Raphael Stevens

A Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 71% percent of unvaccinated respondents said boosters are a sign that vaccines are not working.
The split in attitudes toward vaccines broadly continues to be a largely partisan one, the survey data shows.
Some 90% of respondents who are Democrats said they have received at least one vaccine dose compared with 58% of Republicans. 

Hundreds are gathered at the Foley Square as “Freedom Rally” to protest vaccination mandate in New York City, United States on September 13, 2021.
Tayfun Coskun | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

The divide in attitudes on Covid-19 vaccines between people who have or haven’t gotten the shots hasn’t changed with the introduction of booster shots.
In fact, vaccinated people say the third dose approved by U.S. regulators last week shows that scientists are trying to make the shots more effective while 71% of unvaccinated Americans say it’s proof the vaccines don’t work, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Nearly 80% of vaccinated respondents see booster shots as a good sign.

“We have seen for sure that the vaccinated and unvaccinated have viewed the pandemic very differently,” said Liz Hamel, the foundation’s director of public opinion and survey research. “It’s not really surprising to me that they view the conversation around booster shots differently.”
Those still yet to receive a shot are among the “strongest holdouts,” Hamel said, adding that the unvaccinated are more likely to believe the severity of the pandemic has been exaggerated, are less worried about getting sick, and have viewed the safety and efficacy of the vaccines differently than those who are vaccinated.

Demonstrators opposed to masking and mandatory vaccination for students gather outside the Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters as board members voted that all children 12 and older in Los Angeles public schools must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by January to enter campus on Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021 in Los Angeles, CA.
Jason Armond | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

Kaiser surveyed 1,519 randomly selected adults from Sept. 13 through Sept. 22, after the Biden administration announced plans to roll out booster doses to all Americans, but before federal health officials recommended boosters for people 65 and older and those at high risk of illness. 
The split in attitudes toward vaccines more broadly continues to be a largely partisan one, the survey data shows, with 90% of respondents who are Democrats saying they have received at least one vaccine dose compared with 58% of Republicans. 

That division by political identity has remained steady at about 30 percentage points since vaccines became widely available in the spring, Hamel said, even as other gaps along lines of race and ethnicity have narrowed. 
The surge in Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths due to the delta variant was the main motivator for a recent rise in vaccinations, the survey found, with the largest increases in vaccination rates between July and September seen among Hispanic adults and those ages 18 to 29. Similar shares of white, Black and Hispanic adults reported being vaccinated, at 71%, 70%, and 73%, respectively, saying they have had at least one shot. Hamel noted that a separate Kaiser analysis of state-reported data published last week found that Black and Hispanic Americans were still less likely than white Americans to have received a vaccine, but that the disparity across groups was narrowing over time.
The political split on vaccines extends to the public’s plans to get a booster shot, as 68% of Democrats said they will “definitely” get one if recommended, nearly twice the share of Republican respondents.
The vast majority of fully vaccinated adults overall said they would “definitely” or “probably” get a booster if it were recommended for them by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration.
The FDA on Wednesday authorized Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid booster shot for people 65 and older along with other vulnerable Americans. On Friday, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky authorized the distribution of boosters for those in high-risk occupational and institutional settings, overruling an advisory panel that had voted against that proposal. She also approved three other recommendations from the group that cleared the way to distribute boosters to people over 65, other vulnerable groups and a wide array of U.S. workers — from hospital employees to grocery store cashiers.
President Joe Biden received a booster shot on Monday since his age at 78 made him eligible for an extra dose under the CDC’s latest guidance. 
“Boosters are important, but the most important thing we need to do is get more people vaccinated,” Biden said before receiving his injection.
About 75% of the eligible population age 12 and older in the U.S. has received at least one vaccine dose, CDC data shows, and nearly 65% is fully vaccinated. Some 2.7 million people have received a booster shot since health officials authorized them for people with weakened immune systems in August.
The pace of daily shots picked up over the summer as the delta variant spread rapidly across the country, with the seven-day average of daily reported doses hitting a high mark of 954,000 on Sept. 3. It has slowed since, and the seven-day average sits at about 632,000 shots per day as of Monday.

