many health-care systems still struggle to care for patients.
“There’s nothing mild about what’s going on in our hospital and in our ICUs, particularly if you are unvaccinated or unboosted,” said Dr. Ken Silverstein, chief physician executive of ChristianaCare, which has three hospitals and more than 1,200 beds.

Covid deaths rise

The U.S. death toll from Covid rose to an average of more than 2,400 fatalities per day over the previous seven days as of Monday, according to Johns Hopkins data.

Employees of a funeral home and staff from Bucharest University Hospital morgue, all wearing personal protective equipment, prepare a COVID-19 victim for transport to a cemetery, in Bucharest, Romania, October 29, 2021.
Inquam Photos | Reuters

Jennifer Nuzzo, head of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Covid Resource Center, said Covid deaths may rise even more, because states with lower vaccination rates got hit later by omicron and haven’t experienced the full brunt of the variant yet.
“Any time we have deaths after the development of a vaccine — [which] largely takes off the table the possibility of death — is a tragedy,” Nuzzo said. “There’s no way around that this is a bad development for the pandemic.”

Vaccines

Vaccines weren’t widely available the last time Covid deaths were this high in the United States.
Pfizer’s and Moderna’s shots didn’t get emergency approval until December 2020, followed by Johnson & Johnson’s about three months later. Just 28 million Covid shots had been administered by this time last year, with 4.7 million people getting a second dose. As of Monday, almost 250 million Americans have received at least one shot, and more than 88 million of them have received both primary doses and been boosted.
As infections have soared lately, the vaccines have at least prevented serious illness and death from surging at the same rate. Still, with one-quarter of Americans yet to get a single shot, many remain susceptible.
Reported Covid deaths generally lag reported cases. States that have not yet peaked in infections will likely do so within the next two weeks, with peak deaths following about two weeks later, said Dr. Scott Braithwaite, professor of population health and medicine for NYU Langone Health.

Milder omicron

Dr. Shereef Elnahal, CEO of Newark, New Jersey-based University Hospital, said it’s not yet clear if his facility is fully over the hump in Covid-related deaths in this wave. After an increase in deaths over the past couple of weeks, the hospital has seen a plateau in ICU patients and fatalities.
About half as many patients who come in with Covid end up needing intensive care in this wave as compared with previous surges, Elnahal said.
“It’s just so transmissible that the absolute numbers of people needing ventilators looked similar to previous waves,” he said.
Some parts of the country are seeing encouraging signs, and cases and hospitalizations are easing nationwide. Hopkins data shows that U.S. cases surged to a pandemic high of close to 1 million new infections a day in mid-January. The country is now reporting a seven-day average of about 450,000 new cases per day, down 36% over the past two weeks.

Hospitalizations fall

The number of patients currently in U.S. hospitals with Covid — 140,000 — is also down from the recent peak of 159,400 on Jan. 20, according to a seven-day average of Department of Health and Human Services data.
This easing is most evident in the Northeast, where cases rose as the omicron variant spread earlier there than in other parts of the country. Cases and hospitalizations are falling more sharply in that region than others, but it’s now feeling the effects of getting hit first by omicron, with population-adjusted daily deaths higher than anywhere else.
The number of ChristianaCare patients has declined by 33% in recent weeks, but its hospitals were still operating at 99% capacity as of late last week. That includes patients who came to the hospital because of Covid as well as those who were admitted for something else and then tested positive. All patients who test positive for Covid, regardless of why they were admitted, need extra care and resources to isolate them from other patients and staff, which taxes the system, Silverstein said. 
“There are a lot of sick people, with Covid and because of Covid,” he said.
A shortage of monoclonal antibodies, which were standard care for Covid patients before they proved little use against omicron, also has forced ChristianaCare to make “clinical prioritization decisions about who’s most eligible,” Silverstein said. “Not who’s eligible, who’s most eligible.”

Mortality rates

The mortality rates, the percentage of people with Covid who ultimately die from the virus, are lower in the Northeast during this wave than previous surges. But other parts of the country that have lower vaccination rates may not be as lucky, doctors say.
“When you look at the delta period and last winter, as cases increased, hospitalizations and deaths increased in a similar pattern,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters last week.
“Strikingly, when we compare the past month when omicron was the predominant variant, we see a clear separation between cases, hospital admissions and deaths,” she said. She attributed the lower death rates to the vaccines, which have proven to provide good protection against death from Covid.
Cases are five times higher than they were during the delta wave, Walensky said, but hospitalizations and deaths haven’t increased at the same rate.

