People in america and the Federal Reserve acquired some welcome information Thursday on inflation.
The Customer Value Index rose 7.7{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} for the yr ending in Oct, a substantially slower rate of improve than the 8{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} economists had expected and the least expensive annual inflation reading because January.
The stock current market skyrocketed on the news, with Dow futures surging by a lot more than 800 details on hopes the Fed would dial back again its intense charge hikes.
Even thoughFed Chair Jerome Powell reported earlier this month that the central financial institution still has “some techniques to go” in its battle to tame inflation, sentiment is obviously developing that the Fed may possibly be able to faucet the brakes ever so marginally.
Fed cash futures are now pricing in a practically 80{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} chance of a half-issue raise, at the Fed’s December policymaking meeting, scaled-down than the a few-quarters of a proportion position improves the Fed introduced at the past 4 conferences.
“Today’s CPI report displays inflation is moving in the suitable way,” said Eric Merlis, handling director and co-head of world wide markets at Citizens. “The report supplies ammunition for the Fed to begin pricing in sub-75-foundation-place tightenings. This will be a welcome progress for the Fed.”
On a month-to-month foundation, charges rose by .4{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}. Which is on par with the prior month’s enhance of .4{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}. Economists have been anticipating the month-to-month determine to mature, presented energy rates marched upward in October amid a move by OPEC+ to slash oil output and ongoing uncertainty in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
There alsoappeared to be some gains built in a measurement viewed even additional carefully by the Fed: Core CPI, which excludes the far more unstable categories of food stuff and electricity, measured 6.3{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} for the calendar year finished in October, down from the 6.6{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} raise posted in September.
Month-on-month, core CPI greater .3{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}. It had logged month to month will increase of .6{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} in the two August and September.
This period of large inflation is very likely achieving an inflection point, stated Joe Brusuelas, main economist at RSM.
“While I assume the Fed to lift the coverage level by 50 foundation points at its December assembly, the supersize fee hikes are possible now in the rearview mirror,” he claimed.
Thursday’s CPI report marked an improvement from a stretch of hotter-than-predicted inflation readings, but the pervasiveness of cost improves remains problematic for customers, organizations and the Biden administration.
“Any meaningful relief for house budgets is even now someplace above the horizon,” claimed Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.
“In groups that are necessities — shelter, food, and electrical power — we go on to see massive and dependable increases,” he said. “The areas putting up declines are for the most part either irregular or extra discretionary in nature — airfare, made use of automobiles, and attire.”
12 months more than calendar year, shelter prices are up 6.9{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}, meals prices are up 10.9{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}, and electrical power prices are up 17.6{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}, in accordance to details from the Bureau of Labor Stats. Expenditures for staples these as eggs (up 43{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}), bread (up 14.8{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}) and milk (up 14.{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}) continue being elevated.
—CNN Business’ Matt Egan and Paul R. La Monica contributed to this report.
The choice came at the finish of the to start with listening to in the scenario in excess of whether or not to expedite the proceedings.When it filed the accommodate previous 7 days, days immediately after Musk moved to terminate the deal,Twitter(TWTR) filed a movement to expedite the proceedings andasked for a 4-working day demo in September. Musk’s legal group opposed the motion.
Tuesday’s hearing featured sharply worded arguments from both equally sides — like Twitter’s law firm at just one stage referring to Musk as a “committed enemy” — environment the phase for what is just about certain to be a contentious authorized battle.
Twitter’s lead counsel William Savitt came out swinging against Musk at the begin of the listening to as he argued in favor of a fast trial. Savitt said the continued uncertainty hanging around the enterprise from the excellent deal and litigation “inflicts hurt on Twitter day to day, just about every hour and every single working day.” He also pointed to what he explained as Musk’s ongoing disparagement of Twitter, together with on its very own platform.
“Musk has been and stays contractually obligated to use his greatest attempts to close this deal,” Savitt claimed. “What he’s performing is the precise opposite it’s sabotage.”
