Raphael Stevens

Monday – Friday, 6:00 – 7:00 PM ET

It’s that time again! “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer rings the lightning round bell, which means he’s giving his answers to callers’ stock questions at rapid speed.

ChargePoint: “ChargePoint is part of a very challenged group. I’ve done a lot of soul searching and, of course, a lot of research on this group. There are too many players, and there has not been enough consolidation, so I’m going to say avoid it.”
Prothena: “I like it. I mean, I think they have a very positive Alzheimer’s formulation and they have other things. I do believe — just so we’re really clear about it and told people — that [Eli Lilly] is the winner because Lilly does not have the bad work that Biogen has, wasn’t looking for big money and has more prestige within the brain community.”

Squarespace: “Design your own website, I don’t know. Wix, Adobe, no. I’m not in this. Direct listing. No support on Wall Street. I say no.”
Vale: “Yes, you should be wary [of the stock’s roughly 17% dividend yield]. Brazilian company, a lot of … environmental problems. I don’t trust it. Someone asked about [Rio Tinto] the other day. I think Rio is a better company.”
Alibaba: “Long term, I want you to go. Short term, it’s obviously bouncing. Everybody can see it. President Xi is doing the smart thing; he’s walked away, letting all these stocks go up. He will hammer you again when they move up, so scale out. That’s what I recommend.”
QuantumScape: “This has detractors. This has big detractors, and I’ve got to tell you, it makes me very worried because I want to see Volkswagen take a bigger stake in them and they haven’t done it. If they did that, then I think it would really get things rolling.”
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Disclosure: Cramer’s charitable trust owns shares of Eli Lilly.

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Monday – Friday, 6:00 – 7:00 PM ET

CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Wednesday he believes ViacomCBS is an attractive investment right now.
The “Mad Money” host cited the company’s dividend payment and improving fundamentals.
“I think it’s the beginning of a move,” despite already jumping nearly 16% so far in 2022, he said.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Wednesday he believes ViacomCBS is an attractive investment right now, citing the media company’s dividend payment and improving fundamentals.
The stock has jumped in recent weeks, and is up nearly 16% year to date, the “Mad Money” host acknowledged. However, he said, “I think it’s the beginning of a move” even higher.

“ViacomCBS is certainly cheap for a reason. This has not been an incredibly well-run company. They also had that Archegos disaster,” Cramer said. “But there are signs that they’ve gotten their act together and I think they’re paying you to wait for the turn with that 2.75% [dividend yield]. That’s why I like the risk-reward here.”
While Cramer presented a host of reasons for his outlook, he said the most important one has to do with the broad investment environment right now. Wall Street no longer wants high-growth, high-multiple stocks now that the Federal Reserve is preparing to raise interest rates, Cramer said.
“Instead we like stocks that are backed by meaningful earnings [and] solid dividends, especially if they’re cheap,” Cramer said, noting that ViacomCBS falls within that category as shares trade at roughly 9 times earnings.
Despite its attractive price, Cramer said he doesn’t believe the stock constitutes a value trap because the company’s underlying business prospects appear to be heading in the right direction.
In the near term, ViacomCBS’s fourth-quarter earnings, which are slated to be released in late February, will likely be buoyed by the fall football slate for both college and the National Football League, Cramer said. Additionally, Cramer said he likes the company’s video streaming strategy with Paramount+ and Pluto, a free, ad-supported online TV service.

Cramer said the company’s Paramount Pictures division also has tailwinds behind it as the coronavirus pandemic progresses and pushed-back film productions are released.
“Viacom is a good value play in a world that suddenly cares about value,” Cramer said.
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“It’s hard to process what’s actually happening right now, which is most people are going to get Covid,” acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said.
She said the U.S. must ensure essential services are not disrupted by the record levels of new infections.

