Raphael Stevens

Maldives will soon offer visitors vaccinations on arrival as part of its three-pronged initiative aimed at reviving the country’s hard hit travel sector, according to its tourism minister.The “3V” strategy, which encourages tourists to “visit, vaccinate, and vacation,” will provide a “more convenient” way to visit the country, Abdulla Mausoom told CNBC on Wednesday.At present, visitors to Maldives must provide a negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test and proof of hotel booking to gain entry. Mausoom said the country’s Health Protection Agency is set to make an announcement on restriction-free entry to vaccinated arrivals “very soon — maybe even this week.”Maldives, an archipelago state in South Asia renowned for its tropical beaches and pristine waters, is heavily dependent on its tourism industry. Around 67% of its gross domestic product (GDP) is derived directly and indirectly from the sector.The tourism minister would not be pushed on a timeline for the visitor vaccination rollout. He noted that the government’s priority is to ensure the entire resident population receives their first and second shots first.However, once that process is complete, the country will be ready to vaccinate arrivals, he said.I don’t think supply’s a problem in Maldives because our population is relatively small.Abdulla Mausoomtourism minister, MaldivesTo date, around 53% of the island nation’s approximately 530,000 residents have received their first dose, according to Reuters’ vaccination tracker. Some 90% of front-line tourism staff have received their first dose, said Mausoom.Mausoom did not state whether arrivals would be expected to pay for their shots, but he said that supply would not be an issue.He said the country has received vaccine donations from India, China, and the World Health Organization’s Covax scheme, which aims to ensure that vaccines are fairly and equitably distributed. Maldives has also ordered additional supplies from Singapore, he said.”I don’t think supply’s a problem in Maldives because our population is relatively small,” said Mausoom. “The quota we get from the various organizations and friendly nations also will help.”White sands and clear waters in the Maldives.picture alliance | Getty ImagesMausoom said the tourism drive was a necessary strategy to help the country reach its target of 1.5 million tourist arrivals and 10 million bed nights this year.”When we reach this year’s target, still we will have a shortfall of what the country needs,” he said. “But still, that is much better than we anticipated in late 2020.”Workation — working from Maldives is now becoming very trendy. You see very rich executives, company executives, come here and they are based here.Abdulla Mausoomtourism minister, MaldivesAlready this year, Maldives has received 350,000 arrivals, as holidaymakers — primarily from nearby India — take advantage of the country’s limited entry requirements.Meantime, guests are booking longer stays, with many using the islands as a destination for so-called “workations” — or a working vacation. Mausoom said he is hopeful that will continue, with tourists staying to receive both their first and second doses.”Workation — working from Maldives is now becoming very trendy,” he said. “You see very rich executives, company executives, come here and they are based here.” More

People hold hands on Fifth Avenue amid the coronavirus pandemic on April 10, 2021 in New York City.Noam Galai | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty ImagesAs Covid vaccines roll out across the world, many are looking forward to reaching “herd immunity” — when the disease no longer transmits rapidly because most of the population is immune due to vaccinations or after being infected.It’s seen as a pathway to normality, and something doctors and political leaders often discuss when talking about defeating Covid-19.While there have been doubts about whether herd immunity is possible, medical experts who spoke to CNBC say it can be achieved. However, they point to a tough road ahead as sustaining a high level of immunity will be a challenge.”I think that every part of the world will reach herd immunity sooner or later,” said Benjamin Cowling, head of the division of epidemiology and biostatistics at the School of Public Health in the University of Hong Kong. Different communities may get there by vaccinations, infections or a combination of both, he added.Not everyone agrees.An article last month in scientific journal Nature outlined five reasons why reaching herd immunity may not be possible. The report said barriers to herd immunity include: new variants, waning immunity and questions over whether vaccines actually prevent transmission.Shweta Bansal, a mathematical biologist, told the publication: “Herd immunity is only relevant if we have a transmission-blocking vaccine. If we don’t, then the only way to get herd immunity in the population is to give everyone the vaccine.”Herd immunity: ‘Complicated’ but possibleHealth experts who talked to CNBC acknowledged that the factors raised in the Nature article could hinder progress toward herd immunity — but they said they believe it is still within reach.”We’re not trying to eradicate it, we’re trying to stop out-of-control community transmission. In that sense, we can achieve (herd immunity),” said Dale Fisher, professor of infectious diseases at the National University of Singapore’s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, has said that 75% to 85% of people need to be inoculated to create an “umbrella” of immunity that prevents the virus from spreading. Fisher estimates that the figure is around 70%.”Getting to … 70% is possible, but there’s lot of threats to it,” he said, explaining that the percentage of a population that’s immune to Covid-19 would drop if immunity wears off, render the vaccines less effective.”Herd immunity is something very nice and conceptual to aim for, but it’s more complicated than that,” he said during a call. “If you want to call a magic number of about 70%, then all I’m saying is that’s very difficult to attain and maintain.”Herd immunity may not be permanent, it may be something that’s relatively short term.Benjamin CowlingSchool of Public Health at the University of Hong KongCowling agreed there’s “no guarantee” that the level of immunity would remain high in the long term. “Herd immunity may not be permanent, it may be something that’s relatively short term,” he said.Still, it’s something the world can work toward, he added, highlighting that booster shots can help if there’s a loss of protection.Returning to ‘normal’It could take three to five years before the world gets back to a “totally normal state,” said Carlos del Rio, a professor of medicine at Emory University School of Medicine.”There’s a lot of transmissions still occurring globally, and I think it’s going to take some time before that changes,” he told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Monday.The World Health Organization warned this week that the pandemic is “growing exponentially” and more than 4.4 million new Covid-19 cases were reported over the previous week.The agency’s technical lead for Covid-19, Maria Van Kerkhove, said the world had reached a “critical point of the pandemic.””Vaccines and vaccinations are coming online, but they aren’t here yet in every part of the world,” she added.Fisher said the world is still “very vulnerable to huge outbreaks” — but cases could be sporadic in five or 10 years. In the meantime, there will be a period of transition.”Herd immunity is not a binary phenomenon,” he said. “Most people think you either have it, or you don’t have it — but there’s obviously gray in between.”Cowling said he thinks the greatest risk of Covid will be the next 12 months, but the threat will diminish after that as vaccines are rolled out.”What I would expect in the coming years is that the virus will still circulate, it will be endemic, but it won’t pose a major public health threat anymore,” he said.— CNBC’s Berkeley Lovelace contributed to this report. More