Immunity

Nuzzo said the current wave of infection, hospitalization and death would have been much worse without the vaccines.
“Part of why omicron looks more mild is because it is finding societies that have already amassed a fair amount of immunity from prior infection or vaccination,” Nuzzo said.
In the New York and New Jersey area, “many of the cases did not become fatal and/or extremely serious because of the high vaccination rates,” said Perry N. Halkitis, dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health. “But in the rest of the country, that may not be the case.”
That’s both because of lower vaccination rates and because of less-robust hospital health care in other parts of the country, he said, which could even mean a peak in total deaths in those areas, surpassing those from last winter’s surge.

The unvaccinated

“We are in this at least to the end of February, for the rest of the country,” he said.
That’s because so many people in the U.S. have yet to get vaccinated; more than 80 million haven’t received a single shot. The rapid jump in new infections over the past month means deaths will continue to follow.
“As long as we have tens of millions of people who will not get vaccinated, we’re going to have full hospitals and needless deaths,” President Joe Biden said earlier this month.
Although omicron generally doesn’t make people as sick as past strains, Walensky said, that doesn’t mean the variant is mild. She called on the public to wear masks and get vaccinated and boosted to help ease the burden on hospitals.
“I know many people are tired, but many of our hospitals are still struggling beyond capacity,” Walensky said. “It’s been a long two years. However, please now do your part to lean in to this current moment.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Ford is reportedly planning to accelerate its deployment of electric vehicles and could increase investments in EVs by up to $20 billion, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.
The effort, led by a former Apple and Tesla executive, calls for Ford to spend an additional $10 billion to $20 billion over the next five to 10 years converting factories worldwide, according to the report.

The all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning truck during an augmented reality presentation at the Motor Bella Auto Show in Pontiac, Michigan, on Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021.
Emily Elconin | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Ford Motor is reportedly planning to accelerate its deployment of electric vehicles and could increase investments in EVs by up to $20 billion, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday.
The effort, led by a former Apple Inc. and Tesla executive Doug Field, calls for Ford to spend an additional $10 billion to $20 billion over the next five to 10 years converting factories worldwide to electric-vehicle production from making gasoline-powered cars, according to Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the plan.

The potential investment would come on top of the $30 billion Ford already plans to invest in electric vehicles through 2025. That includes $7 billion the company already spent from 2016 through February 2021, but doesn’t count another $11.4 billion it’s investing with South Korea’s SK Innovation to build three battery factories and an EV truck plant in Tennessee and Kentucky.

The investments are part of Ford CEO Jim Farley’s Ford+ turnaround plan that was announced in May.
A Ford spokesperson declined to comment directly on the Bloomberg report, citing the company’s policy to not comment on rumors or speculation. He said the company is “carrying out our ambitious Ford+ plan, and continue to carry that out.”
Adding another $10 billion to $20 billion over the next decade wouldn’t be outlandish given automakers across the globe are pledging billions of dollars for such efforts through 2025.
The Bloomberg report added that Ford has evaluated spinning off a small portion of its EV business as a part of the reorganization in an effort to capture value that investors have been awarding some EV start-ups.

The restructuring is a work in progress and some elements may be changed or dropped, including the EV spinoff idea, according to the report. 
Shares of Ford were up by as much as 2.7% during trading Tuesday afternoon. As of 3 p.m., they were up by less than half a percent to $20.38 a share.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady announced his retirement on Tuesday.
Brady won seven Super Bowls with the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The 44-year-old said he would stop playing after 22 seasons.

Legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady announced his retirement Tuesday after 22 record-breaking seasons.
The 44-year-old posted a photo and statement to his social media accounts explaining his decision to stop playing football. Brady wrote he felt he could no longer make the commitment required to succeed in the NFL.

“This is difficult for me to write, but here it goes: I am not going to make that competitive commitment anymore,” he said. “I have loved my NFL career, and now it is time to focus my time and energy on other things that require my attention.”
Brady steps away from the sport after winning seven Super Bowls and setting a bevy of league passing records. The quarterback’s unmatched success came with a dose of venom from opposing fans, who may have watched him too often dispatch their favorite team or associated him with allegations of cheating that dogged the New England Patriots during his long tenure with the team.