A US Marine veteran is treated by medical workers in a negative pressure room in the Covid-19 ward at the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Boston Healthcare system campus and medical center in West Roxbury, Massachusetts on January 11, 2022.
Joseph Prezioso | AFP | Getty Images

Acting Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock gave U.S. lawmakers an ominous warning this week: The nation needs to ensure police, hospital and transportation services don’t break down as the unprecedented wave of omicron infections across the country forces people to call out sick.
“It’s hard to process what’s actually happening right now, which is most people are going to get Covid,” Woodcock testified before the Senate health committee on Tuesday. “What we need to do is make sure the hospitals can still function, transportation, other essential services are not disrupted while this happens.”

Much like last winter when public officials were trying to contain the spread of Covid, public services and businesses across the U.S. are cutting back and limiting hours, some even temporarily shutting down. This year, however, so many workers are out sick with the virus, it’s disrupting services that public officials are otherwise trying to keep open.

From New York to Los Angeles, emergency services are struggling to staff enough police, nurses, EMTs and firefighters as more and more workers call out with Covid. Public transit systems in New York and Chicago are suspending or have disrupted some services, airlines are cutting back flights, and public officials have been forced to quarantine at home as the highly contagious omicron variant pierces through vaccine protection and sends large swaths of mostly unvaccinated people to the hospital.
The U.S. reported a pandemic record of almost 1.5 million new Covid infections on Monday with an average of about 750,000 new infections every day over the last week, according to CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That compares with a seven-day average of about 252,000 new cases a day a year ago.
Hospitalizations are also higher than last winter’s peak — before the widespread distribution of vaccines — and continue to rise. More than 152,000 people in the U.S. were hospitalized with Covid as of Wednesday, up 18% over the last week, according to data tracked by the Department of Health and Human Services.

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“Many places across the country are getting to the point where even their backup staff are getting sick,” Dr. Gillian Schmitz, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, said in an interview. She said the strain on front-line workers is worse now than at any other point in the pandemic. “Pretty much the whole country right now is feeling this surge of cases that is impacting staffing.”

Hospitals faced a shortage of nurses well before the U.S. first detected a case of the omicron variant in early December. The American Nurses Association in September called on the Biden administration to declare the nursing shortage a national crisis, as the delta variant was surging in many parts of the country at that time.
“The nation’s health care delivery systems are overwhelmed, and nurses are tired and frustrated as this persistent pandemic rages on with no end in sight,” ANA President Ernest Grant said at the time. “Nurses alone cannot solve this longstanding issue and it is not our burden to carry,” Grant said.
The omicron variant now threatens to compound the long-standing staff shortages at hospitals by forcing nurses to call out sick. Although most nurses are fully vaccinated, omicron is able to evade some of the protection provided by the shots, causing more and more breakthrough infections around the country.
An average of more than 1,000 hospitals nationwide are currently reporting daily critical staffing shortages, according to HHS data. However, it’s likely an undercount because many hospitals were not reporting their status as of Wednesday
“The sudden and steep rise in cases due to omicron is resulting in unprecedented daily case counts, sickness, absenteeism and strains on our health-care system,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters at a White House Covid-19 news briefing Wednesday. To help ease potential staffing shortages, the agency last month slashed the isolation time for some health-care workers who get Covid — a controversial move that’s come under fire by nursing groups across the country.
Dr. Gabe Kelen at the Johns Hopkins Hospital said there have been days where several hundred employees have called out sick across the system’s five hospitals in Maryland and Washington, D.C. Kelen said that includes everyone from nurses to facilities staff who clean patient rooms, prepare food and stock rooms.
“You can just see how astoundingly hampered the operations are at a time when institutions like ours need to ramp up staffing,” said Kelen, who chairs the department of emergency medicine at Hopkins and directs its preparedness and response office.
“Given how crushed health-care services are right now, to lose nurses for even a five-day period should they have had a mild infection is just a tremendous, tremendous loss,” Kelen said.
The Biden administration has deployed hundreds of military doctors and nurses to support overwhelmed hospitals and directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide emergency hospital beds and deploy ambulances and EMS crews to transport patients.
Police, fire and transit agencies are also struggling with staffing as omicron forces people to call out sick. In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti said more than 800 police and firefighters were isolating at home due to positive Covid test results as of last Thursday.
“This is an incredibly tough moment. The omicron variant has taken off like wildfire,” Garcetti said during a news conference.
In New York City, 18% of EMS staff and 13% of firefighters are out sick with Covid as of Tuesday, down from 30% for EMS and 18% for firefighters a few days prior, according to the FDNY. The New York City Police Department told CNBC on Tuesday that 12.5% of the force was out sick as of last Friday.
New York’s subway system, the nation’s largest, has also suspended service on some lines due to staff shortages caused by omicron. The Chicago Transit Authority, which operates the nation’s second-largest public transit system, has also told the public there may be service disruptions as workers are calling out sick due to Covid.
The virus is also infecting top city and state officials. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Tuesday she tested positive for Covid and will work from home while she isolates with cold-like symptoms. Lightfoot said she was fully vaccinated and boosted. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice announced early Wednesday that he also tested positive, despite also being fully vaccinated and boosted.
Airlines began canceling flights just before Christmas because omicron infections among staff left them short-handed. United, JetBlue Airways, Alaska Airlines, SkyWest and others have trimmed January schedules as Covid cases surge, leaving them without the pilots and other employees they need.
United’s CEO on Monday told staff that 3,000 workers, about 4% of its U.S. workforce, were positive for Covid.
“Just as an example, in one day alone at Newark [New Jersey], nearly one-third of our workforce called out sick,” Scott Kirby said in a staff note.
White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told the Senate health committee on Tuesday it’s unclear when the omicron wave will peak due to variation in vaccination coverage across the U.S. Fauci said omicron infections may rise in some parts of the country while they peak and fall in others.
“It is a very wily virus,” Fauci told lawmakers at the hearing. “It has fooled everybody all the time — from the time it first came in to delta to now omicron — it’s very unpredictable and we’re doing the best we possibly can.”
 — CNBC’s Leslie Josephs and Nate Rattner contributed to this report

