Category: Breaking News

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COVID death rate now ten times worse than original strain of the virus….. bark Bark BARK

https://youtu.be/oWeBawdOUQM

We’re being warned about a dramatic increase in the COVID death rate; now ten times worse than it was with the original strain. We’ve almost hit one million new cases in the past month as the burden on the health system takes its toll.

We’re being warned about a dramatic increase in the covid death rate; now ten times worse than it was with the original strain. We’ve almost hit one million new cases in the past month as the burden on the health system takes its toll.

Yes, another omicron subvariant — BA.5 — is now dominant among coronavirus cases reported in the U.S. But is BA.5 the “worst” version of COVID-19 to date? One scientist, Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of Scripps Research Translational Institute, described it as such in a report about the subvariant’s “takeover” in late June.

“This version of the virus has caused a lot of trouble, more than other Omicron subvariants,” Topol wrote in an updated report on BA.5 on July 10.

Continue reading “COVID death rate now ten times worse than original strain of the virus….. bark Bark BARK”

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Record number of COVID-hit Australians in hospital as Omicron surges

SYDNEY, July 16 (Reuters) – Australia will reinstate support payments for casual workers who have to quarantine due to COVID-19, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Saturday, as a fresh wave of Omicron-driven infections sweeps the country. Australia is battling a major virus outbreak driven by the highly transmissible new Omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, with authorities warning it could lead to more people ending up in hospitals and further straining the health system. “I want to make sure that people aren’t left behind, that vulnerable people are looked after,” Albanese told reporters after a snap meeting with state leaders. “No one (should be) faced with the unenviable choice of not being able to isolate properly without losing an income and without being put in a situation that is very difficult.” Albanese said the leave payments, that ended on June 30 and entitled workers to get up to A$750 ($510) for each seven-day quarantine period, will be restored and extended until Sept. 30. NN: They’re back. And it will be much worse this time.

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New, highly contagious Omicron variant raises concern for scientists as it spreads in India and beyond

The quickly changing coronavirus has spawned yet another super contagious omicron mutant that’s worrying scientists as it gains ground in India and pops up in numerous other countries, including the United States.

Scientists say the variant – called BA.2.75 – may be able to spread rapidly and get around immunity from vaccines and previous infection. It’s unclear whether it could cause more serious disease than other omicron variants, including the globally prominent BA.5.

“It’s still really early on for us to draw too many conclusions,” said Matthew Binnicker, director of clinical virology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “But it does look like, especially in India, the rates of transmission are showing kind of that exponential increase.” Whether it will outcompete BA.5, he said, is yet to be determined. Still, the fact that it has already been detected in many parts of the world even with lower levels of viral surveillance “is an early indication it is spreading,” said Shishi Luo, head of infectious diseases for Helix, a company that supplies viral sequencing information to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The latest mutant has been spotted in several distant states in India, and appears to be spreading faster than other variants there, said Lipi Thukral, a scientist at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in New Delhi. It’s also been detected in about 10 other countries, including Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada. Two cases were recently identified on the West Coast of the U.S., and Helix identified a third U.S. case last week. Fueling experts’ concerns are a large number of mutations separating this new variant from omicron predecessors. Some of those mutations are in areas that relate to the spike protein and could allow the virus to bind onto cells more efficiently, Binnicker said. Another concern is that the genetic tweaks may make it easier for the virus to skirt past antibodies — protective proteins made by the body in response to a vaccine or infection from an earlier variant. But experts say vaccines and boosters are still the best defense against severe COVID-19. In the fall it’s likely the U.S. will see updated formulations of the vaccine being developed that target more recent omicron strains. “Some may say, ‘Well, vaccination and boosting hasn’t prevented people from getting infected.’ And, yes, that is true,” he said. “But what we have seen is that the rates of people ending up in the hospital and dying have significantly decreased. As more people have been vaccinated, boosted or naturally infected, we are starting to see the background levels of immunity worldwide creep up.” It may take several weeks to get a sense of whether the latest omicron mutant may affect the trajectory of the pandemic. Meanwhile Dr. Gagandeep Kang, who studies viruses at India’s Christian Medical College in Vellore, said the growing concern over the variant underlines the need for more sustained efforts to track and trace viruses that combine genetic efforts with real world information about who is getting sick and how badly. “It is important that surveillance isn’t a start-stop strategy,” she said. Luo said BA.2.75 is another reminder that the coronavirus is continually evolving – and spreading. “We would like to return to pre-pandemic life, but we still need to be careful,” she said. ” We need to accept that we’re now living with a higher level of risk than we used to.” NN: Unfortunately come October it will be proven the world let its guard down to soon. We should be getting a booster shot right now tailored to the two new variants.

