Raphael Stevens

Summertime in the United States could return to a pre-Covid-19 normal if 75% to 80% of the U.S. population is vaccinated, Dr. Peter Hotez said Friday.”We can vaccinate our way out of this epidemic if all the adults and adolescents get vaccinated by summer. We can have an extraordinary quality of life, with going back to concerts and music venues and ball games and bars and restaurants, and clubs, and all the things we like to do, so that’s what we have to work towards,” Hotez said. Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith,” that vaccine hesitancy, however, will prevent the U.S. from getting 75% to 80% of the population vaccinated. Demand for the Covid-19 vaccine has dropped across states. Louisiana, for example, asked for fewer doses because demand was so low. Polls show that more than 40% of Republicans are not planning to get vaccinated, and Hotez advised that healthcare professionals work to address conservative groups in order to help protect the entire U.S. population.”About 40% to 45% of Republicans saying they may not take the vaccine or won’t take the vaccine, and when you add up the numbers, that’s about 10% of the adult population,” said Hotez. “That’s where we’ve got to work harder, at reaching conservative groups…. that we have to fix.” More

In this articleJNJLicensed vocational nurse Denise Saldana prepares a one shot dose of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine at a clinic targeting immigrant community members on March 25, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.Mario Tama | Getty ImagesU.S. health regulators on Friday lifted a recommended pause on the use of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine, giving state and local officials backing to distribute the doses, which are seen as critical in getting lifesaving shots to hard-to-reach communities.The announcement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration comes after the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, known as ACIP, recommended earlier Friday for the continued use of the J&J vaccine, saying the benefits of the shot outweighed the risk. The committee is an outside panel of experts that advises the CDC.Members of the advisory panel didn’t recommend U.S. regulators restrict the use of the J&J vaccine based on age or gender, but they did propose that the Food and Drug Administration consider adding a warning label for women under the age of 50.In a statement late Friday, the FDA and CDC said they were confident that the vaccine is safe and effective in preventing Covid-19, adding the risk of the blood clots is “very low.””Safety is our top priority,” Acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said in a statement. “This pause was an example of our extensive safety monitoring working as they were designed to work—identifying even these small number of cases.””We’ve lifted the pause based on the FDA and CDC’s review of all available data and in consultation with medical experts and based on recommendations from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices,” Woodcock said. “We have concluded that the known and potential benefits of the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine outweigh its known and potential risks in individuals 18 years of age and older.”During a press conference on the announcement, Woodcock said health-care providers should review revised fact sheets from the FDA about the vaccine, which includes details about rare blood clots. People who have questions about the vaccine should discuss with a health-care provider, she said.J&J’s Covid-19 vaccine, like Pfizer’s and Moderna’s shots, received an emergency use authorization from the FDA to start distributing the doses across the U.S. An EUA grants conditional clearance based on two months of safety data, pending another submission for full approval, which usually requires at least six months of data.On April 13, the FDA and CDC asked states to temporarily halt using J&J’s vaccine “out of an abundance of caution” following reports that six women, ages 18 to 48, developed cerebral venous sinus thrombosis in combination with low blood platelets. CVST occurs when a blood clot forms in the brain’s venous sinuses. It can prevent blood from draining out of the brain and can eventually cause a hemorrhage and other brain damage.Within hours of the warning from U.S. regulators, more than a dozen states, along with some national pharmacies, halted inoculations with J&J’s vaccine. Some locations replaced the J&J shots for scheduled appointments with either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.The U.S. government was expected to lift the recommended pause shortly after the favorable vote from the committee.Prior to Friday’s vote, the committee debated whether to recommend against the use of J&J’s vaccine or endorse it with U.S. regulators enforcing a warning label. The committee also considered limiting the vaccine’s use based on age or other risk factors.During the meeting, CDC official Dr. Tom Shimabukuro said there have been no reports of the condition in those who received the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine. There were three reports of CVST in patients who received the Moderna vaccine, he said, though the patients