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New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy re-declared a public health emergency Tuesday amid a surge of Covid-19 cases due to omicron.
Murphy said the state is seeing nearly 35,000 new cases a day and in the past two weeks more than 10,000 residents have been hospitalized.
The re-declaration allows him to exercise certain emergency powers, including mask mandates in schools.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy speaks to volunteers as he meets with Newark Mayor Ras Baraka during the gubernatorial election in Newark, New Jersey, November 2, 2021.
Eduardo Munoz | Reuters

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy reinstated a public health emergency Tuesday as hospitals struggle to keep up with an influx of patients as Covid cases soar amid an ongoing shortage of health-care workers.
The latest surge is driven by the rise of the fast-spreading omicron variant, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said accounts for about 95% of sequenced of Covid-19 cases in the U.S. Though vaccines, and particularly booster doses, offer statistical protection against severe disease and death, experts say the sheer volume of cases is overwhelming hospitals.

Murphy said the state is seeing nearly 35,000 new Covid cases daily and in the past two weeks more than 10,000 residents have been hospitalized.
The re-declaration allows the governor to exercise certain emergency powers, including mask mandates in schools.

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Murphy said the renewed emergency declaration “won’t even have any new impact at all” on the day-to-day lives of local residents.
“This is what this does not mean,” he said. “It does not mean any new universal mandates or passports. It does not mean lockdowns. It does not mean any business restrictions or gathering limits.”
Half of the hospital beds at Newark’s University Hospital are filled with patients diagnosed with Covid-19, some of whom were admitted for something else but tested positive afterward, hospital president Dr. Shereef Elnahal said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday.