Musk attorney Andrew Rossman pushed back stating that Musk “isn’t going to have an incentive to preserve this hanging for a prolonged time,” noting that the billionaire stays one particular of Twitter’s biggest shareholders. He also noted that Twitter did not sue Musk about his alleged breaches of the offer until soon after he moved to terminate the offer, suggesting that the firm’s hold out invalidated its drive for expedition. (The choose in her reviews explained Twitter’s timing was not “unreasonable.”)
Musk’s staff proposed that the dispute really should go to trial early next 12 months. “We are not opposing expedition complete quit, we are not asking for several years listed here,” Rossman explained. “What we are supplying as a substitute, Your Honor, is an incredibly swift and practical agenda.”
Subsequent each individual side’s argument, the decide overseeing the case, Delaware Courtroom of Chancery chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick, said Musk’s aspect “underestimate the potential of this court … to promptly procedure complex litigation.”
“The reality is that hold off threatens irreparable damage [to Twitter] … the lengthier the hold off, the higher the danger,” McCormick stated in announcing the scheduling prepare. She added that when couple cases warrant a demo for a longer period than five days, she would entertain a request from both facet to lengthen the trial if needed.
Even with this early scheduling dispute, the stakes had been higher for Twitter. The firm was already struggling to increase its person foundation and marketing organization in advance of Musk’s involvement, and now it and several other tech firms are pulling back again on expenses amid rampant inflation and fears of a recession. Twitter requires a swift resolution to the fight with Musk in order to restrict the uncertainty for its shareholders, employees and customers, and any fallout for its business enterprise that could be exacerbated by high priced, prolonged litigation.
Though Tuesday’s hearing was mostly a procedural a person, it provided a seem at how every aspect may perhaps method what is very likely to be a messy litigation approach. It may possibly also offer a glimpse as to how the judge overseeing the situation is approachingthe dispute.
“There may be hints from what she asks and what she states, and what they say, all through the hearing that may well tell us something,” stated Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond College of Law.
The scenario has currently hit a compact snag: Although the listening to was initially scheduled to take area in-man or woman, McCormick despatched a letter to the two functions on Monday alerting them that she analyzed beneficial for Covid-19 and would be transferring the hearing to Zoom.
Less than three months after the blockbuster acquisition offer was inked, Musk moved to terminate the arrangement. He accused Twitter of breaching the deal by making misleading statements about the quantity of bot and spam accounts on the platform, and by allegedly withholding facts Musk states he needs to assess the scale of the challenge.
Twitter strike again final 7 days in a 60-moreover-webpage lawsuit alleging that it is Musk who has violated the agreement. In the match, Twitter instructed Muskis using bots as a pretext to test to exit a offer more than which he now has buyer’s regret, pursuing the market downturn that has tanked Twitter shares, as very well as people of Tesla(TSLA), which the billionaire is relying on in portion to finance the offer.
Rossman on Tuesday named the plan that Musk’s considerations about bots are a pretext to exit the offer “nonsense.”
“We have purpose to imagine, centered on what we have found so significantly, that the serious quantities [of bots and fake accounts on Twitter] are significantly higher [than Twitter has publicly reported], with monumental implications for the extended-time period value of the firm,” Rossman explained. He extra that Twitter’s promises that Musk is in breach of the offer are “made in get to consider to strip Mr. Musk of his legal rights declare that he can terminate the agreement.”
Twitter has requested the courtroom to compel Musk to full the offer to buy the corporation. Whilst several legal experts say Twitter probable has the more powerful argument in the dispute, some also anticipate the organization may well conclusion up settling with the billionaire if the circumstance starts off to drag on, in an effort to cut down the disruption to its small business.
As with the dispute usually, Twitter and Musk had been much aside on regardless of whether to have a speedy trial. In its motion, Twitter stated the expedition is vital to ensure the offer can be done prior to the “fall dead” date of October 24 that the two sides beforehand agreed to shut the deal by, and to “protect Twitter and its stockholders from the continuing marketplace possibility and operational damage resulting from Musk’s endeavor to bully his way out of an airtight merger settlement.”
