Wall Street closed on Friday with major losses as investors digested the government’s decision to impose the COVID-19 vaccination mandate for all federal workers and employees working in large private companies. Commenting on the move, coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients said at today’s press briefing the White House hasn’t excluded the possibility of also requiring vaccinations for all international travelers. In business news, a California court ruled that Apple’s enforcement of anti-steering provisions on its App Store is anticompetitive, with the ruling coming as part of the Apple-Epic Games case.
The Dow Jones plunged 0.78% or 271 points at the closing bell, with Apple tumbling as much as 3.31%. The Nasdaq 100 lost 0.77% or 120 points, as the Kroger Co. sank 7.50%. The S&P 500 fell by 0.77%. Okta was the worst performer by declining 4.68%. The euro traded 0.10% lower against the dollar to sell for 1.18138 at 3:53 pm ET.
The untold story in America is the Delta variant is ripping through the country. Infections, hospitalizations and deaths are approaching record highs. Super spreader events are the order of the day. And now, they’re opening up schools to millions of innocent, unvaccinated children.
(Reuters) – A White House plan to mandate COVID-19 vaccination or repeated testing for around two-thirds of U.S. workers announced on Thursday could be hampered by supply challenges as COVID-19 test manufacturers strain to keep pace with demand. U.S. President Joe Biden will require all federal employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and the U.S. Department of Labor will issue a rule requiring private businesses with more than 100 employees to have their workers vaccinated or tested weekly, officials said on Thursday. Around 25% of the approximately 255 million Americans 18 years of age and older have not yet received a COVID-19 shot, according to federal data. The White House said it will spend nearly $2 billion on 280 million rapid COVID-19 tests to help boost supply, but industry experts are doubtful that manufacturers can produce tests fast enough to keep up with the administration’s mandate.
The U.S. testing industry currently can only produce around 50 million rapid COVID-19 tests each month, said Vijay Kumar, an analyst at Evercore ISI who covers medical technology companies. That’s only enough tests to cover around 12 million people taking weekly tests.
The White House said on Thursday it will employ a wartime law known at the Defense Production Act to help test manufacturers access needed supplies. “It has to be a priority to increase the availability of tests,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, infectious disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore. “Rapid tests should’ve been available from the very start of this pandemic and the shortages now are unacceptable.”
The largest U.S. manufacturers of rapid COVID-19 tests – Becton Dickinson and Co, Quidel Corp and Abbott Laboratories – did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the White House’s announcement. The Advanced Medical Technology Association, a trade group for testmakers, told Reuters that rapid point-of-care test supplies are still ramping up to meet demand although laboratory-based testing capacity is strong. It added that it sent a letter to the administration in September requesting additional support for test production. U.S. companies have been already been straining to provide COVID-19 tests requested by K-12 schools around the country as they roll out surveillance programs going into the new school year.
CVS Health Corp recently imposed limits on the number of at-home tests customers can buy.The shortages have been compounded because testmakers shut down production lines earlier this year when demand for tests appeared to be slowing and COVID-19 cases were on the decline.Manufacturers have cautioned that supplies could be limited in the near term.
“We’re seeing unprecedented demand as case rates rise,” Abbott told Reuters in a statement in August. “There will be some supply constraints over the coming weeks as increased capacity comes online.” Kumar said that testmakers also need more clarity on how the new mandate will be funded, noting that it is unclear whether employers will be expected to pick up a portion of the costs. The supply issue “won’t be resolved until the test providers have some visibility on demand,” Kumar said.
More than 80 million Americans working in the private sector will be required to receive a COVID vaccine or produce a negative test result at least once a week, a senior Biden administration official said Thursday.
Why it matters: The new rule, to be developed by the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), underscores the Biden administration’s ramped up efforts to control the virus as cases and hospitalizations largely driven by the Delta variant surge nationwide.
Driving the news: OSHA is developing the rule that will require vaccinations or once a week testing for companies with more than 100 employees, set to be implemented in the coming weeks, per the White House official.
The big picture: The Biden administration unveiled a six-pronged plan to respond to the virus on Thursday, which includes efforts to encourage vaccinations and bolster protections for the vaccinated, among other areas.
Health care workers at Medicare and Medicaid participating hospitals and other health care settings — more than 17 million people — will also be required to get vaccinated.
The administration is also preparing boosters to start as early as the week of Sept. 20.
President Biden will also sign an executive order requiring most federal employees to get the COVID vaccine, without the option of getting regular testing instead, Axios previously reported.
Other components of the six-part plan include:
Urging large entertainment venues to require proof of vaccination or testing for entry.
Requiring staff in school settings — including at the Head Start programs, youth program personnel at the Department of Defense and at the Bureau of Indian Education-Operated Schools — to be vaccinated.
Providing funding to school districts to support reopening, including backfilling salaries.
Bolstering COVID-19 testing, including increasing supply of over-the-counter at-home tests, and reducing the cost of at-home tests by ensuring top manufacturers — Walmart, Amazon and Kroger — sell at-cost for the next three months.
WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Reuters) – Amazon.com (AMZN.O) said it will cut the cost of its direct-to-consumer COVID-19 PCR Test Collection kit to $36.99, a $3 price reduction. The U.S. retailer said the price cut reflects its costs for selling the FDA-approved kit and is the result of a public-private partnership with the Biden administration. The White House said Thursday that Amazon, Walmart (WMT.N), and Kroger (KR.N) will sell at home rapid COVID-19 tests at-cost for the next three months. Nick Note: What assholes… we sell the above BinaxNOW Antigen at home test kit for $29.99. And get this, they will not let us sell them in our Amazon affiliate store. We have them in stock same day shipping. You can get them from our online store. Go to the link below.
