Raphael Stevens

An Israeli health worker of the Maccabi Healthcare Services prepares to administer a dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine on February 24, 2021 in Tel Aviv.Jack Guez | AFP | Getty ImagesThe coronavirus variant first discovered in South Africa is able to evade some of the protection of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to a new Israeli study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed.Researchers at Tel Aviv University and Clalit, the largest health-care organization in Israel, examined nearly 400 people who had tested positive for Covid-19 after receiving at least one dose of the vaccine. They compared them to the same number of people who were infected and unvaccinated.The researchers found the prevalence of the variant from South Africa, known as B.1.351, among patients who received two doses of the vaccine was about eight times higher than those who were unvaccinated. The data, published online over the weekend, suggest the B.1.351 is better able to “break through” the protection of the vaccine than the original strain, the researchers wrote in the study.”Based on patterns in the general population, we would have expected just one case of the South African variant, but we saw eight,” Professor Adi Stern, who headed the research, told The Times of Israel. “We can say it’s less effective, but more research is needed to establish exactly how much.”CNBC has reached out to Pfizer for comment on the study. The new data comes as public health officials grow concerned that highly contagious variants, which studies have shown can reduce the effectiveness of vaccines, could stall the world’s progress on the pandemic.Last month, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky issued a dire warning, telling reporters that she worried the United States is facing “impending doom” as variants spread and daily Covid-19 cases begin to rebound once again, threatening to send more people to the hospital.”I’m going to pause here, I’m going to lose the script, and I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom,” she said March 29. “We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope, but right now I’m scared.”Israel launched its national vaccination campaign in December prioritizing people 60 and older, health-care workers, and people with comorbid conditions. By February, it was leading the world in vaccinations, inoculating millions of its citizens against the virus.In January, Pfizer and the Israeli Ministry of Health entered into a collaboration agreement to monitor the real-world impact of its vaccine.The researchers noted the main caveat of the study was the same sample size. B.1.351 only made up about 1% of all Covid-19 cases, they said. B.1.1.7, the variant first identified in the U.K., is more prevalent.As variants spread, drugmakers said they are testing whether a third dose would offer more protection.In February, Pfizer and BioNTech said they were testing a third dose of their Covid-19 vaccine to better understand the immune response against new variants of the virus. More

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifies before the Senate Banking Committee hearing on “The Quarterly CARES Act Report to Congress” on Capitol Hill in Washington, December 1, 2020.Susan Walsh | Pool | ReutersThe U.S. economy is at a turning point thanks to government support and a speedy campaign to inoculate Americans against Covid-19, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in a new interview.”What we’re seeing now is really an economy that seems to be at an inflection point,” Powell told Scott Pelley during an interview that will air Sunday evening on CBS News’ “60 Minutes.” CBS released a portion of the interview earlier Sunday.”We feel like we’re at a place where the economy’s about to start growing much more quickly and job creation coming in much more quickly,” Powell said. “So the principal risk to our economy right now really is that the disease would spread again. It’s going to be smart if people can continue to socially distance and wear masks.”Powell’s comments come as U.S. stock indices are at record levels thanks in part to optimism about the reopening of the economy. Investors will be watching closely next week as earnings season kicks off and company leaders issue forecasts for the coming year.The nationwide vaccination drive has been speeding up in recent weeks, with nearly every state making all adults over 16 years old eligible for shots.About 183 million doses of vaccine have been administered in the U.S., according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Nearly half the country’s adult population, and almost 80% of those 65 and older, have received at least one dose, CDC data shows.Powell, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, has been one of the key figures in the federal government overseeing the nation’s response to the financial distress caused by the pandemic.The Federal Reserve slashed its benchmark rate to near zero in March of 2020 and deployed massive emergency lending programs. Powell has said the Fed is unlikely to raise rates until the economy is essentially fully healed, even if inflation rises moderately above its 2% target.Powell has also been supportive of aggressive federal spending programs implemented under both Trump and President Joe Biden to stem the worst impacts of the public health crisis.The full interview with Powell will air on Sunday at 7 p.m. ET.Subscribe to CNBC Pro for the TV livestream, deep insights and analysis  on how to invest during the next presidential term. More