Tom Brady #12 of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers waves to fans after defeating the Dallas Cowboys 31-29 at Raymond James Stadium on September 09, 2021 in Tampa, Florida.
Julio Aguilar | Getty Images

In announcing his retirement, Brady posted a photo of himself playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, with whom he spent the last two seasons of his career after 20 seasons with the Patriots. He thanked the Buccaneers organization, the team’s head coach, Bruce Arians, and its fans, but not the Patriots or the team’s head coach, Bill Belichick. Brady and his Patriots coach won six Super Bowls together.
In a tweet sent hours after his initial statement, Brady mentioned the team that drafted him.
“Thank you Patriots Nation,” he wrote. “I’m beyond grateful. Love you all.”

Before he posted his announcement Tuesday, Brady for three days had not confirmed an initial ESPN report that he planned to retire.
Brady said he plans to “take it day by day” after a football career that he called “a thrilling ride.” He mentioned he would work to grow businesses he co-founded, including training and apparel company TB12 Sports and NFT platform Autograph.io.
Drafted by the Patriots in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft, Brady leaves the NFL considered by many the greatest quarterback to play the sport.
Brady appeared in the Super Bowl 10 times, winning seven with two teams. He won five Super Bowl MVP awards, made 15 Pro Bowls and was named Associated Press NFL MVP three times.
Brady finishes his NFL career first all time in passing touchdowns (624), passing yards (84,520) and passes completed (7,263).
The player who many labeled the GOAT, or greatest of all time, was also famous for leading teams to victories in the final moments of games.
Brady led 53 game-winning drives in his career, second only to Peyton Manning’s 54. He also has 42 comeback wins, behind only Manning.
Brady mounted one of his most notable comebacks during Super Bowl LI in 2017. The Patriots trailed 28-3 in the third quarter, but Brady engineered a stunning 34-28 win.
He made a last comeback attempt in his final game last month. Brady led the Bucs back from a 27-3 deficit in their divisional playoff game against the Los Angeles Rams. The Bucs eventually tied the game at 27 before the Rams’ game-winning field goal in the final second of the fourth quarter.
Both teammates and competitors held Brady in high regard. Former NFL running back LeSean McCoy saw Brady work in scrimmages between the Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles, then was a teammate of the quarterback with the Buccaneers during the 2020 season.
In an April interview with CNBC, McCoy called Brady a “drill sergeant.”
“And then actually playing with him, I could see it. He’s so intense and smart,” McCoy said. “I’ve never played with a quarterback like that.”
Brady’s success on the field came with its share of controversy.
In 2016, he served a four-game suspension for his role in “Deflategate.” The punishment came after the Patriots were accused of deflating game balls against the Andrew Luck-led Indianapolis Colts in the 2014 AFC championship game.
The NFL fined the Patriots $1 million and docked the franchise two draft picks.
Brady reaped a financial windfall during his long career. On the field, Brady earned nearly $300 million, according to Spotrac, a website that tracks sports contracts.
Forbes estimates Brady makes $31 million in annual endorsements. Last June, he aligned with the crypto world with his investment in platform FTX.
While Brady mentioned his business interests in describing his life after football, he said he did not know yet exactly how he would spend his days.
“I know for sure I want to spend a lot of time giving to others and trying to enrich other people’s lives, just as so many have done for me,” Brady wrote.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Rocket builder Astra is preparing to launch from Florida for the first time as soon as this weekend.
The company reached orbit for the first time three months ago with its LV0007 rocket, launched from Kodiak, Alaska.
Astra is now preparing to launch the ELaNA 41 mission, carrying four cubesatellites for NASA with its LV0008 rocket

The company’s rocket LV0008 stands on the launchpad ahead of the ELaNa 41 mission for NASA.
Astra | John Kraus

Rocket builder Astra is preparing to launch from Florida for the first time as early as this weekend, with the company expecting to soon receive its Federal Aviation Administration license for a NASA mission.
The regulator plans to issue Astra’s license by Friday, the company said in a filing Tuesday, so Astra has scheduled time for the launch on Saturday.

Notably, this will be the first license the FAA issues under Part 450 – a new space industry framework designed to streamline the regulatory process for companies requesting both launch and spacecraft reentry licenses. Astra said that it’s been three months since it requested the license. This latest development will “make it easier for Astra to launch at a higher frequency out of more launch sites in the United States,” the company said.
Astra’s stock jumped as much as 15% in premarket trading on Tuesday from its previous close of $4.78. Shares ended the day with a 5% gain. The company’s valuation has been cut in half over the past three months, with Astra battered alongside other space growth stocks.
The company reached orbit for the first time three months ago with its LV0007 rocket, launched from Kodiak, Alaska.
Astra is now preparing to launch the ELaNa 41 mission, carrying four cubesatellites for NASA with its LV0008 rocket, in what would be the company’s first launch from Florida’s Cape Canaveral. Last week, Astra test fired the LV0008 rocket successfully at the Space Launch Complex 46 of the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Cedar Fair confirmed Tuesday that it had received an unsolicited proposal from SeaWorld Entertainment.
The company says that it is reviewing the bid, which is reportedly worth $3.4 billion.
Cedar Fair opened Tuesday at $50 per share and rose to $54.51 before trading was halted for news.