Dr. Atul Gawande said he “thinks there is something distinct going on here” when it comes to blood clotting and Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine.”We have an unusual kind of blood clotting syndrome, very specific to these vaccines, in the younger age group women, and it’s not like the other kinds of cases that these rare incidents occur. So I think there probably is, for adenovirus vaccines, some risk of this rare condition that’s elevated in a particular age group,” said Gawande.Experts on a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel decided to postpone a decision on the use of J&J’s single-dose Covid vaccine on Wednesday. They determined that they needed more time to assess the data and risks. The meeting comes one day after federal health agencies advised that the U.S. should temporarily pause the use of J&J’s single-dose vaccine out of “an abundance of caution” after six women out of the roughly 6.9 million people who received the shot reported getting severe blood clots.  By postponing the vote, the pause will remain in effect for now. Gawande, a surgeon and professor at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said he believes the pause on the J&J vaccine for younger populations makes sense, while he also thinks that it could be lifted for older age groups.  “I think there is enough information to know that for people over 50 this is safe, and I think they could have potentially lifted the pause for the older age group,” said Gawande on CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith.” “I think that that is where this may land, like you saw for AstraZeneca in Europe.” More than 7.2 million J&J doses have been administered nationwide, and the vaccine is responsible for 9.5% of the roughly 75 million Americans who are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.Gawande noted that the supply of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines can be used to stem the surge of cases in states across the U.S. He told host Shepard Smith that he’s been advocating to push the second dose of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines “out two, four, six weeks” in order to double the number of people currently being vaccinated. More

In this articleCOINCNBC’s Jim Cramer said Wednesday that he’s growing worried as the dearth of sellers in bitcoin and other crypto assets has reached a “messianic” moment.”Right now there are so many cult-assets — Coinbase, cryptocurrencies, meme stocks, non-fungible-tokens — that the true believers absolutely refuse to sell,” the “Mad Money” host said. “They’re dumping everything else they own instead and that’s putting real pressure on the rest of the market, and that is not a good sign.”The comments come after Wall Street welcomed the direct listing of Coinbase, the cryptocurrency exchange that jumped more than 30% in its market debut.Cramer, who is bullish on Coinbase, endorsed the company as the best play for mutual funds seeking exposure to digital currency.However, messianic trading, which came to light through the Wall Street Bets crowd’s backing of stocks like GameStop, is also bleeding into the crypto space, he said.”There’s a cohort in this market that seems to believe it’s a sin to … sell anything at all because owning stocks [or cryptocurrency] is a cause and selling means you’re betraying that cause,” Cramer said. “It’s starting to make me wonder if some of these followers are on a mental quarantine, especially in their ability to ignore any sign that maybe enough is enough.”The comments come after a mixed day of trading on Wall Street.The Dow Jones added about 53 points, or 0.15%, to close at 33,730.89. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both slid less than 1%.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