In a Friday courtroom filing, Musk’s attorneys calledTwitter’s request an “excessive expedition” and claimed that the dispute is “extremely point and expert intensive, necessitating substantial time for discovery.” They also claimed that the first arrangement stipulated that fall-lifeless date would no for a longer time utilize if just one bash filed litigation more than the offer, calling Twitter’s request “moot,” and questioned thata 10-working day trial be scheduled for on or soon after February 13, 2023.
Twitter’s lawyer on Tuesday pushed again on Musk’s team’s assert that the discovery course of action would get months mainly because it would call for digging into the specifics associated to the range of bot and pretend accounts on the system. The bot query is “emphatically and plainly not ahead of the court in this situation,” Savitt mentioned.
“Very little in the merger arrangement turns on that query, there is no representation or warranty in the merger that is relevant to how a lot of false accounts there may possibly be on Twitter,” Savitt explained. He additional that “Musk could have carried out diligence about this problem” prior to signing the offer but did not.
Meanwhile, Twitter carries on to just take the measures essential to commence with the acquisition. The business on Friday sent a letter to shareholders inviting them to vote on the deal to provide Twitter to Musk for $54.20 for every exceptional share at a specific assembly on an undisclosed day and time later this calendar year, in accordance to a regulatory submitting. Twitter’s board earlier unanimously advised that shareholders vote in favor of the offer, a placement it reiterated in the letter.
Irrespective of Musk’s move to terminate the offer, “we are committed to closing the merger on the cost and phrases agreed on with Mr. Musk,” the Friday letter states. “Your vote at the particular meeting is critical to our means to finish the merger.”
Share on PinterestInspired by ancient medicine, experts have tested a new technique to improve vaccine delivery. Pansfun Images/Stocksy
A team of researchers recently developed a novel way of delivering nucleic acid-based medicines using a method similar to an ancient cupping technique, Home Garden USA.
Their experiments indicate that the technique makes vaccine delivery more effective by several orders of magnitude.
The cupping technique is currently undergoing clinical trials to deliver a COVID-19 vaccine.
Over the past 20 years, scientists have developed a range of nucleic acid-based medicines as both treatments and vaccines.
Nucleic acids are present in all living cells, most notably as DNA and RNA.
Treatments and vaccines that use nucleic acids work by inhibiting, adding, replacing, or editing DNA and RNA in host cells.
How well these treatments and vaccines work depends on how well they can be delivered to the host’s cells. If directly injected into tissue, for example, most nucleic acids will rapidly degrade unless protected.
The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines are both nucleic acid-based medicines. Nucleic acids in these vaccines are enclosed and protected by lipid nanoparticles that deliver them across the host cell membrane.
Although they are effective, drugs delivered in this way are vulnerable to degradation during storage.
One delivery method for nucleic acid-based medicines is electroporation. This involves delivering nucleic acids to cells made more permeable using a pulse of electricity.
While somewhat effective, these electrical impulses can cause muscle contractions, tissue damage, and pain, and they may not be suitable for people who use implantable electrical devices such as defibrillators or pacemakers.
Using this method also requires substantial training, and equipment costs may make it inaccessible to regions and populations with fewer resources.
Creating a method for delivering nucleic acid-based medicines that overcomes unwanted side effects and cost barriers while still being effective could increase the accessibility of vaccines to areas with limited resources.
Recently, researchers from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey in Piscataway, and GeneOne Life Science in Seoul, South Korea, developed a method based on an ancient cupping technique to deliver nucleic acid-based medicines.
“Development of enhanced delivery technologies plays an instrumental role in bringing nucleic acid-based biologics to broad use and clinical relevance, and worldwide vaccine distribution is just one example,” said senior study author Prof. Hao Lin.
“We have demonstrated an alternative, safe, and effective transfection platform that yields high levels of transgene expression.”
“The advantages also include device cost effectiveness, […] manufacturing scalability, and minimal requirements for user training,” he added.
“Because of the inherent advantages of DNA, not least of which is avoiding cold-chain requirements of other vaccines, this technology facilitates vaccination programs into remote regions of the world where resources are limited,” he added.
The study now appears in the journal Science Advances.
