To be sure, delta has spurred companies to exercise more caution, especially restaurants and other businesses that deal face to face to customers. And it’s caused some consumers to avoid large crowds again.
That probably helps explains the somewhat slow in hiring in August, a notoriously fickle month to assess because so many people go on vacation..Yet by and large, the economy has held up well and it’s still growing at a fairly strong pace.
LONDON/TOKYO (Reuters) – Global factory activity lost momentum in August as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic-disrupted supply chains, raising concerns faltering manufacturing would add to economic woes caused by slumping consumption, surveys showed on Wednesday. Many firms reported logistical troubles, product shortages and a labour crunch which have made it a sellers’ market of the goods factories need, driving up prices. While factory activity remained strong in the euro zone, IHS Markit’s final manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to 61.4 in August from July’s 62.8, below an initial 61.5 “flash” estimate. “Despite the strong PMI figures, we think that lingering supply-side issues and related producer price pressures might take longer to resolve than previously expected, increasing the downside risk to our forecast,” said Mateusz Urban at Oxford Economics. In Britain, where factories also faced disruptions, manufacturing output grew in August at the weakest rate for six months. The United States likely suffered a similar slowdown, data is expected to show later on Wednesday. [GB/PMIM] Canada’s economy unexpectedly shrank last quarter and in July, official data showed on Tuesday – hurt by decreases in manufacturing, construction and retail trade – and Australia reported slower growth in the second quarter on Wednesday.Meanwhile, Southeast Asia – a low-cost manufacturing hub for many global companies – was hit particularly hard with factory activity shrinking in Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia because of virus outbreaks and output suspensions. And in a worrying sign for the global economy, China’s factory activity slipped into contraction in August for the first time in nearly 1-1/2 years as COVID-19 curbs, supply bottlenecks and high raw material prices weighed on output. China’s Caixin/Markit Manufacturing PMI fell to 49.2 in August, from 50.3 in July, breaching the 50-mark separating growth from contraction. The result was well below market expectations, underscoring the fragile nature of China’s recovery that had helped the global economy emerge from pandemic-induced doldrums. The private survey followed an official PMI on Tuesday, which showed the index falling in August but staying above the 50 mark.
“The elephant in the room for the long North Asia, short ASEAN view is China. This morning, the Caixin Manufacturing PMI followed yesterday’s official number South, falling under 50,” said Jeffrey Halley at OANDA.
“That rounds out a grim week for China’s PMIs as COVID-19 lockdowns and the same supply chain challenges the rest of the world is experiencing erode economic performance.” Export power-houses Japan, South Korea and Taiwan also saw manufacturing activity expand at a slower pace in August, a sign chip shortages and factory shutdowns in the region could delay a sustained recovery from the pandemic-induced slump. The surveys highlight the pandemic’s broadening damage in Southeast Asia, where soaring infections and subsequent lockdown measures have hurt both the service and manufacturing sectors.
Delta variant outbreaks in the region have caused supply chain headaches for the world’s largest manufacturers, many of which rely on auto parts and semiconductors made in low-cost bases such as Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia.
“If the strict lockdown measures continue, Southeast Asia may find it hard to remain a global production hub,” said Makoto Saito, an economist at NLI Research Institute. Japan’s PMI eased and new export orders posted their first contraction since January. South Korea’s index fell to 51.2. In Vietnam and Malaysia, activity was hurt by lockdown measures and rising infections that forced some factories to suspend operations. Vietnam saw factory activity shrink while Malaysia’s PMI stood at 43.4 in August. Once seen as a driver of global growth, Asia’s emerging economies are lagging advanced economies in recovering from the pandemic’s pain as delays in vaccine rollouts and a spike in Delta variant cases hurt consumption and factory production. Growth in India’s factory sector activity slowed as persistent pandemic-related weakness weighed on demand and output, forcing firms to cut jobs again following a brief recovery in July.
BERLIN, Sept 1 (Reuters) – German retail sales fell by far more than expected in July after two months of sharp increases, data showed on Wednesday, in a first sign that a consumer-driven recovery in Europe’s largest economy might be losing steam in the third quarter. The Federal Statistics Office said retail sales dropped 5.1% on the month in real terms after a revised jump of 4.5% in June and an increase of 4.6% in May. The July reading missed a Reuters forecast for a fall of 0.9%. The monthly comparison was distorted heavily by the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions on shopping in most parts of the country in June, the statistics office said. Retail sales – a volatile indicator often subject to revisions – edged down by 0.3% in real terms year on year, it added. Compared with February 2020, the month before the coronavirus crisis hit Germany, retail sales were up 3.8%. T he German economy returned to growth in the second quarter but bounced back less strongly than other euro zone countries as supply chain bottlenecks slowed industrial output. Supply problems with raw materials and intermediate goods, coupled with rising COVID-19 cases because of the more contagious Delta variant, are driving companies to take a dimmer view of the coming months. Bankhaus Lampe analyst Alexander Krueger believes that retail sales are likely to recover in the comings months, with the labour market strong and more companies scaling back short-time work schemes introduced during the pandemic. However, overall support for the economy from household spending could be less strong in the third quarter than many had hoped for, he added.