Biden issued sweeping new vaccine mandates on Sept. 9 affecting private businesses and federal employees. Government staff and contractors are required to immunize against Covid with no alternative for testing, while any company with over 100 emplyees must implement vaccine mandates that include medical and religious exemptions.
One thing vaccinated and unvaccinated Americans do agree on, the Kaiser survey shows, is that Covid is not going away any time soon.
About 8 in 10 respondents, including large majorities of vaccinated and unvaccinated adults, said they expect that Covid will “continue at a lower level and be something the U.S. will learn to live with and manage with medical treatments and vaccines, like the seasonal flu.” Only 14% said they think Covid will be largely eliminated in the U.S. as polio has been.
“A majority of the public seem resigned to accept the possibility that COVID-19 may never be fully defeated and instead will have to be dealt with as a chronic problem” said Mollyann Brodie, executive director of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s public opinion and survey research program, in a press release.
CNBC’s Berkeley Lovelace Jr. and Robert Towey contributed reporting.

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Oil derrick pumps operate at the Inglewood Oil Field in Culver City, California, on Sunday, July 11, 2021.
Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images

International oil benchmark Brent crude advanced for a sixth straight session on Tuesday, jumping above $80 per barrel for the first time since October 2018 as demand rebounds and supply remains tight.
West Texas Intermediate crude futures, the U.S. oil benchmark, also rose for a sixth straight day, advancing about 1% to a more than two-month high of $76.28 per barrel. Both contracts are coming off five straight weeks of gains, and each is up more than 50% for 2021.

“A persistent supply deficit is leading to an ever tighter oil market, with OECD inventories likely to end the year at the lowest level of demand cover in decades,” analysts at Barclays wrote Tuesday in a note to clients. The firm hiked its 2022 targets for WTI and Brent to $74 and $77 per barrel, respectively.
Brent last traded 0.77% higher at $80.14 per barrel, and Goldman Sachs envisions the contract hitting $90 by the end of the year as demand continues to recover. The firm hiked its target on Sunday to $90 after previously forecasting Brent at $80 by the end of the year.
In April 2020 as the pandemic sapped worldwide demand for petroleum products, briefly sending WTI plunging into negative territory, producers implemented historic output cuts. OPEC and its allies removed nearly 10 million barrels per day from the market, and while the group has slowly opened the taps, the members are still holding back production.
A similar story played out in the U.S. Wells were shut-in and producers have been slow to kick up output. Instead, they’ve focused on shoring up balance sheets, paying down debt and returning money to shareholders.
Demand has since recovered amid the widescale rollout of the vaccine, all while supply remains constrained. This is especially true after years of under-investment in the sector.

Oil is also getting a boost amid the eye-popping rally in natural gas prices, which could prompt utilities to switch from gas to oil.
Natural gas futures jumped more than 9% on Tuesday to $6.26 per million British thermal units, the highest level in at least 7.5 years. The contract is now up more than 40% for September with inventory below historical levels heading into the winter.
“Global natural gas markets are very tight now, with inventories much below normal in both Europe and U.S.,” said Ed Morse, global head of commodities at Citi. “Thus, prices should continue to stay at current elevated levels globally in the upcoming winter, with the potential for further price spikes triggered by much colder-than-normal weather, unless winter weather turns out to be mild.”
The energy sector is by far the best S&P 500 group for September, up more than 10%. The second-best sector is financials, which is up just 1%.
The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund advanced over 1% during premarket trading on Tuesday.

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The average age of vehicles on U.S. roads has been rising for decades as cars grow ever more durable — and expensive.
The average age of a car on U.S. roads rose to 12.1 years in 2021, according to IHS Markit. The average age had been 11.9 years in 2020. In 2002, the average age was 9.6 years.

There was a time when drivers didn’t expect to get more than 100,000 miles out of their cars at the most. These days, however, it is not unheard of for cars to last 200,000 or more.
Car shopping site iSeeCars publishes a list of the longest-lasting cars on the road. Recently, it found that 16% of the Toyota Land Cruisers on the road have at least 200,000 miles on them. Meanwhile, at least 2.5% of several other models — from car makers including Toyota, Honda and General Motors — also have at least 200,000 miles on their odometers.
Industry analysts say there is some concern that rising vehicle prices and improved durability might affect the frequency with which buyers seek new cars in the future. But as vehicle age as grown, so has the overall size of the American fleet.
A very rapid pace of technological change, such as improved performance, rising fuel mileage, electric powertrains and safety features, may be enough to keep consumers returning to dealerships.

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Kind founder Daniel Lubetzky is joining forces with two former executives, Miguel Leal and Rodrigo Zuloaga, to create a Mexican food company Somos.
Somos’ lineup doesn’t include any meat, gluten or genetically modified ingredients, and aims to be more authentic to traditional Mexican cuisine.
The company is fire roasting vegetables for its salsas, stone grinding its corn and slow cooking its beans.