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Coronavirus tally: Daily Hospitalizations and deaths rise to multi-month highs

Just as COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths are starting to break out to new multi-month highs, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended on Tuesday that the U.S. should pursue a booster strategy had better protects against newer more dominant strains, like omicron. The FDA indicated that a new generation of COVID-19 boosters could be ready for rollout as soon as late summer or early fall. Meanwhile, the seven-day average of new COVID cases rose 3% from two weeks ago to 108,963 on Tuesday, and has held relatively steady for the past two months, according to a New York Times tracker. But the daily average of hospitalizations have increased every day since mid-April, and rose 7% from two weeks ago to a 3 1/2-month high of 32,148 on Tuesday. The daily average for deaths was 377 on Tuesday, up 17% from two weeks ago and the highest number since April 20. The number of Americans who have received a first booster shot was 105.09 million, or 47.3% of the population, according to data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. NN: I hope a booster shot against the BA.2 strain of Omicron is still the most dominant. But the deadlier BA.4 or BA.5 strain are starting to show up. And the idiots that are YOUR leaders have held up the funding for new vaccines. Millions will die. I hope the updated vaccines make it before covid plague season starting this fall.

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So far the 2022 tech stock crash is the biggest Yet… But the biggest drop is yet to come

SPECIAL REPORT

Eleven Reasons the Stock Market is crashing:
  1. Rising inflation – too much money chasing a reduced number of goods due to supply chain disruptions.
  2. People plunging into more debt. Especially since their stock trading and retirement accounts have now wiped out.
  3. Covid pandemic (Continuing Lockdowns in China) still causing a global supply chain crisis.
  4. China’s economy is slowing down.
  5. The FED (the central bank of the US) starting to raise interest rates. Are about to panic.
  6. Energy crisis with record-high natural gas and rising oil prices. As the west shoots itself in the dick and tit with stupid sanctions.
  7. China cracking down on its biggest tech stocks (Alibaba, Ant, Tencent, and others)
  8. Increased government spending.
  9. War in Ukraine creating food shortages and higher food prices
  10. Potential war in Taiwan.
  11. Crypto crash. Erasing 2 trillion in highly liquid wealth.
Rising inflation

If the inflation rate continues to increase, it could negatively affect the stock market’s returns. Higher interest rates and lower economic growth would lead to lower dividends and lower stock prices.

US inflation rate has risen 8.3% year-over-year. Even removing volatile food and energy prices, the so-called core CPI still rose 6.2%. During the pandemic, governments around the world pumped truckloads of money into their economies to boost the troubled economies. It was a short-term fix that caused the price to skyrocket. The added problem now is that the number of goods did not stay the same. Due to the supply chain crisis, the amount of goods decreased, thus deepening the inflation.

Americans increase credit card and Home equity debt

In a healthy situation, when the prices start to increase, people start to save money and limit their spending. What we see in June 2022 is a different picture – Americans dig deeper into credit card debt as inflation continues to rise. Credit card debt grew by 19.6% compared to a year earlier and totaled $1.103 Trillion in April 2022, surpassing the pre-pandemic record of $1.1tn.

Global debt keeps rising as well

People and companies are diving into more debt all around the world. Total Global debt to GDP hit a record high of 348% in the first quarter of 2022.

Large and small corporations need more and more debt to produce similar growth rates as they have been used to. This is another strong signal that the central banks around the world will have to raise the interest rates radically. Unfortunately, by raising interest rates they will also create a recession as small businesses won’t be able to borrow money for growth. Such a combination of high inflation and reduced spending leads to stagflation. Stagflation = inflation + stagnation.

Increased government spending

If the government has trouble paying its bills, it can be forced to borrow more money or increase the money supply through quantitative easing (QE) or other methods. The latter boosts inflation and makes interest rates drop, which leads to higher asset prices. If this goes on long enough, it may even lead to an economic crisis—and that’s when you’ll see a stock market crash! In other words, increased federal spending can lead directly from one thing to another until you end up with a bubble, and then eventually all hell breaks loose as stocks tumble down their respective cliffs into oblivion. The federal government stimulus program has created an enormous amount of debt and inflation. The problem with high levels of debt and inflation is that they lead to higher interest rates, lower growth, and even a recession. That’s right: even if your investments grow 10% per year instead of 5%, your wealth won’t increase very much at all because these investments will be worth much less when adjusted for inflation over time—and who wants that?