https://youtu.be/7qhhJxESoEo
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s factory activity slipped into contraction in August for the first time in nearly 1-1/2 years as COVID-19 containment measures, supply bottlenecks and high raw material prices weighed on output in a blow to the economy. The slowdown in the manufacturing sector underscores the fragility of the ongoing economic recovery and the impact of strict coronavirus curbs in the country, backing expectations Beijing will roll out more support measures to revitalise growth. Two separate official surveys released on Tuesday showed China’s factory activity grew at a slower pace, while the services sector slumped into contraction. The Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to 49.2 last month, from 50.3 in July, breaching the 50-mark that separates growth from contraction. The result was well below expectations by analysts polled by Reuters, who had forecast the index at 50.2. New export orders tumbled into contraction for the first time since February, while factories laid off more workers than they hired. The strict lockdown measures of China’s “zero-cases” approach to COVID-19 controls successfully squashed an outbreak of the more infectious Delta variant across several provinces in August, but also hit economic activity.
“The latest COVID-19 resurgence has posed a severe challenge to the economic normalization that began in the second quarter of last year,” said Wang Zhe, senior economist at Caixin Insight Group, in comments released alongside the data.
Many analysts expect the central bank to deliver a further cut to the amount of cash banks must hold as reserves later this year to lift growth, on top of July’s cut which released around 1 trillion yuan ($6.47 trillion) in long-term liquidity into the economy. A sub-index for production fell to 47.7, the slowest pace of expansion since February last year at the height of the pandemic, while another sub-index for new orders slipped to 48.0. Companies reported COVID-19 restrictions had dampened demand and led to sourcing difficulties. A shortage of chips has also been crimping manufacturing. “Due to the lack of chips this year, the demand for auto parts has decreased,” said an auto parts exporter in eastern China’s Suzhou surnamed Huang. “Our factory has been continuously reducing production, and in July and August, I heard that some factories stopped production. At the moment it looks like chips will continue to be in short supply,” he said.
An index of confidence in the year ahead stood steady. Input and output prices continued to rise and at a faster pace.
“Authorities need to take a holistic view and balance containing COVID-19, stabilizing the job market, and maintaining stability in supply and prices,” Caixin’s Wang said.
Exclusive to the WSI and Pandemic Informer. Nick Note: I want to be clear here. Its a fact that the covid19 virus originated in bats. The bat species Rhinolophus macrotis (horseshoe Bat) is not in Wuhan but from Yunnan province.
A very rare species. It was never sold in the Wuhan Market. It is also a fact that the Chines bat lady Dr Lee was in the caves in Yunnan province and captured the big-eared horseshoe bats….
because they carried 71% antibodies of what you know as covid19 virus, the most of any bat species. They collected live specimens from the remote secret cave where this particular species was found and brought them to the Wuhan lab for experimentation IE genetic engineering.. In fact Zhengli Shi confirmed the finding:
In 2004, deep in the wilderness of China’s Yunnan province, a group of scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology discovered a cave full of wild bats carrying hundreds of SARS-related viruses. Their work was published in a draft paper in 2005,
I obtained a copy of that study title: Bats are natural reservoirs of SAR like coronaviruses…. link below
This paper unearthed the link between SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and bats for the first time. The virologist who led that study, Shi Zhengli, one of the strains found in that cave — the exact location of which is a closely guarded secret — is almost identical to the 2019-nCoV coronavirus which has so far killed million of people and infected hundreds of million worldwide. Costing the global economy trillions of dollars in losses
And it is a established fact that Dr Zhengli Shi was doing Genetic experimentation on said bats in the Wuhan bio level 4 labs. And it is a fact that 3 lab workers became infected and died, Please note by some amazing coincidence ALL the worlds recent SARS and Corona Viruses epidemics have originated out of China.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) emerged in 2002 to 2003 in southern China. The origin of its etiological agent, the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV), remains elusive. Here we report that species of bats are a natural host of coronaviruses closely related to those responsible for the SARS outbreak. These viruses, termed SARS-like coronaviruses (SL-CoVs), display greater genetic variation than SARS-CoV isolated from humans or from civets. The human and civet isolates of SARS-CoV nestle phylogenetically within the spectrum of SL-CoVs, indicating that the virus responsible for the SARS outbreak was a member of this coronavirus group. SEE LINK BELOW
China Report SARS and Corona Virus from 2005
Bats are natural reservoirs of SARS and corona virus from PUB REPORT 2017
Yet another piece of the pandemic puzzle has fallen into place – after being hidden in plain sight until it was wiped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s (WIV) website. Unearthed by The National Pulse’s Natalie Winters, a Nov. 2017 report titled): “Bats in China carry all the ingredients to make a new SARS virus,” describes how researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had identified ‘all the genes to make a SARS coronavirus similar to the epidemic strain,’ among 11 new strains of viruses collected in horseshoe bats. Report published in 2017. SEE LINK BELOW
NEW YORK, Aug 31 (Reuters) – The spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19 threatens the fragile recovery of U.S. restaurants, according to a report on Tuesday from the National Restaurant Association.