Source: Somos

Kind founder Daniel Lubetzky is joining forces with two former executives from the snack brand to launch a Mexican food company based on the food they ate growing up.
Somos, which means “we are” in Spanish, is accepting wholesale orders from grocery stores and retailers now, with the expectation that its range of rice, beans, salsas, chips and plant-based entrees will reach shelves by January. The company’s e-commerce site starts selling its chips and salsas Tuesday.

Lubetzky joined forces with Kind’s former chief marketing officer, Miguel Leal, and former head of product innovation, Rodrigo Zuloaga, to create Somos. Leal, who serves as the CEO of Somos, previously worked for such food companies as Cholula, Danone, Diamond Foods and PepsiCo’s Frito Lay. All three men were born and raised in Mexico.
Somos’ lineup doesn’t include any meat, gluten or genetically modified ingredients, taking a page from Kind’s playbook. Lubetzky founded the snack company in 2004, touting its bars as healthier than those of the competition. Last year, Snickers maker Mars bought Kind North America in a deal that reportedly valued it at roughly $5 billion. Lubetzky retained a stake in the company and still serves as its executive chairman.
“We’re always surprised at the lack of authenticity in Mexican food,” Leal said. “Most of the food that exists in [consumer packaged goods] is Cal-Mex or Tex-Mex, not the food that we grew up with. We just thought that there was a big opportunity to bring ingredients, techniques, real Mexican food made in Mexico, cooked the Mexican, way into the market.”
Lubetzky said he and Leal used to joke about the differences between the food of their childhood in Mexico and what has defined as Mexican food in the United States.
“Here, in America, in Mexican food, they put this yellow shredded cheese,” he said. “In Mexico, it’s fresh white cheese.”

In Lubetzky’s view, the U.S. restaurant scene is “15, 20 years ahead” of what’s available on the grocery store shelves, which he said are stuck in the 1970s. According to food service research firm CHD Expert, around 65,000 restaurants — or 7% of all U.S. restaurants — are dedicated to Mexican cuisine, as of 2020.   
U.S. consumers started eating Mexican food in earnest during the 19th century as railroads carried tourists to the Southwest, according to Jeffrey Pilcher, professor of food history at the University of Toronto. By the 20th century, Chicago meatpackers had begun making chili and selling it in cans, slowly stripping the food of its Mexican identity and making it a U.S. staple. Restaurateurs like Taco Bell founder Glen Bell later made tacos their focus, paving the way for food brands like Old El Paso to start selling its Tex-Mex food in supermarkets nationwide.
Somos is positioning itself as a brand that doesn’t sell Americanized Mexican food but instead uses traditional cooking techniques to draw in consumers and create better-tasting options. Leal said that the company is fire roasting the vegetables for its salsas, stone grinding its corn and slow cooking its beans. Somos is also nixtamalizing its corn, a process that involves cooking dried corn in an alkaline solution to improve its flavor and increase its nutritional value.

Daniel Lubetzky, Founder and CEO of Kind speaking at CNBC’s iConic Conference in Boston.
David A. Grogan | CNBC

“It’s just different from the different tortilla chips that you see in aisle nine,” said Lubetzky.
Somos’ co-founders also contrast their Mexican heritage to other national food brands that sell taco kits and seasoning, which are typically owned by American conglomerates. General Mills owns Old El Paso, Ortega is part of B&G Foods and ConAgra Foods bought Frontera Foods several years ago. Chi-Chi’s is a joint venture between Hormel Foods and Mexico-based Herdez Del Fuerte. Even Leal’s former employer Cholula is owned by McCormick, which also sells taco seasoning kits.
Of course, most supermarkets across the U.S. now usually also carry smaller or regional brands that are made in Mexico or started by Mexican-Americans. For example, Mexican immigrants founded Cacique in 1973 and have since grown it into the largest fresh cheese maker in the U.S.
The question of authenticity in Mexican food is one that even the large U.S. brands have considered. Pilcher said he had previously been hired by a big food company as a consultant to help them create “more authentic” Mexican food, although he said nothing came of it.
“I think they were trying to decide whether it was worthwhile to market to the immigrant population that was becoming prominent at the time that I was having that conversation,” said Pilcher.
According to Gustavo Arellano, author of “Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America” and a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, the demand for authenticity has helped make Mexican food a multibillion industry.
“As long as there’s been Mexican food in the United States, Americans have been eating it to the point of assimilating it into their own diets and then demanding something more ‘authentic,'” he said.
Now Somos is ready to sell its version of authentic Mexican food to U.S. consumers and take its own bite of the market.
“A lot of people are cooking with these ingredients, but they are looking for authenticity and a story,” said Leal.

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