Cupping therapy is an ancient treatment method from the Middle East and China. It involves applying heated cups to the skin to create negative pressure and increase blood circulation to promote healing.
Since 1950, doctors have used the method in hospitals in China and elsewhere for conditions such as acne, facial paralysis, and dyspnea.
Although evidence of its health benefits is lacking, the authors of the new study decided to investigate a similar technique as a potential delivery method for nucleic acid-based medicine.
To test the method, the researchers gathered two groups of rats and injected both with DNA in the upper layers of their skin. One group received the “suction cup treatment” on their injection site, whereas the other group did not.
The researchers monitored the activity of the DNA with fluorescence microscopy. They found that gene expression from the vaccine was detectable at 4 hours post-vaccination. In the rats who also underwent cupping, however, gene expression was detectable at 1 hour post-vaccination.
At 24 hours post-injection, the researchers saw that gene expression was detectable eight times deeper under the skin among the rats who underwent cupping than among those who received DNA injections alone.
To investigate whether or not this technology could work to deliver potential COVID-19 vaccines, the researchers next injected the rats with a synthetic SARS-CoV-2 DNA candidate vaccine.
They split the rats into three groups:
The first group received two injections of the vaccine candidate without suction on days 0 and 14.
The second group received one vaccine, followed by dermal suction on day 0.
The third group received two vaccinations and dermal suction on days 0 and 14.
The researchers collected blood samples from the rats on days 0 and 14, before vaccination, and again on day 29.
They found that the rats who received cupping after the vaccine had a significantly stronger immune response than those who received the vaccine alone.
The researchers also found that immune responses in the rats who received a single vaccine followed by suction were not statistically different from those who received two vaccines followed by suction.
They also note that the rats who underwent suction had no evidence of tissue damage or lymphocyte infiltration in their injected areas.
The researchers say that the underlying mechanisms for suction-enhanced delivery are not clear. They hypothesize, however, that it may work via the CG pathway. This plays a role in determining which molecules travel through membranes and enter cells.
The researchers explain that it will be challenging to confirm the underlying mechanisms of cupping due to the complexity of the processes involved and a lack of availability of drugs used for testing.
Nevertheless, the researchers say that even without mechanistic understanding, it is still possible to improve the method.
“Currently, the procedure is two-step: an injection followed by suction,” Dr. Lin told Medical News Today.
“We are working on a combination device/method to render one-step application — that is, injection and suction in a single step by a single device,” he continued. “Furthermore, we are trying to reduce suction time even further to increase patient and staff acceptance.”
When asked whether this method could work for COVID-19 vaccines, Dr. Lin said, “Theoretically, this may be possible, but we cannot answer without testing since, except for DNA vaccines, COVID-19 vaccines are delivered into the muscle, whereas this device delivers [the] vaccine to the upper layers of the skin.”
“The [suction] device is being tested currently in phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials of a COVID-19 vaccine. The documentation to enable filing with regulatory agencies for general and widespread clinical use is being readied,” he said.
The researchers conclude that cupping is a promising method for nucleic acid-based medicine delivery. However, further research is necessary to see whether it could work to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to humans.
“The suction device has numerous advantages relative to other devices for DNA vaccine delivery. First, it is very inexpensive and easy to use, requiring minimal training,” Dr. Lin told MNT. “Secondly, the device is run from a battery that is easily rechargeable.”
“Third,” he continued, “is the high degree of patient acceptance, as the device will help deliver DNA vaccines without pain or discomfort.”
“And fourth, unlike the significant setup times with other devices, this only requires changing out a cap and then pressing the power button; the machine will turn off in a few seconds.”
“This, coupled with the many advantages of DNA as a vaccine type — the greatest advantages being the ability to completely avoid the need for freezers from the clinician’s perspective, and low side effects and discomfort from the patient’s perspective — makes this an ideal vaccine platform for resource-limited and remote regions,” he concluded.
AUTO CENTRAL CHICAGO – October 31, 2021: Every Sunday Larry Nutson, The Chicago Car Guy and Executive Producer, with able assistance from senior editor Thom Cannell from The Auto Channel Michigan Bureau, compile The Auto Channel’s
“take” on this past week’s automotive news, condensed into easy to digest news Nuggets.