Energy crisis

Many countries have adopted new greeneeewinieee energy laws… For example, England shut down North Sea gas production, The US shut down critical pipelines and production from proven oil and gas fields. Germany has shut down most of its Nuclear power plants with the idea that they will gradually move to renewable energy sources. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen so fast. So in the meantime, they have to use coal and gas, thus driving the demand and price for gas up. Pair it with the fact that China has cut its use of coil and turned to gas (which is significantly cleaner)… …then add the fact that Russia is cutting its gas supplies to Europe as a form of blackmail…

The war in Ukraine

Whenever there is a large military conflict or just a threat of one, investors start to move their assets away from stuff like stocks into safer assets like gold or government bonds. As they sell their tech stocks, the prices of those stocks go down.

The potential war in Taiwan

There have been many signals that China might be considering invading Taiwan already in the autumn of 2022. Big investors are not waiting for it to happen and are taking out their assets from the stock market before it happens. Why? Because such military conflict would likely spill out creating a logistical paralysis for all Chinese<>Western goods. Also because Taiwan is the biggest producer of microchips and a war there would create a shock across all the markets, as everything runs on microchips.

Conclusion

The stock market is a war fought with money instead of bullets. The market has already fallen quite a bit, but nobody knows how far we are from the bottom before the market turns bullish again. Predicting the market bottoms is the hardest thing there is. But my job is to try to do hard things.

I fell into the Bull trap. I shorted correctly on the low expecting a further drop on May 20th around 11500 on the NASDAQ 100. The quick sharp upside reversal to 12900 fooled me. The bull trap. The drop to 11257 confirms my initial instincts were right. We lost a lot of money. I am now setting us up for the next leg down, which I believe has already started. This next move if we get it is called called capitulation. This should be the biggest drop yet. And IF i can guess lucky it could be worth millions. And if i guess wrong it will wipe out the account. In other words its all on the line.

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Shanghai confirms lifting COVID lockdown Wednesday

Authorities in Shanghai have announced that some Covid-19 lockdown measures imposed on businesses will be lifted from Wednesday.

Plans have also been introduced to support the city’s economy, which has been hit hard by the restrictions. The commercial centre has been under a strict lockdown for almost two months. Meanwhile, China’s capital Beijing has reopened parts of its public transport system as well as some shopping malls and other venues as infections ease. The announcement in Shanghai came as official figures showed on Sunday that new daily coronavirus cases fell to 122 from 170 over the previous 24 hours. Officials said guidelines to curb the spread of Covid-19 and control the number of people returning to work will be revised. The move will see “unreasonable restrictions” being lifted on restarting work and production at companies, vice mayor Wu Qing told a news briefing. Companies will no longer need to be on a “whitelist” to resume production starting from 1 June. The announcement came as the city launched a 50-point plan aimed at revitalising Shanghai’s economy, which before the lockdown was worth more than $600bn (£475bn). The new measures included reducing some taxes for car buyers, speeding up the issuance of local government bonds, and fast-tracking approvals of building projects. Under the plans, drivers who switch to an electric vehicle will be able claim a $1,500 subsidy. Additional help for businesses will include allowing firms to delay insurance and rent payments, as well as subsidies for utility charges

Continue reading “Shanghai confirms lifting COVID lockdown Wednesday”

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Swiss to destroy more than 620,000 expired Moderna COVID doses…..

Switzerland will destroy more than 620,000 expired doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, health officials said on Friday, as demand for the shots drops dramatically. “It was consciously accepted that under certain circumstances too much vaccine was procured for Switzerland’s needs,” a spokesperson for the Federal Office of Public Health said, confirming a report by broadcaster RTS.

“The aim is to protect the population in Switzerland at all times with sufficient quantities of the most effective vaccines available.” Switzerland, which has ended public health measures designed to curb the spread of the disease, secured a total of 34 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines for 2022 for a population of around 8.7 million.

It said in February https://www.admin.ch/gov/en/start/documentation/media-releases.msg-id-87300.html it would donate up to 15 million surplus doses to poorer countries by mid-year. How many doses can actually be donated is still under discussion. Switzerland said in March it had secured at least 14 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines for 2023 from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, with options to double the order.

It will also buy up to one million doses from another manufacturer. Just over 70% of the population has had at least one shot in Switzerland and tiny neighbor Liechtenstein. Authorities have reported nearly 3.7 million COVID infections and 13,325 deaths.