Visitors at Knott’s Berry Farm ride the HangTime rollercoaster during it’s first day of public operation in Buena Park on Friday, May 11, 2018.
Jeff Gritchen | Orange County Register | Getty Images

Cedar Fair said Tuesday that it is reviewing an unsolicited proposal it received from SeaWorld Entertainment to buy out the company.
Bloomberg, which first reported the news, said the offer was worth $3.4 billion. The news sent shares of the theme park owner up 10%, before trading was halted. When trading resumed, Cedar Fair’s stock rose more than 15% and hit a 52-week high of $57.55. The stock closed the day at $56.25, up 13%.

In a press release, Cedar Fair didn’t disclose details of SeaWorld’s proposal. The company said it is consulting with legal and financial advisors about the offer.
Cedar Fair is one of the largest regional theme park operators in the world, with a market cap of $2.82 billion. For comparison, SeaWorld has a market cap of $4.6 billion.
Cedar Fair’s properties include traditional amusement parks like California Great America, Cedar Point, Carowinds and Kings Dominion, as well as water parks, like Schlitterbahn, and two sports complexes. The company also operates 11 hotels.
Both SeaWorld and Cedar Fair, like others in the amusements industry, were hit hard during the pandemic.
In 2019, Cedar Fair’s stock averaged around $50 apiece, but its share price crumpled to $13 in March 2020, when the entire industry was forced to shutter locations. Shares have since rebounded as parks have reopened and Cedar Fair has reported strong attendance and customer spending.

SeaWorld, which also owns Busch Gardens, made a bid of around $60 per share for Cedar Fair, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Similarly, SeaWorld was averaging $30 to $35 per share in 2019, but saw its share price dip to $8 to $10 during the early days of the pandemic. On Tuesday, the company’s shares were up about 4%, or about $62 per share.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Chicago-based start-up LanzaJet is scaling one potential solution for the airline industry: jet fuel made with low carbon intensity ethanol.
The aviation sector causes 11% of transportation-related emissions in the United States, and virtually all of that comes from jet fuel.
Other solutions for the airline industry, like electric planes and hydrogen-fuel, aren’t going to be able to power airplanes for large distances any time soon.

The LanzaJet Freedom Pines Fuels plant in Soperton, Ga., is expected to begin producing 10 million gallons of SAF and renewable diesel per year from sustainable ethanol in 2023.
Photo courtesy LanzaJet

Jet fuel is a notorious bugaboo in the race to lower emissions.
Chicago-based start-up LanzaJet is trying to address the problem by producing an alternative to petroleum-based conventional jet fuel that has lower carbon emissions and works with existing airline industry infrastructure.

The company, formed in 2020, hasn’t generated any revenue yet, but it’s gotten plenty of funding to get going. It recently received $50 million in funding from Microsoft, adding to previous investments from Shell and a handful of other energy companies and airlines, and the U.S. Department of Energy has invested $14 million in a subsidiary of the company to build LanzaJet’s first plant in Georgia. By 2023, that plant is expected to be producing tens of millions of gallons of sustainable jet and diesel fuels.
Nonmilitary aviation represents 11% of United States transportation-related emissions, according to The White House. And almost all of those emissions come from jet fuel, says Dan Rutherford, the aviation director at the International Council on Clean Transportation. For example, United reported 15.49 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2020, and 15.39 million metric tons of that came from jet fuel.

No new planes or new plane engines required

There are several ways to decarbonize the airline industry, which is generally considered one of the hardest sectors to make clean.
None of them are perfect.
Electric planes are in their early stages of development and production, but current battery technology has range limitations, and the batteries themselves are heavy, which is a problem in air travel.

Hydrogen-powered planes are another possibility, but producing clean hydrogen today is expensive, and it wouldn’t work on existing planes. Engines would have to be modified. Airbus is developing a hydrogen-powered plane, for instance, but it may not be in production until 2035.