LEARN MORE: Full versions of today’s news nuggets along with almost a million pages of the past 25 year’s automotive content, news, articles, reviews and archived relevant stories residing in
The Auto Channel Automotive News Library can be found by just copying a headline and then inserting into any Site Search Box.
Nutson’s Automotive News Wrap-up – Week Ending October 30, 2021 ; Below are the past week’s important, relevant, semi-secret, or snappy automotive news, opinions and insider back stories presented as
expertly crafted easy-to-digest news nuggets.
* Quote of the week is from Joe White writing for Reuters. “At a high level, the investor community has slammed down the gavel on the debate over the future of combustion engine vehicles in the world’s major markets. The verdict: It’s over. Electric vehicles are the winners, and Tesla is so far and away the leader in EVs that it will take all the market share it can handle – like GM in the 1950s and 1960s, except moreso.”
* GM is planning to install 40,000 electric vehicle chargers across the U.S. and Canada as part of a new community charging program. The program, set to start next year, will work with its dealers to have charging stations in locations including workplaces, multi-unit dwellings, sports and entertainment venues and colleges and universities. Nearly 90{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a GM dealer. The EV chargers will be available to anyone with an electric vehicle regardless of brand.
* From a Detroit Free press story we learn a new report details costs to “fill-up” an electric vehicle compared with a gasoline car. Anderson Economic released the report “Comparison: Real World Cost of Fueling EVs and ICE Vehicles.” The study has four major findings regarding additional costs to powering EVs beyond electricity: cost of a home charger, commercial charging, the EV tax and “deadhead” miles. For now, EVs cost more to power than gasoline costs to fuel an internal combustion car that gets reasonable gas mileage. Charging costs vary more widely than gasoline prices. There are significant time costs to finding reliable public chargers — and then a charger could take 30 minutes to go from 20{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} to an 80{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} charge.
* Hertz announced it has ordered 100,000 Tesla Model 3 electric vehicles for its car-rental fleets in the U.S. and Europe and 50,000 for Uber partnership. Hertz will have access to the Tesla Supercharger network. Hertz also plans to build its own charging network with 3,000 chargers in 65 locations by the end of 2022 and 4,000 by the end of 2023. Hertz will provide Uber drivers with up to 50,000 rented Teslas – a deal that fleshes out the rationale for Hertz’s order of 100,000 Teslas. Former Ford CEO Mark Fields is the interim Hertz CEO.
* Record high used car prices over the past 15 months as a result of the microchip shortage have slowed down the average depreciation rate across all vehicles. The latest iSeeCars study found that the average depreciation of a five-year-old vehicle has slowed to 40.1 percent in 2021, compared to 49.1 percent in 2020. Jeep Wrangler tops the list of vehicles with the lowest depreciation, at 9.2 percent over five years. Nissan LEAF depreciates the most, losing 65.1 percent of its value, amounting to a $23,666 drop in value over five years. Trucks and truck-based SUVs hold their value the best, while EVs and luxury sedans see the most depreciation. See how your vehicle is doing HERE
* Land Rover unveiled the new 2022 Range Rover. The first redesign in a decade. It’s due to go into production next year as only the fifth generation of the large off-road luxury SUV since the model line was introduced in 1970. There will be a V8 as well as a mild-hybrid inline 6 engine. A pure battery electric version is coming in 2024. The New Range Rover is available to order now, priced from $104,000 in the U.S., with deliveries beginning spring 2022.
* The 2023 Kia Sportage made its premiere in the United States. The new Sportage grows in size compared to the previous model. The overall length is 7.1 inches longer, and the wheelbase increases by 3.4 inches.The fifth generation of the crossover arrives in America in the first quarter of 2022.