didn’t have the low level of blood platelets seen in the J&J recipients.Blood platelets help the body form clots to heal wounds. U.S. health officials warned the use of a treatment like blood thinner heparin on those with low blood platelets could make their condition worse.Rare blood clots with low platelets are occurring at a rate of 7 per 1 million vaccinations in women ages 18 to 49 for the J&J shot and 0.9 per 1 million in women age 50 and older, according to a slide presented at the CDC panel meeting. CDC has confirmed 15 cases total of rare blood clot conditions, which includes 12 women who developed blood clots in the brain. Three women died and 7 remained hospitalized, according to the presentation.There are no confirmed cases in men, though officials have said they are reviewing potential additional cases.Dr. Michael Streiff, a hematologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said the condition, in normal circumstances, is very rare. “I can tell you from my experience, treating these patients, I’ve just never seen it,” he told the committee during a presentation Friday.Earlier this week, J&J said it would resume the rollout of its vaccine in Europe after regulators there backed the single-shot vaccine with the recommendation that a warning be added to the label. The European Medicines Agency researched all available evidence, it said, including the reports from the United States. More

Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Friday he believes the United States may struggle to reach “true herd immunity” to Covid, suggesting coronavirus infections will be around in the years ahead.However, the former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration stressed that new cases alone should not be the metric receiving the most focus as more people are vaccinated against Covid.”I don’t think we should be thinking about achieving herd immunity. I don’t know that we ever achieve true herd immunity, where this virus just stops circulating,” Gottlieb said on “Closing Bell.” “I think it’s always going to circulate at a low level. That should be the goal, to keep the level of virus down.”Gottlieb, who serves on the board of Covid vaccine maker Pfizer, said he expects the U.S. to see significant progress toward that goal in the coming weeks.”I think that we are going to get to a point this summer where the circulation of this virus is going to be extremely low. We’re probably going to see cases start to collapse at some point in May, pretty soon. We’re seeing it already in parts of the country,” Gottlieb said.Even so, Gottlieb said, the U.S. could level off somewhere around 5,000 to 10,000 new coronavirus cases per day this summer, partly due to how commonplace Covid testing has become. “We’ll pick up a lot of asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic infection,” he said.”I think the bottom line is that the vulnerability of the American population is being dramatically reduced as a result of vaccination, and that’s really what we need to focus on,” said Gottlieb, who led the FDA from 2017 to 2019 in the Trump administration.”We shouldn’t focus just on cases alone. There will be cases, but we should focus on how many people are being hospitalized and getting sick from this virus, and that’s going to dramatically decline as we roll out the vaccines,” he said.Public health experts have stressed throughout the pandemic that as more people in a population have immunity protection for a particular virus, the less readily it will spread. However, while vaccines have been shown to reduce transmission, Gottlieb is not the first to suggest reaching durable herd immunity for Covid is likely to be challenging.White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci has estimated that 75% to 85% of the population being vaccinated against Covid would create an “umbrella” of immunity. “That would be able to protect even the vulnerables who have not been vaccinated or those in which the vaccine has not been effective,” he told CNBC in December shortly after the FDA granted Pfizer’s vaccine emergency use authorization.Roughly 41% of the U.S. population has now received at least one Covid vaccine dose and 27.5% is fully vaccinated, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 220 million total doses have been administered, CDC data shows.Gottlieb has previously said the U.S. could, in theory, get to a point where Covid is eradicated like other diseases such as polio and smallpox. “It’s possible. We don’t seem to be prepared to do it and take the collective action that it’s going to require,” he told CNBC on April 16.”It will require people exercising some civic virtue to get vaccinated even if they individually feel they’re at low risk of the infection,” he said. “Because even if they’re personally low risk they can still get and transmit the infection, and you can’t eradicate a disease where you have a significant contingent of people who are going to continue to catch it and transmit it.”Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic testing start-up Tempus, health-care tech company Aetion Inc. and biotech company Illumina. He also serves as co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings′ and Royal Caribbean’s “Healthy Sail Panel.” More