Nearly one in five adults surveyed online from August 13-15 said they stopped going to restaurants as Delta cases rose, the report said.
Total annual sales at U.S. restaurants are expected to rise 19.7% from 2020 to $789 billion in 2021. But that will still be 8.7% lower than 2019’s $864.3 billion total sales, the report said. “There has been some back-off as the Delta variant has taken hold,” Hudson Riehle, a National Restaurant Association executive, said of consumer behavior. Average daily U.S. COVID cases rose to 466 people per million people as of Aug. 29 on a seven-day rolling average, versus fewer than 40 in mid-June, according to Our World in Data. The rise and continuing uncertainty have forced the cancellation of major events and could hamper tourism. U.S. restaurants – hurt last year by occupancy limits and public fear about dining out – stand to lose more business if tourism wanes. For example, sales at American steakhouses soared over the summer. But because they rely heavily on tourists and private business bookings, the Delta spread threatens their comeback. Some U.S. fast-food restaurants – including McDonald’s Corp (MCD.N), Yum Brand Inc’s (YUM.N) Taco Bell and KFC – are closing indoor seating areas or limiting hours of operation because of the Delta variant. Restaurant sales dropped in August from July, according to Black Box Intelligence data. July’s sales were 8.1% higher than in 2019, but sales in August through Aug. 22 were up only 6.3% over 2019. Three in five respondents to the association’s survey said they changed the way they spend money and eat at restaurants because of the Delta variant, such as by ordering takeout and delivery instead of eating on site, sitting outside rather than indoors or cancelling plans to dine out.
A study from Vietnam shows 251x more delta virus load in the nostrils of the vaccinated healthcare workers (2021), compared to the old variants from 2020. In Israel, are there are more vaccinated 60+ individuals hospitalized than the unvaccinated?
When you adjust the numbers for the vaccinated populations you find that 19.9 People per 100,000 vaccinated are hospitalized and 265 people per unvaccinated are hospitalized.
And this study does not take into account the people who have had their 3rd vaccine. And get this so far no one who has had their 3rd vaccine has been hospitalized.
NEW YORK, Aug 30 (Reuters) – Some U.S. fast-food restaurants are closing indoor seating areas or limiting hours of operation because of the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19, according to franchisees. McDonald’s Corp (MCD.N) had temporarily closed indoor dining at nearly all U.S. locations in early 2020, but it reopened 70% by last month. The global burger chain said on July 28 that it was on track to open nearly 100% by Labor Day – barring any COVID-19 resurgence. But last week, McDonald’s instructed its franchisees on steps they should take to re-close their dining rooms in areas where the Delta variant is rapidly spreading, according to internal company materials seen by Reuters. “We have a much deeper sense of what actions make a difference for the safety of our restaurant teams and crew,” McDonald’s USA President Joe Erlinger said during a Wednesday meeting, according to the materials. In Wednesday’s conference call, McDonald’s executives recommended franchisees consider closing indoor seating in counties where COVID cases exceed 250 per 100,000 people on a rolling three-week average.The materials did not specify how many locations have shut indoor seating or could soon do so. One McDonald’s franchisee who operates multiple locations told Reuters it had to bar indoor seating at several restaurants. But expected closures are fewer than the number that shuttered in spring of 2020, when the pandemic first hit the United States. “We’re monitoring the impact of the Delta variant closely and recently convened together with our franchisees to underscore existing safety protocols, reinforce our people first approach and provide updates on the rise in cases in the country,” McDonald’s Corp said in a statement on Friday.