But Elnahal said the Covid infection itself is not his biggest worry.
“I’m actually more worried about a health-care problem rather than a Covid-19 problem,” Elnahal told CNBC’s Becky Quick. “Right now, we’re seeing our workforce demoralized. There isn’t a light at the end of the tunnel that I can paint now as I did in the spring of 2020.”
He said the industry is losing talented clinicians between the ages of 45 and 60, “often the most energetic and knowledgeable folks in the hospital.” That’s a problem that may actually outlast omicron, “which seems to have already plateaued at least in cases in the New York metro area.”
Elnahal said almost 10% of his hospital’s staff are out with Covid, pushing the hospital closer to a staffing crisis with “uncomfortable” ratios of workers to patients.
Elnahal said he’d like to see the government lay out a “clear definition” of the endgame when it comes to Covid-19.
“What case level will define the endemic case?” What does that mean for rules on the health-care system and what we can do, what we should avoid? How much capacity should we be creating? What is the guidance for health institutions that are going to be dealing with this pandemic but also the aftermath?” are some of the questions he wants answered.
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WATCH: University Hospital CEO on Covid staffing crisis: Our workforce is demoralized

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Omicron patients at Kaiser Permanente Southern California were 74% less likely to end up in ICUs and 91% less likely to die than delta patients, a study found.
No patients with omicron required mechanical ventilation, according to the study.
Hospital stays for patients with omicron also were about three days shorter than those for delta patients.

A healthcare worker administers a Covid-19 test in San Francisco, California, on Monday, Jan. 10, 2022.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Patients at a large health system in Southern California who had the Covid omicron variant were much less likely to need hospitalization, intensive care or die than people infected with the delta strain, a study found this week.
Infectious disease experts found omicron patients at Kaiser Permanente Southern California were 74% less likely to end up in ICUs and 91% less likely to die than delta patients. None of the patients with omicron required mechanical ventilation, according to the study.

What’s more, the risk of hospitalization was 52% lower in omicron patients than delta sufferers, according to the study, which has not been peer reviewed. Researchers are publishing studies before they are reviewed by other experts due to the urgency of the pandemic.
Hospital stays for patients with omicron were also about three days shorter than their delta counterparts. Unvaccinated patients were also less likely to develop severe disease, according to the data.
“Reductions in disease severity associated with omicron variant infections were evident among both vaccinated and unvaccinated patients, and among those with or without documented prior SARS-CoV-2 infection,” the team of researchers found.
Kaiser Permanente Southern California provides care to more than 4.7 million people. The study analyzed more than 52,000 omicron cases and nearly 17,000 delta cases.
The large U.S. study adds to a growing body of data from the United Kingdom and South Africa indicating that the omicron variant, while more contagious, doesn’t make people as sick as the delta variant.

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However, officials at the World Health Organization emphasized that omicron, although generally less severe than delta, still poses a threat to the lives of the unvaccinated, the elderly and people with underlying health conditions.
“We can definitely say that an omicron variant causes, on average, a less severe disease in any human being — but that’s on average,” said Dr. Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies program, during a Q&A livestreamed Tuesday on the WHO’s social media channels.
“There are hundreds of thousands of people around the world in hospital as we speak with the omicron variant, and for them that’s a very severe disease,” Ryan said. He warned that omicron still poses a “massive threat” to the lives and health of the unvaccinated, encouraging them to get vaccine shots so they have protection as the variant rapidly spreads.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead, said a lower proportion of people are dying from omicron, but the variant still presents a serious health risk to the elderly and those with underlying conditions.
“We do know that mortality increases with omicron with increasing age,” Van Kerkhove said Tuesday. “We also have data from some countries that show that people with at least one underlying condition are at an increased risk of hospitalization and death, even if you have omicron as compared to delta.”
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director for the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, said the U.S. is reporting about 1,600 Covid deaths per day on average, a 40% increase over the previous week. However, Walensky told reporters during a White House Covid briefing that those deaths are likely due to the delta variant, because the reporting of new fatalities generally lags new infections.
The U.S. reported a pandemic record of almost 1.5 million new Covid infections on Monday with an average of about 750,000 new daily infections over the last week, according to CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That compares with a seven-day average of about 252,000 new cases a day a year ago.
Hospitalizations are also higher than last winter’s peak — before the widespread distribution of vaccines — and continue to rise. More than 152,000 people in the U.S. were hospitalized with Covid as of Wednesday, up 18% over the last week, according to data tracked by the Department of Health and Human Services.

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