More from CNBC Climate:

Compatibility with existing planes is necessary to start cleaning up the airline industry today, as airplanes last for between 20 and 30 years and designing a new aircraft takes about a decade.
Also, aviation is necessarily a global industry. A solution has to work everywhere a plane goes.
“So, the U.S. may make progress in developing and deploying a hydrogen-powered aircraft. Will India also be ready to accept and refuel that aircraft?” said LanzaJet CEO Jimmy Samartzis.
That leaves sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, which is certified to work with existing planes. LanzaJet’s SAF can be blended with regular jet fuel in a 50/50 mix.
“For us, it’s about the urgency of needing to take action today.” Samartzis told CNBC. “SAF is the best solution for the coming years and likely two-plus decades.”

The LanzaJet Freedom Pines Fuels plant in Soperton, Ga.
Photo courtesy LanzaJet

LanzaJet’s technology is able to use any ethanol, which is made from plant material. But not all ethanol is created with the same climate footprint.
In the United States, 94% of ethanol is produced from corn, according to the Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center.
But jet fuel produced from corn ethanol in the U.S. would have emissions similar to regular jet fuel, once you factor in all the carbon dioxide emitted in producing that corn, according to one analysis from the International Council on Clean Transportation. Samartzis points to an analysis from the Environmental Protection Agency estimating that SAF produced from today’s corn ethanol has only 15% lower “carbon intensity” than petroleum jet fuel, but Rutherford says that analysis is “optimistic.” The EPA also charts a pathway through which corn ethanol could be produced with 153% lower carbon intensity than conventional jet fuel, if every clean innovation is implemented, a process that Rutherford calls “speculative” at best.
LanzaJet is committed to using ethanol that was created with minimal carbon emissions.
For the plant in Soperton, Georgia, LanzaJet will use ethanol made from low-carbon-intensity sugarcane; corn crop residues including corn kernel fiber and corn stover; biogas; and waste gas from industrial processes.
The biogas and waste gas processes were pioneered by sister company LanzaTech (one of CNBC’s Disruptor 50 companies). LanzaTech uses a bacteria fermentation process to convert pollution into fuels and chemicals, in a process similar to making beer.

In the future, LanzaJet may consider using ethanol made from corn if it can be made with low carbon intensity, either through carbon capture and sequestration or other methods.
“There’s work to do in the corn ethanol industry to improve the carbon intensity of corn ethanol and to create a better understanding of the actual performance of a lower carbon intensity of corn ethanol than what is reported as a blanket statistic for the industry,” Samartzis told CNBC. “Some corn ethanol producers have done good work in lowering the carbon intensity of their corn ethanol.”
Samartzis came to the start-up from United, where he worked for more than a decade to develop the sustainable aviation industry. The ethos in the space has changed, he says.
At United, around 2008, alternative fuel investigations were catalyzed by sky-high crude oil prices. Now, however, the industry momentum is fueled by efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change.
“I think the pressure to take action is certainly there today. It wasn’t there 13 years ago,” Samartzis said. “That pressure comes from investors, it comes from consumers. And it comes from governments, frankly, who are tightening things up and saying you have to do better.”
In September, the Biden administration said it was taking steps to decarbonize the airline sector by 2050, and SAF will be a key part of that.
“In the future, electric and hydrogen-powered aviation may unlock affordable and convenient local and regional travel,” the Biden administration said. “But for today’s long-distance travel, we need bold partnerships to spur the deployment of billions of gallons of sustainable aviation fuels quickly.”

Racing to market

LanzaTech’s early work has enabled LanzaJet to move quickly, said Samartzis.
“The science is hard, and it takes a long time for companies to develop new technology. In our case, scale-up has taken nearly 10 years,” Samartzis told CNBC.
For Shell, LanzaJet’s technology will help it meet its goal to produce around 2 million tonnes of SAF a year by 2025, a company spokesperson told CNBC. Shell aims to have 10% of its global aviation fuel sales be SAF by 2030. To get there, Shell will sublicense the LanzaJet technology in coming years.
Microsoft’s $50 million investment in LanzaJet is part of its Climate Innovation Fund, through which the software behemoth is investing $1 billion over four years to develop technologies that reduce its own carbon footprint and those of its suppliers and customers.
Microsoft will also get access to renewable diesel made by LanzaJet, which it can use to power backup generators at its data centers.
Jet fuel is certainly the focus of LanzaJet, but it’s possible for LanzaJet to use its same plant to produce renewable diesel, Samartzis says.
The main trick for LanzaJet now is to make its SAF product affordable.
“Sustainable aviation fuel products historically that have been, 3x 4x 5x 6x the price of conventional fossil based jet fuel,” Samartzis said. “We’re trying to build a new industry. And we’re trying to give it momentum. And part of the way that we do that is by saying, our product is not 3x.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More