In this articleMCDGISKRLEVITGTWMTBBYSHAKCMGURBNANFShoppers wearing protective masks exit from a Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) store in the Herald Square area of New York, U.S., on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2020.Nina Westervelt | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesAs more people receive the Covid-19 vaccine, corporate leaders and investors are asking themselves a new question: What will consumer spending look like next?About a third of the U.S. population has gotten at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. Airport and store traffic is picking up. And some economists are predicting a major boom that could last for years.Even so, the global health crisis will continue to shape consumers’ mindset and their purchases.Here are four predictions of post-pandemic trends, based on surveys and reports by experts:Consumers are still anxious — and that may influence what they buy and how they shop.Even after getting a jab, Americans’ worries about health and safety will likely linger. The U.S. has the highest level of consumers who are “most anxious” about their health and finances and China has the lowest levels, according to a survey and analysis in January of more than 7,000 consumers across nine countries by consulting firm AlixPartners.In the U.S., nearly one out of every three consumers reported being extremely or very concerned about physical health, and roughly one in four said they were extremely or very concerned about mental health, according to the report published in early April.For retailers, those concerns may heighten the importance of keeping up safety protocols like having more rigorous cleaning.Target said it will factor safety into its future store design. Chief Operating Officer John Mulligan said at an investor day in March that the retailer will include more contactless features in restrooms and other places and add more room for people to space out between merchandise and checkout lanes.Grocery shopping may be among the pandemic’s stickiest habit changes.Home offices, curbside pickup and lots of cooking practice — all will factor into people’s food shopping habits in the future.Restaurant dining and travel will be slowest to spring back, according to AlixPartner’s survey. Among U.S. consumers who reported permanently changed habits, 30% said they plan to spend more on grocery and 44% said they will spend less on dining out post-vaccine compared with what they spent in those areas before the pandemic.General Mills CEO Jeff Harmening said many Americans used to eat at restaurants on business trips or dine in the work cafeteria. That dynamic of frequent jet-setting, frenzied commutes and lunches across the table from coworkers has faded away.”People want flexible schedules,” he told investors last week on an earnings call. “While consumers may be making vacation plans now more than they have, businesspeople are not going to be traveling as much because technology has caught up and we realize we can do a lot of things remotely.”The way people stock their pantry looks different, too. Before the health crisis, about 7% of grocery shopping was done online, according to a report by Mastercard Economics Institute. That share is expected to rise to about 9% of grocery sales in the future. If that plays out, the grocery industry will have retained 70% to 80% of the digital gains that it saw during the peak of the pandemic.Grocers and discount stores, such as wholesale clubs and dollar stores, are predicted to show the most dramatic and permanent e-commerce gains coming out of the pandemic, according to a report by Mastercard Economics Institute.Customers are warming up to the approach, even though there can be a trust barrier, Mastercard’s chief economist Bricklin Dwyer said in a Tuesday interview on CNBC’s “Worldwide Exchange.””You have to trust someone else to pick your peaches,” he said. “You have to have trust for someone else to deliver your goods and still have them good when they arrive. So that really is some of those barriers that we’re crossing.”Teens and twenty-somethings may be the first wave of eager shoppers.Young consumers want to go out again — and they’re starting to spend and dress accordingly.Similar to after the Great Recession, teen girls are leading the way as they open up their wallets after the most recent, pandemic-related recession, according to a survey of teens and twenty-somethings by Piper Sandler’s 41st biannual “Taking Stock with Teens.” Nearly 30% of upper-income female teens’ wallets are going toward clothing — a high not seen since 2013, according to the report. Handbag spending rose to $93 per teen, an increase of 4% year over year.Levi Strauss & Co. CEO Chip Bergh told CNBC Thursday the pandemic has inspired fashion that young customers are embracing, too. Instead of squeezing into skinny jeans, he said they want wide-leg and baggier denim.”This is not the first time we’ve seen this resonating with consumers,” Bergh said. “Cycles do come and go. And I think the pandemic definitely played a contributing role to consumers looking for a more comfortable, more relaxing denim.”Nearly half of the young shoppers surveyed by Piper Sandler said they intend to fly on a plane over the next six months, up from 33% in the fall.Among the generations, Gen Z is also the most enthusiastic about spending time with people outside of their households once they get vaccinated, according to a survey of more than 15,000 people across nine countries by the IBM Institute for Business Value. Nearly 30% of Gen Z respondents said they plan to interact with other people more than they did before the pandemic, compared with Gen X and those over 55 who plan to return to pre-pandemic levels of interaction.Contactless modes of shopping and dining will remain popular, even