*Small SUV Crash Results From The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is introducing a new, tougher side crash test to address higher-speed crashes that continue to cause fatalities. In the first tests of 2020-21 vehicles, only one out of 20 small SUVs, the 2021 Mazda CX-5, earns a good rating. Nine vehicles earn acceptable ratings: the Audi Q3, Buick Encore, Chevrolet Trax, Honda CR-V, Nissan Rogue, Subaru Forester, Toyota RAV4, Toyota Venza and Volvo XC40. Eight others — the Chevrolet Equinox, Ford Escape, GMC Terrain, Hyundai Tucson, Jeep Compass, Jeep Renegade, Kia Sportage and Lincoln Corsair — earn marginal ratings. Two more, the Honda HR-V and Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross, receive poor ratings. To address higher-speed crashes, the updated side test uses a heavier barrier traveling at a higher speed to simulate the striking vehicle. The new barrier weighs 4,180 pounds — close to the weight of today’s midsize SUVs — and strikes the test vehicle at 37 mph, compared with a 3,300-pound barrier traveling at 31 mph in the original evaluation.
* Hyundai Motor’s IONIQ 5 has won a 2022 German Car of the Year (GCOTY) award in the “New Energy” category. As a class winner, the automaker’s full-electric midsize CUV will automatically take part in the final round of the GCOTY. IONIQ 5 will compete against the winners of the “Compact”, “Premium”, “Luxury” and “Performance” categories. The overall winner will be announced on November 25, 2021.
* The Lucid Air sedan went into production about a month ago in Casa Grande, Arizona. Lucid plans to deliver its first customer cars on Saturday, October 30, marking an important milestone for company. The first examples scheduled to be handed over to owners are the Dream Edition Range with a 520-mile EPA driving range estimate and the Dream Edition Performance with a 1111-hp output rating.
* Honda At 2021 SEMA: Honda will demonstrate its diverse paths to fun and performance at the 2021 SEMA Show in Las Vegas Nov. 2-5, showcasing seven vehicles, including the debut of two all-new Civic Si race cars and a pair of rugged Honda light trucks custom-built for extreme overlanding adventures. Honda Performance Development (HPD) will showcase a prototype of its next-generation turn-key Civic Si race car. Designed for Touring Car competition, it will be displayed alongside the new Team Honda Research West (THR-W) Civic Si race car, which will compete in the 25 Hours of Thunderhill endurance race December 3-5.
* The Dodge brand is doubling down on its role as a pure performance brand with a sneak peek at one of two new performance-based programs set to be announced in early November. National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) drag-racing superstars Matt Hagan and Leah Pruett helped kick off the launch sequence by carrying special “Direct Connection” graphics on their respective race cars at the Dodge//SRT NHRA Nationals Presented by Pennzoil, scheduled the weekend October 29-31 at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “Tune” in for the virtual announcement of the Dodge brand’s two new performance initiatives on November 8 at Dodge.com.
* The winner was not a driver but an algorithm last Saturday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where the top car clocked an average speed of 135 mph, ushering autonomous vehicles into a new era. Setting the record pace over two laps, a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) won a $1 million prize in the first Indy Autonomous Challenge, an event dedicated to self-driving cars. Each autonomous car relies on sensors, cameras, radar, but above all GPS, without which no controlled motion is possible, to the point that some have two onboard. The Dallara IL-15, used by every team, resembles a Formula One car but is smaller and comes with a price tag of $230,000. However, the technology on board makes each car worth more than $1 million, according to event organizers.
Pediatricians, pharmacies and county health departments could be ready by the end of next week to start vaccinating children from 5 to 11 years old if Pfizer’s kid-size dose of COVID vaccine gets the federal nods it needs.
A Federal Drug Administration advisory committee set the stage on Tuesday for the latest plot twist in the story of this long-running coronavirus pandemic.
More of the youngest among us soon could be better protected from severe illness related to COVID-19 if the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention follow through on the advisory committee’s unanimous recommendation to authorize lower dose Pfizer vaccines for emergency use in some 28 million children across the country.
“The FDA and CDC are still doing their work,” Mandy Cohen, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, told reporters Wednesday during a briefing with the governor. “We think the earliest vaccines will be available will probably be the end of next week.”