United Airlines Holdings warned on Thursday its third-quarter revenue and capacity would take a hit from weaker travel demand due to a rise in Covid-19 cases fueled by the delta variant.
United expects revenue to fall 33% compared to the same period in 2019 and capacity to decline at least 28%, more than the 26% fall forecast earlier.
United said it could incur an adjusted pretax loss in the fourth quarter as well if the demand slowdown continued.
United Airlines Holdings warned on Thursday its third-quarter revenue and capacity would take a hit from weaker travel demand due to a rise in Covid-19 cases fueled by the delta variant. United expects revenue to fall 33% compared to the same period in 2019 and capacity to decline at least 28%, more than the 26% fall forecast earlier. The airline expects to post an adjusted pre-tax loss in the third quarter while it had previously forecast adjusted pre-tax income of $82 million. United said it could incur an adjusted pretax loss in the fourth quarter as well if the demand slowdown continued.
The microchip nightmare crippling auto factories globally is hitting Ford Motor Co.’s operations the hardest globally in terms of actual vehicles taken out of the production schedule, according to AutoForecast Solutions in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania. The company calculates factory-by-factory company announcements, shift production and work schedules in the U.S., Asia and Europe.
Ford stockpiling thousands of new F-150 pickups near Detroit Metro Airport
Ford is conducting final quality checks on thousands of early-production F-150 pickups that are stockpiled in lots around Metro Airport as dealers clamor for deliveries of America’s best-selling truck. Ford factory employees at the Dearborn Truck Plant have been working to meet an insatiable demand for the 2021 F-150. That meant Ford had to build trucks while the prototypes were still being driven as test models.Those trucks from the early build make up the stockpile of vehicles that are plain to see parked near the airport lately, and they are undergoing a final assessment, according to Ford. New F-150s coming out of the factory in recent weeks have been loaded directly with no delay onto truck haulers and trains to go to dealerships around the country, Ford said.
Ford F-150s parked at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City awaiting quality review
Ford needs to install seat belts and conduct software checks on early-production F-150 pickups parked in lots around the Kansas City Assembly Plant, as well as thousands in lots around metro Detroit, while some dealers await deliveries of America’s bestselling truck, Ford confirmed to the Free Press on Monday.
“As part of our commitment to delivering high-quality vehicles, we are conducting final quality inspections on trucks built before dealer shipments started last month to ensure they meet the quality expectations of our customers,” said Kelli Felker, Ford global manufacturing and labor communications manager.
Reuters) – Japan will extend emergency restrictions in Tokyo and other regions until the end of this month, while media reports suggested fully vaccinated residents in Australia’s Sydney might be freed from stay-at-home orders by the end of October.
DEATHS AND INFECTIONS
EUROPE
* Germany is extending its COVID-19 emergency aid for struggling companies by three months until the end of this year, the finance and economy ministries said.
* People will need to show a COVID-status certificate to enter bars, restaurants and fitness centres in Switzerland from Monday.
* About 2,000 Bulgarian restaurant and club owners, waiters, bartenders and gym instructors protested in the centre of the capital Sofia on Wednesday against newly imposed restrictions.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Sydney’s cafes, restaurants and pubs are set to reopen in the second half of October after months of strict lockdown.
* Around a quarter of a million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine bought from Spain will arrive in New Zealand this week.
* The Asian Youth Games, which were to be held in Shantou city in China’s southern Guangdong province in November, have been postponed to December 2022 due to the pandemic.
AMERICAS
* Dozens of Honduran migrants received vaccines in the southern Mexican city of Tapachula on Wednesday.
* Countries in the Americas should prioritize pregnant and lactating women in the distribution of COVID-19 shots, the Pan American Health Organization said.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
* South Africa has set a Nov. 1 date for municipal elections, after a court last week rejected a request to delay them until early next year to allow more time for COVID-19 vaccinations.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* The U.S. Food and Drug Administration declined Humanigen’s request for emergency use authorization of its lenzilumab drug to treat newly hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
* Brazil’s federal health regulator said documents provided by a Sao Paulo biomedical centre attesting to the safety of over 12 million doses of the Coronavac vaccine were insufficient to ensure their safety.
* Novavax has initiated an early-stage study to test its combined flu and COVID-19 vaccine.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* Asian shares dropped Thursday, while the dollar held firm, in line with a cautious global mood as investors worried about the combination of slowing global growth and the potential tapering of central bank stimulus. [MKTS/GLOB]
* China’s factory-gate inflation hit a 13-year high in August driven by soaring raw materials prices despite Beijing’s attempts to cool them.
* Several Federal Reserve policymakers have signalled that the U.S. central bank remains on track to trim its massive asset purchases this year.
* British employers are facing the most severe shortage of job candidates on record due to the post-lockdown surge in the economy and Brexit, a recruiters’ body said.
* Taiwan plans to issue “stimulus coupons” again to boost consumer spending by T$200 billion ($7.22 billion) and support its coronavirus-hit economy
Dallas Federal Reserve President Robert Kaplan said on Wednesday he cut his forecast for U.S. GDP growth this year due to the resurgence of COVID-19, but reiterated his support for starting to taper the Fed’s asset purchases in October as long as there is no fundamental change to the outlook. “Fear of infection is having an impact,” Kaplan said at a Dallas Fed Town Hall, forecasting slower hiring in September and a dent to demand in the third quarter, but no “prolonged” effect. This year the U.S. economy will probably grow 6%, he said, shy of the 6.5% pace he earlier forecast but so far not fundamentally different.
The U.S. Federal Reserve should go forward with a plan to trim its massive pandemic stimulus programme despite a slowdown in U.S. jobs growth last month, said James Bullard, the president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank
“There is plenty of demand for workers and there are more job openings than there are unemployed workers,” Bullard said.