as the virus fades.Shoppers may have opted for drive-thrus and curbside pickup because of safety over the past year. Yet they have discovered the convenience of the approach and that will keep them coming back as they juggle fuller calendars, commutes and carpools of kids again.Retailers have bumped up their investments to adapt their businesses for e-commerce. Best Buy is testing stores where it devotes more square footage to fulfilling online orders than showing off flat screen TVs and smartphones. Walmart and Kroger have both announced plans to invest in automation to keep up with the volume of online grocery orders. Walmart is adding high-tech automated systems to dozens of its stores and Kroger plans to open at least 11 giant facilities with Ocado. The first two of Kroger’s sheds will open in the next few weeks.”As society has leapt into a new digital era, so has Kroger,” CEO Rodney McMullen said at an investor day last week. He said the company will double its digital sales by the end of 2023.Restaurant chains have taken the cue, too. McDonald’s is closing hundreds of restaurants inside of Walmart stores and chains like Sweetgreen and Shake Shack have announced plans to add drive-thru lanes, as diners opt to order from inside of their cars. Chipotle Mexican Grill said it’s accelerating plans to add more “Chipotlanes” to its footprint, too.Even as its dining rooms open up again, Chipotle Chief Financial Officer Jack Hartung said online sales have stayed strong.”The pandemic, of course, really put some turbocharge behind our digital business, but as we’re starting to see Covid moved behind us — and we still have a ways to go — we’re keeping most of that digital business, about 80%,” Hartung said in an interview on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Friday. More

The International Monetary Fund has revised its growth forecast upward for the Middle East and North Africa region, as countries recover from the coronavirus crisis that began in 2020.Real GDP in the MENA region is now expected to grow 4% in 2021, up from the fund’s October projection of 3.2%.However, the outlook will vary significantly across countries depending on factors such as vaccine rollouts, exposure to tourism and policies introduced, the IMF said in its latest regional economic report published on Sunday.(The) vaccine is an important variable this year, and the acceleration of vaccination could contribute to almost one additional percent of GDP in 2022.Jihad AzourIMF Middle East and Central Asia DirectorJihad Azour, director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia department, said the recovery would be “divergent between countries and uneven between different parts of the population.”He told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble that the growth would be driven mainly by oil-exporting countries that will benefit from the acceleration of vaccination programs and the relative strength in oil prices.Vaccines an ‘important variable’Azour said each country’s capacity to recover in 2021 varies a “great deal.””(The) vaccine is an important variable this year, and the acceleration of vaccination could contribute to almost one additional percent of GDP in 2022,” he said.Some countries in the region — such as the Gulf Cooperation Council states, Kazakhstan and Morocco — started their vaccinations early and should be able to inoculate a significant share of their population by end-2021, the IMF said.Other nations including Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon were classified as “slow inoculators” that will probably vaccinate a big portion of their residents by mid-2022.Shoppers wearing protective masks walk near the Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2021.Christopher Pike | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesThe last group — the “late inoculators” — are not expected to achieve “full vaccination until 2023 at the earliest,” the report said.It added that early inoculators are expected to reach 2019 GDP levels in 2022, but countries in the two slower categories will recover to pre-pandemic levels between 2022 and 2023.Looking aheadAzour said innovative policies helped to speed up the recovery, but it’s “very important to build forward better.”That could include measures to improve the economy, attract investment, increase regional cooperation and address scars of the Covid crisis.”All these elements are silver linings that can help accelerate the recovery and bring the economy of the region (to) the level of growth that existed prior to the Covid-19 shock,” he said. More

Vials labelled “COVID-19 Coronavirus Vaccine” and syringe are seen in front of displayed Johnson & Johnson logo in this illustration taken, February 9, 2021.Dado Ruvic | ReutersJohnson & Johnson is scaling back shipments of its single-dose Covid-19 vaccine by 86% next week as it grapples with manufacturing issues at a major plant in Baltimore.The government has allocated only 700,000 J&J shots to states next week, down from 4.9 million the week prior, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.J&J is awaiting regulatory clearance for a Baltimore facility, which is run by Emergent BioSolutions Inc, and is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to secure authorization.Workers at the Baltimore plant several weeks ago mixed up ingredients for the J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines, which led to roughly 15 million ruined J&J doses. The Biden administration has put J&J in charge of vaccine manufacturing at the plant and stopped production of the AstraZeneca vaccine there.Once it receives authorization, J&J could deliver up to eight million doses each week, White House Covid-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said during a press briefing on Friday. And the company remains on track to deliver 100 million doses by the end of May.Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan has called on the Biden administration to surge vaccines in her state, which is grappling with the worst outbreak in the country. Michigan is expected to receive 17,500 J&J doses next week, an 88% drop compared to the previous week.The administration said it will continue allocating shots based on population and doesn’t plan to surge doses to harder hit states since it can’t predict where infections could rise next.”There are tens of millions of people across the country in each and every state and county who have not yet been vaccinated,” Zients said on Friday. “And the fair and equitable way to distribute the vaccine is based on the adult population by state, tribe, and territory. That’s how it’s been done, and we will continue to do so.””The virus is unpredictable. We don’t know where the next increase in cases could occur,” he added.New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement on Friday that the state will only receive 34,900 doses, an 88% drop compared to the previous week.”As has been the case since the beginning of our vaccination effort, the X-factor is supply, supply, supply, and like every other state, our allocation of Johnson & Johnson doses will be significantly lower next week,” Cuomo said.California will see its J&J allotment drop from 572,700 to 67,600; Florida from 313,200 to 37,000; and Texas from 392,100 to 46,300.Some states have also temporarily halted J&J vaccinations at certain facilities after people suffered adverse reactions. The Georgia Department of Public Health paused all shots at one site after eight people experienced reactions, and other sites in North Carolina and Colorado also stopped administering doses due to reactions.However, the CDC said it didn’t find any safety issues or reason for concern regarding the J&J doses, according to a statement from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment also said there’s “no cause for concern.” “After reviewing each patient’s symptoms, analyzing other vaccinations from the same lot of the vaccine and speaking with the CDC to confirm our findings, we are confident in saying that there is no reason for concern,” Dr. Eric France, the department’s chief medical officer, said in a statement.The J&J vaccine was the third vaccine authorized in the U.S. after vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. As of Friday evening, the company delivered nearly 15 million doses in the U.S, according to CDC data.The U.S. is administering a seven-day average of 3 million vaccine doses each day. One in five Americans are now fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.The rate of new Covid cases and deaths in the U.S. has dropped dramatically from the winter peak when hundreds of thousands of new infections and thousands of deaths were being reported daily. The seven-day average of new cases in the U.S. was 67,000 on Saturday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. That’s comparable to the surge that swept the nation last summer. The U.S. is reporting 982 deaths daily on average. New infections are increasing in 23 states as the more infectious variant first identified in the U.K. has become the dominant strain in the U.S. President Joe Biden has called for states to open vaccine appointments to all adults by April 19 as the nation races to immunize as many people as possible as the virus mutates. More

In this articleTGodzilla and King Kong battle in Warner Bros.’ “Godzilla vs. Kong.”Source: Warner Bros.”Godzilla vs. Kong” is smashing pandemic box office records.On Saturday Warner Bros., which produced the movie alongside Legendary, revealed that its kaiju-filled film had topped $60 million at the domestic box office, making it the highest-grossing movie to be released during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.Previously, “Tenet,” another Warner Bros. film held the record with $58.5 million, which it secured during its theatrical run in 2020.As it stands, Warner Bros.’ films currently represent four out of the top five highest-grossing films released during the pandemic. “Tenet” is the second highest, “Wonder Woman 1984,” which tallied $46.2 million is the fourth, and “Tom and Jerry,” which hovers at $40.3 million, is fifth.The third-highest grossing film of the pandemic is Universal’s “Croods: A New Age,” which scored $56.5 million during its time in theaters.”It’s beginning to look a lot like summer in April with ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ crossing box-office milestones that would have been unthinkable just a few weeks ago,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “Warner Bros.’ release strategy paid off big and, in the process, proved that the movie theater is still king when it comes to creating the most impactful and immersive moviegoing experience.””Godzilla vs. Kong” has shattered a number of records since opening March 31. The film posted the largest opening weekend since the coronavirus pandemic began, hauling in $32.2 million over its first Friday, Saturday and Sunday in theaters.It also opened in more than 3,000 theaters in North America over the weekend, the most of any film during the pandemic, had the largest opening day on Wednesday with $9.6 million and the largest single day on Saturday with $12.5 million.”Godzilla vs. Kong” signals that consumers are eager to head to the cinema for new blockbuster features and suggests that the summer slate could see similar success.Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. More