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel on Wednesday decided to postpone a decision on Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine while it investigates cases of six women developing a rare but potentially life-threatening blood-clotting disorder that left one dead and one in critical condition.The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met a day after the Food and Drug Administration asked states to temporarily halt using J&J’s vaccine “out of an abundance of caution.” The panel voted unanimously to reconvene in a week, when it will decide what it will recommend to the CDC on J&J’s vaccine.The postponement means the pause on J&J’s vaccine will remain in effect.The committee debated whether to and how long they wanted to continue the pause on J&J’s vaccine while the CDC investigates the cause of the blood clotting. One committee member recommended a monthlong hold on restarting immunizations, while other members recommended a few weeks. Some members asked whether they could hold off on voting until they had more time to digest the data.One of the options the panel considered was whether to recommend limiting the vaccine’s use based on age or other risk factors.CNBC Health & Science Read CNBC’s latest coverage of the Covid pandemic:CDC panel postpones decision on J&J vaccine while it investigates rare, but serious, blood-clot issue  Open middle seats could reduce Covid exposure of maskless air travelers, CDC study showsEU medicines regulator says benefits of J&J vaccine outweigh risks as it reviews rare blood clotsWhite House says U.S. is working to accelerate doses of Pfizer, Moderna Covid vaccinesDr. Grace Lee, a member of the committee, said she worried a vote to pause the use of the vaccine indefinitely would send the wrong message to the public. She and others added it could make it appear that something is fundamentally wrong with the vaccine.”That is not the decision I think makes the most sense,” she said.Sandra Fryhofer of the American Medical Association was in favor of a pause. She said there is enough supply of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines to continue rapid vaccinations across the U.S.”I know there are many patients that have not been able to get vaccinated that need to get vaccinated, but we want to make sure these vaccines are safe,” she said.Dr. Nirav Shah, the director for the CDC in Maine, said the committee’s vote to postpone a decision on the use of the vaccine is “tantamount to making a decision.””Any extension of the pause will invariably result in the fact that the most vulnerable individuals in the United States who were prime candidates for the J&J vaccine will remain vulnerable. The most at risk will remain at risk.”The CDC and FDA advised states to reschedule J&J vaccine appointments after six women developed cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, or CVST, within about two weeks of receiving the shot, U.S. health officials told reporters on Tuesday. CVST is a rare form of a stroke that happens when a blood clot forms in the brain’s venous sinuses. It can eventually leak blood into the brain tissues and cause a hemorrhage.”CVST is rare but clinically serious and can result in substantial morbidity and mortality,” Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, a CDC official, told the committee. He said the CVST cases appeared to be three times greater in the J&J vaccine group than among women ages 20 to 50 years old with similar backgrounds.Within hours of the FDA’s warning early Tuesday, 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.U.S. health officials had said the pause on the use of the vaccine might last only a matter of days, depending on what they learn in their investigation of the cases. White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday the pause on the use of the vaccine would give U.S. health regulators the time they need to thoroughly investigate the cases and “find some common denominators among the women who were involved.”A 25-year-old man developed CVST along with a hemorrhage during the clinical trial; he was hospitalized but recovered. All of the six cases that occurred after the clinical trial were found in white women, Shimabukuro said, noting that the median time to symptom onset was eight days. Three were described as obese, one had hyperthyroidism, one had asthma and one had hypertension, he said.Five of the six patients initially developed headaches and one had back pain and bruising before more serious other symptoms set in, he said. One of the women has died. Three of the patients remain hospitalized, while two have been discharged, he said.”These are significant blood clots that are causing these problems,” he said.Dr. Aaran Maree, chief medical officer for J&J’s vaccine division, Janssen Pharmaceutical Cos., told the committee that none of the women were on birth control, which was theorized as a possible link to the blood clotting. They also all tested negative for Covid-19.One of the two patients who recovered was a 26-year-old woman who was described as “overweight but active,” wasn’t on any medication and had no history of clotting disorder.She was admitted to the hospital with a severe headache a week after receiving the J&J vaccine and was discharged but returned to the hospital a week later with abdominal pain and a rapid heart rate, he said. Tests revealed she developed thrombocytopenia, or a low level of platelets in the blood, and CVST.One 48-year-old woman with an “unremarkable past medical history” was admitted to the hospital after three days of malaise and abdominal pain. She developed severe thrombocytopenia and CVST that progressed with hemorrhagic stroke despite treatment with the blood thinner heparin. She received the J&J vaccine two weeks prior to symptom onset and remains critically ill, according to the last report. More