In anticipation of that possibility, the state has been planning how to get some 400,000 initial doses distributed to 750 doctor’s offices, health care centers, pharmacies and elsewhere.
The state also is partnering with 10 community organizations to offer family vaccine events in areas where, historically, there have been health care access disparities.
The CDC is expected to take up the issue on Nov. 2.
“What I can say is there is plenty of supply,” Cohen said. “Let the FDA and CDC do their work to review the evidence.”
For anyone worried about their child mistakenly getting an adult-sized dose when they take them to get vaccinated, the Pfizer packaging of the vaccines for 5- to 11-year-olds is a different color and size.
Once the green light is given, Cohen and Gov. Roy Cooper are encouraging parents to get their children vaccinated as quickly as possible.
“Getting school-aged kids vaccinated will help them to be safe in the classroom, play sports, participate in school theater, attend events, be with friends and support their mental health,” Cohen said. “I’m eager to get my daughters vaccinated once the FDA and CDC review the data and complete the process.”
He led a vaccine trial for children
Emmanuel “Chip” Walter, a pediatrician at Duke who led a trial examining the vaccine’s effectiveness of children, spoke with reporters on Wednesday morning about the findings.
“My advice to parents is this is the best way to protect your child from serious illness and potentially death from COVID, … get them vaccinated,” Walter said. “It’s the best tool we have. By all means I would recommend and suggest they get the vaccine.”
Some have raised concerns about cases of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, that, while rare, have been seen after men and women have received an mRNA vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Federal health officials have noticed the issue in adolescent males and young men, but have not determined whether there is a direct correlation to the vaccine.
“The risk for developing myocarditis really seems to be greater after the second dose of vaccine; it’s more commonly seen in males, particularly young males within the ages of 16 to 30,” Walter said. “The rate in that particular group is about 40 per million second doses of vaccine received.”
More than 244 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine have been given in the U.S. to date according to the CDC, with 105.6 million who have received two doses.
“I think it’s really important to recognize that not all myocarditis is the same,” Walter said when that question arose on Wednesday. “You can develop myocarditis after developing COVID as a complication and that myocarditis from COVID is usually quite severe and makes people quite ill and causes a prolonged hospitalization.”
Walter added that the myocarditis that health care workers have seen after a vaccine “is generally fairly mild.” Sometimes that might lead to hospitalization, but the condition is easily treated, he added, once it’s recognized.
“So I think you have to weigh that risk of developing COVID – depending on the prevalence of COVID in your community – versus the risk of myocarditis from vaccine, which is exceedingly rare,” Walter said.
Nonetheless, as has happened throughout the pandemic, social media and other platforms rife with misinformation can sow confusion and mistrust that frustrates public health officials trying to get accurate information to households.
A Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 34 percent of the parents of 5- to 11-year-olds surveyed in September would vaccinate their child right away, even after Pfizer released early reports of the effectiveness of a lower dose in younger children. Twenty-four percent of the parents polled said they definitely would not get their child vaccinated and 32 percent preferred to take a wait-and-see stance.
“We have to be able to afford children the same protection from COVID through vaccination that we afford to adults,” Walter said. “That is the right thing to do.”
Children accounted for nearly 25 percent of the COVID cases caused by the surge in late summer caused by the Delta variant .
“We’ve been kind of lulled by this thought that yes the pandemic is worse … for older adults and adults with comorbidities,” Walter said. “But children aren’t totally spared from COVID.
“When I last looked the other day there had been 750 deaths from COVID in children under age 18, 160 deaths in this age group for which we’re now considering approval or authorization of the vaccine, between the ages of 5 and 11,” Walter added. “And that’s way more deaths than occur due to influenza in a typical year. So if you kind of put it in that perspective in terms of health, we really do need to get children vaccinated.”
Tapering off
Overall, North Carolina is in much better shape in its battle against COVID than a month ago, when Cooper and Cohen gave their last pandemic update to reporters.
The number of people walking into emergency departments with COVID symptoms has dropped dramatically, as have the numbers of new lab-confirmed cases each day and hospitalized patients.
“North Carolina’s fight is not over,” Cooper said. “We’re making great progress, but hospitalizations and deaths are still too high.”