In this articleMRNAPFEA health worker administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine to a pregnant woman at Clalit Health Services, in Israel’s Mediterranean coastal city of Tel Aviv on January 23, 2021.Jack Guez | AFP | Getty ImagesThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending Covid-19 shots for pregnant women after preliminary data from the largest study of coronavirus vaccine use among expectant mothers showed that Pfizer’s and Moderna’s jabs were safe for the women as well as their babies.The researchers found no “obvious safety signals” among any of the 35,691 women who were followed in the peer-reviewed study published Wednesday by The New England Journal of Medicine. Data used in the research was self-reported, and the participants’ ages ranged from 16 to 54 years old.”No safety concerns were observed for people vaccinated in the third trimester or safety concerns for their babies,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Friday. “As such, CDC recommends pregnant people receive Covid-19 vaccines.”The researchers used the “v-safe after vaccination health checker” surveillance system, the v-safe pregnancy registry and the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System to characterize the initial safety of mRNA Covid-19 vaccines in pregnant women, according to the study.Pregnant women, versus those who weren’t, reported injection-site pain more frequently, but fewer other side effects such as headache, myalgia, chills and fever, the study found. Of the 827 participants who completed their pregnancy, rates of miscarriage were the same as rates observed before the pandemic.The findings are preliminary and covered just the first 11 weeks of the U.S. vaccine rollout, from Dec. 14 to Feb. 28.Pregnant women are more likely to be hospitalized and run a higher risk of death when infected with Covid-19, making vaccination especially important to this demographic, according to CDC data. Pharmaceutical companies did not include pregnant women in early efficacy and safety studies, but evidence is mounting from recent studies that the vaccines are safe for them.Researchers said “more longitudinal follow-up, including follow-up of large numbers of women vaccinated earlier in pregnancy, is necessary to inform maternal, pregnancy, and infant outcomes.” More

In this articleNUENucor CEO Leon Topalian told CNBC Friday he is expecting the good times to continue rolling the rest of the year after the steelmaker reported record earnings last quarter.”Nucor expects next quarter to be strong, but quite frankly, with all the indicators we look at, we anticipate 2021 staying strong throughout the year,” he said in an interview with Jim Cramer on “Mad Money.”The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company announced Thursday that it turned a profit of $942.4 million, or $3.10 per share, in the first three months of 2021. The company recorded $7 billion in revenue, up 25% from a year ago and up 15% when compared with the same quarter that preceded the Covid-19 pandemic.Strong demand and rising prices were a boon for Nucor’s steel mills segment, the company said. Steel manufacturing accounted for nearly two-thirds of the company’s revenue.The results cap off a nearly $4 billion investment strategy spanning nine projects over multiple years by Nucor, Topalian said.A large part of that investment went toward the construction of a plate mill in Brandenburg, Kentucky. The factory, where Nucor plans to produce steel plate for the wind farm end market, is slated to come online late next year.”That investment is incredibly strategic, not only positioned where it is in the geography, but as we think about what’s happening in the renewables market in offshore wind,” Topalian said.”That mill will be a unique differentiated value supplier to our customers today and well into the future and so we’re focused on the long term, we’re going to continue to invest and we’re going to continue to grow.”Shares of Nucor rose 2.29% to close at $77.83.Questions for Cramer? Call Cramer: 1-800-743-CNBCWant to take a deep dive into Cramer’s world? Hit him up! Mad Money Twitter – Jim Cramer Twitter – Facebook – InstagramQuestions, comments, suggestions for the “Mad Money” website? [email protected] More

In this articleBAAMZNCLXSWKSFMSFTGOOGLTSLACNBC’s Jim Cramer said Friday that investors should be ready to find buying opportunities in the stock market with earnings season in full swing.When companies report quarterly results, market players digest numbers quickly and Wall Street tends to make many mistakes, he said, pointing to trading action in Honeywell and American Express as an example.”There will be reports next week that are met with negativity and not all of them will be genuinely bad, so I’m urging you to take advantage of that weakness,” the “Mad Money” host said.With household brand names like Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks and Amazon set to report, it’s shaping up to be the most brutal stretch of earnings season, he added.”As we head into the next five days of earnings, you need to think about what gets crushed as much as what is working because this market’s creating some unbelievable buying opportunities,” Cramer said.Cramer gave his game plan for the week ahead. Earnings-per-share projections are