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Covid US: Nearly 100,000 cases a day recorded for first time since February

The United States is nearing numbers of average daily coronavirus cases not seen since winter as the Indian ‘Delta’ variant continues to spread across the country. On Thursday, officials recorded 109,824 new cases of the virus with a seven-day rolling average of 98,518. The U.S. is almost at an average of 100,000 per day, which hasn’t been seen since mid-February. This figure also represents a 277 percent increase from the average of 26.079 reported three weeks ago, according to a DailyMail.com analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University. Every state and the District of Columbia have seen COVID-19 infections either increase or remain steady in the last seven days. Deaths are also beginning to rise after remaining relatively low for several weeks. There were 535 COVID-19 fatalities recorded on Thursday with a seven-day rolling average of 426, which is a 58 percent increase from 268 recorded three weeks prior and the highest since June 9. Health experts say the cause is mainly due to the highly transmissible Delta variant spading in areas with low vaccination rates. It comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has revealed that 93 percent of all cases are linked to the variant, including its subtypes. CDc director Dr Rochelle Walensky warned that while the COVID-19 vaccines work, vaccinated people – who make up 50 percent of the population – are still capable of transmitting the virus if they have a breakthrough infection. ‘Our vaccines are working exceptionally well,’ Walensky told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday night. ‘They continue to work well for Delta, with regard to severe illness and death – they prevent it. But what they can’t do anymore is prevent transmission.’ On Thursday, the U.S. recorded 109,824 new cases of COVID-19 with a seven-day rolling average of 98,518, inching the country closer to 100,000 cases per day and a 277% increase from 26,079 recorded three weeks ago
Continue reading “Covid US: Nearly 100,000 cases a day recorded for first time since February”

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Pfizer, EU push back COVID vaccine delivery to help booster campaign

(Reuters) – COVID-19 vaccine makers are shifting gears and planning for a smaller, more competitive booster shot market after delivering as many doses as fast as they could over the last 18 months. Executives at the biggest COVID vaccine makers including Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc said they believe most people who wanted to get vaccinated against COVID have already done so – more than 5 billion people worldwide. In the coming year, most COVID vaccinations will be booster shots, or first inoculations for children, which are still gaining regulatory approvals around the world, they said.Pfizer, which makes its shot with Germany’s BioNTech SE, and Moderna still see a major role for themselves in the vaccine market even as overall demand declines. Upstart U.S. vaccine maker Novavax Inc and Germany’s CureVac NV, which is working with GlaxoSmithKline, are developing vaccines they hope to target at the booster market. The roles of AstraZeneca Plc and Johnson & Johnson, whose shots have been less popular or effective, are expected to decline in this market. “It becomes a very competitive game with companies battling it out with pricing and for market share, even for vaccines that are considered to be the best, like Pfizer and Moderna,” said Hartaj Singh, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. It is not known yet how many booster doses will be needed. Second booster shots are currently recommended in some countries for only a subset of the population. It is also unclear if vaccine makers will sell a redesigned shot this fall and each fall afterward, as flu vaccine makers do to match circulating strains, and what impact that might have on waning demand. Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla said in an interview that adults who are still unvaccinated are unlikely to seek out shots now, more than two years into the pandemic. It will be the “already vaccinated” who account for demand, Bourla said. Moderna executives recently said those who would benefit from annual boosting include people over 50 and adults with other health risk factors or high-risk occupations, including healthcare workers. Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel estimated this population to be around 1.7 billion people, or some 21% of the global population. Continue reading “Pfizer, EU push back COVID vaccine delivery to help booster campaign”

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China’s COVID Lockdowns Force Aramco To Slash Oil Export Prices

Saudi Aramco has reduced its oil export prices for the first time in four months amid Covid lockdowns in China that are spurring concern about demand stability. According to a Bloomberg report, Aramco cut the price for its Super Light for Asia by more than $5 per barrel and the price for its Extra Light by $4.95 per barrel for June deliveries. Crude oil prices for Europe were reduced more moderately by the Saudi state giant, by between $2 and $3 per barrel, Bloomberg also reported. Prices for exports to the United States remained unchanged from May. The price cuts follow several hikes that brought Saudi crude prices to a record high earlier this year amid soaring international prices driven by supply tightness and the war in Ukraine. China’s latest series of lockdowns has had the whole business world worried about the future. In Europe, close to 60 percent of businesses with a presence in China were cutting their 2022 growth projections, with more than half of the cuts at between 6 and 15 percent, CNBC reported last week. Business sentiment among Chinese businesses also suffered from the lockdowns, according to local surveys. Currently, the effect of the lockdowns on China’s oil demand is pretty much the only bearish factor for oil. Tight global supply, the war in Ukraine, and OPEC’s unwillingness—and inability—to boost production significantly have joined forces to maintain benchmarks well above $100 per barrel. Saudi Arabia is playing a vital role in keeping prices high because it is, along with the UAE, the only member of OPEC that has the actual capacity to boost production. However, it has signaled that it has no intention of boosting production beyond what has already been agreed, even as the global oil supply situation worsens because of Western sanctions on Russia.