based on FactSet estimates:Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwardsMonday: TeslaTeslaQ1 2021 earnings release: after market; conference call: 5:30 p.m.Projected EPS: 75 centsProjected revenue: $10.48 billion”These numbers impact more than just Tesla itself. There are dozens of electric vehicle SPACs, smaller stocks that need Tesla to succeed because it gives the whole group legitimacy,” Cramer said. “I like Tesla at these levels. I’m betting the quarter will be a good one.”Tuesday: Alphabet, Microsoft, Starbucks and Advanced MicroAlphabetQ1 2021 earnings release: after market; conference call: 5 p.m.Projected EPS: $15.70Projected revenue: $51.38 billion”We’ve got to focus on Google Cloud. I think it steals the show. I like it very much,” Cramer said.MicrosoftQ3 2021 earnings release: after market; conference call: 5:30 p.m.Projected EPS: $1.78Projected revenue: $41.04 billion”Microsoft’s stock has run so much that it needs to report a monster quarter with huge Azure numbers. The funny thing is, I think they’ll probably do it. I say stay with it,” he said.StarbucksQ2 2021 earnings release: after market; conference call: 5 p.m.Projected EPS: 53 centsProjected revenue: $6.78 billion”The Chinese business should be very strong, but the U.S. is still transitioning to a new world where it’s the only game in town,” the host said. “Starbucks has had a monster run over the past year in anticipation of the great reopening and that call, well, it may be too early. I’m looking for a pullback.”Advanced Micro DevicesQ1 2021 earnings release: after market; conference call: 5 p.m.Projected EPS: 44 centsProjected revenue: $3.18 billion”I’m betting that Lisa Su, the implacable CEO, will tell a terrific story. And unlike so many other semiconductor names, her stock’s actually down 10% for the year, meaning it could be ready to rock,” he said.Wednesday: Boeing, Apple, Ford Motor and FacebookBoeingQ1 2021 earnings release: before market; Conference call: 10:30 a.m.Projected losses per share: 96 centsProjected revenue: $15.41 billion”If you’re like me and you think we could be headed for an unprecedented economic boom, including the biggest travel onslaught in the history of this nation, then you want to own the company that’s most levered to it, and that’s Boeing,” Cramer said.AppleQ2 2021 earnings release: 4:30 p.m.; conference call: 5 p.m.Projected EPS: 98 centsProjected revenue: $76.71 billion”Apple’s stock has been a laggard, until recently. It’s caught fire as we heard chatter about better cellphone sales and a major potential inroad into the enterprise,” he said.Ford MotorQ1 2021 earnings release: 4:05 p.m.; conference call: 5 p.m.Projected EPS: 21 centsProjected revenue: $36.13 billion”I anticipate excellent numbers despite the chip shortage,” the host said. “Ford is worth buying.”FacebookQ1 2021 earnings release: after market; conference call: 5 p.m.Projected EPS: $2.34Projected revenue: $23.72 billion”Judging what we heard from Snap last night … I think you’ve got to believe that Facebook is going to knock it out of the park,” he said. “Once again, it is not too late to be a buyer of Facebook as I think it goes to all-time highs.”Thursday: Amazon, SkyworksAmazonQ1 2021 earnings release: after market; conference call: 5:30 p.m.Projected EPS: $9.49Projected revenue: $104.49 billion”The stock’s been treading water for months precisely because people are worried about the year-over-year comparisons,” Cramer said. “I think the company has gained new adherents … I think the stock still works.”SkyworksQ2 2021 earnings release: after market; conference call: 4:30 p.m.Projected EPS: $2.35Projected revenue: $1.15 billion”I predict a true blowout,” he said.Friday: Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Clorox, ColgateExxon MobilQ1 2021 earnings release: 6:30 a.m.; conference call: 9:30 a.m.Projected EPS: 60 centsProjected revenue: $56.38 billionChevronQ1 2021 earnings release: before market; conference call: 11 a.m.Projected EPS: 89 centsProjected revenue: $32.54 billion”When I listen to the oil people talk, I get the kind of positive vibe that I haven’t heard in ages. With prices up and costs down, I think these two companies could surprise to the upside,” Cramer said.CloroxQ3 2021 earnings release: before market; conference call: 1:30 p.m.Projected EPS: $1.47Projected revenue: $1.86 billionColgateQ1 2021 earnings release: before market; conference call: 8:30 a.m.Projected EPS: 79 centsProjected revenue: $4.27 billion”Wall Street’s circumspect about both of these,” he said. “I can’t say that their stocks will behave well when they report … At best, these are battlefield stocks and there’s no reason to go near a battlefield, not in this market.”Disclosure: Cramer’s charitable trust owns shares of Amazon, Ford, Boeing, Facebook, Alphabet, Honeywell, Microsoft and Starbucks.DisclaimerQuestions for Cramer? Call Cramer: 1-800-743-CNBCWant to take a deep dive into Cramer’s world? Hit him up! Mad Money Twitter – Jim Cramer Twitter – Facebook – InstagramQuestions, comments, suggestions for the “Mad Money” website? [email protected] More

In this articleJNJA Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel on Friday recommended the U.S. resume using the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, saying the benefits outweigh the risks.Members of the panel didn’t recommend U.S. regulators restrict the use of the vaccine based on age or gender, but they did propose that the FDA consider adding a warning label for women under age 50.The recommendation, which was adopted 10-4 with one abstention, by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, will pave the way for U.S. regulators to lift their recommended pause on using the J&J shot as early as this weekend.The single shot is a critical tool in getting lifesaving vaccines to hard-to-reach places that may not have reliable refrigeration, such as tribal lands, poorer neighborhoods and rural communities, as well as to people who may not be able to come back for a second dose, U.S. health officials say.The committee, an outside panel of experts that advises the CDC, decided to postpone a decision on the vaccine last week while officials continued to investigate cases of six women, ages 18 to 48, who developed cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, or CVST, in combination with low blood platelets within about two weeks of receiving the shot.The Food and Drug Administration and CDC on April 13 asked states to temporarily halt using J&J’s vaccine “out of an abundance of caution” following reports of the rare blood clots. Within hours of the warning, more than a dozen states as well as some national pharmacies halted inoculations with J&J’s vaccine, some replacing scheduled appointments with either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.Prior to Friday’s vote, the committee debated whether to recommend against the use of J&J’s vaccine or endorse it with U.S. regulators enforcing a warning label. The committee also considered limiting the vaccine’s use based on age or other risk factors.CVST occurs when a blood clot forms in the brain’s venous sinuses. It can prevent blood from draining out of the brain and can eventually cause a hemorrhage and other brain damage. The blood clots are similar to those reported in some individuals who received AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine.During Friday’s meeting, Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, a CDC official, said there have been no reports of the condition in those who received the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine. There were three reports of CVST in patients who received the Moderna vaccine, he said, though the patients didn’t have the low level of blood platelets seen in the J&J recipients.Blood platelets help the body form clots to heal wounds. U.S. health officials warned the use of a treatment like blood thinner heparin on those with low blood platelets could make their condition worse.Rare blood clots with low platelets are occurring with the J&J shot at a rate of 7 per 1 million vaccinations in women ages 18 to 49 and 0.9 per 1 million in women ages 50 and older, according to a slide presented at the CDC panel meeting. CDC has confirmed 15 cases total of rare blood clot conditions, which includes 12 women who developed blood clots in the brain. Three women have died and 7 remain hospitalized, according to the slides.There are no confirmed cases in men, though officials have said they are reviewing potential additional cases.Dr. Michael Streiff, a hematologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said the condition, in normal circumstances, is very rare. “I can tell you from my experience, treating these patients, I’ve just never seen it,” he told the committee during a presentation Friday.A CDC model presented at the meeting showed not resuming the use of J&J’s vaccine would delay immunizing all adults intending to get the shots by 14 days.J&J executives told the committee the benefits of its vaccine still outweighed its risks, adding that the shots would prevent deaths and hospitalizations. They suggested a new warning label for the vaccine that explains the risk of blood clots.”We could expect that if 1 million people in the United States were vaccinated with the J&J single-dose vaccine, there would be over 2,000 fewer deaths and 6,000 fewer Covid-related hospitalizations,” said Dr. Joanne Waldstreicher, J&J’s chief medical officer.Earlier this week, J&J said it would resume the rollout of its vaccine in Europe after regulators there backed the single-shot vaccine with the recommendation that a warning be added to the label. The European Medicines Agency researched all available evidence, it said, including the reports from the United States.Last week, U.S. health officials said they expected the pause on the use of the vaccine to last only a matter of days, depending on what they learn in their investigation of the cases.Before the CDC meeting, Dr. Wilbur Chen, a member of the committee, told CNBC that he saw “a huge amount of evidence” that the benefits of the J&J vaccine still outweigh its risks.”I think that there is a willingness for us to use this vaccine. We did need to make an important pause to be able to look at this safety information to be able to consider the risks. But certainly, I think there’s a huge amount of evidence that the benefit greatly outweighs this risk,” Chen, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, told “Worldwide Exchange.” This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. More