Since March 2020, when North Carolina reported its first lab-confirmed case of COVID-19, there have been more than 1.47 million cases reported. On Tuesday, there were 2,160 new cases reported.
Though there were 1,406 people in the hospital battling illnesses related to COVID-19, that number was down significantly from Sept. 25, when 3,123 people were hospitalized.
North Carolina is approaching a new milestone of 18,000 deaths related to COVID-19. As of Wednesday, the state was fewer than 100 deaths from that grim mark.
“Although every death is painful and now often avoidable, we felt a renewed sense of hope over the last month as North Carolina’s COVID-19 numbers have continued their steady improvement,” Cooper said. “You the people of North Carolina who have gotten vaccinated, followed safety measures, deserve the lion’s share of the credit along with our health care professionals.”
“We are grateful to see this latest surge in COVID-19 taper off,” Cooper added later. “And as we try to drive down our numbers, we know what works. Vaccines. The more people who get their shots, the less COVID we’ll have.”
Are you eligible for a booster?
As many parents contemplate when and where to get their children vaccinated, others across the state who have been vaccinated are weighing whether they’re eligible for boosters that have been recommended by federal and state health officials.
Cohen, who received a Johnson & Johnson vaccine in early March, said she got a Moderna vaccine as a booster last week.
The FDA and CDC issued guidelines on Oct. 21 about who is eligible for a booster shot. The agencies said people could get a different vaccine from the one they initially received after a “mix and match study” showed extra protection from COVID was gained even if a different vaccine was administered.
The CDC recommended a booster shot for the nearly 15 million people who got the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine if at least two months have passed since the initial dose, saying that such a boost could substantially increase protection from COVID.
Some who received the single dose shot are switching to mRNA vaccines offered by Moderna or Pfizer with a goal of getting even more protection.
Keeping track of all the recommendations can be dizzying.
People who are 65 and older, those between 50 and 64 with certain underlying health conditions, and adults over 18 who live in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities all are at higher risk of getting COVID-19, according to the guidelines.
Anyone in the groups who got the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines should get a booster shot six months after their initial series.
Cohen said Wednesday that 42 percent of North Carolinians ages 12 to 17 are fully vaccinated and only 46 percent of those who are 18 to 24 are fully vaccinated.
Pediatricians and others who provide health care to school-aged children will be key to boosting trust and an understanding about any recommendations that come from the FDA and CDC in the coming week, Cohen said.
“It’s where our families and our children have gotten vaccinated for many other types of vaccinations that they get in early childhood,” Cohen said. “It’s again going to be a place where I think there will be trusted messengers.”
Coronavirus by the numbers
According to NCDHHS data, as of Tuesday afternoon:
17,935 people total in North Carolina have died of coronavirus.
1,472,655 have been diagnosed with the disease. Of those, 1,404 are in the hospital. On Aug. 1, 1,390 people were hospitalized, before the Delta save. The hospitalization figure is a snapshot of people hospitalized with COVID-19 infections on a given day and does not represent all of the North Carolinians who may have been in the hospital throughout the course of the epidemic.
North Carolina started tracking COVID-19 re-infections in the case counts on Oct 4, 2021. All told North Carolina has tracked 10,812 reinfections, 200 of those were in people who were previously vaccinated. Ninety-four people who were reinfected with COVID-19 have died.
1,422,175 people who had COVID-19 are presumed to have recovered. This weekly estimate does not denote how many of the diagnosed cases in the state are still infectious. Nor does it reflect the number of so-called “long-haul” survivors of COVID who continue to feel the effects of the disease beyond the defined “recovery” period.
To date, 19,012,089 tests have been completed in North Carolina. As of July 2020, all labs in the state are required to report both their positive and negative test results to the lab, so that figure includes all of the COVID-19 tests performed in the state.
People ages 25-49 make up the largest group of cases (39 percent). While 13 percent of the positive diagnoses were in people ages 65 and older, seniors make up 75 percent of coronavirus deaths in the state.
522 outbreaks are ongoing in group facilities across the state, including nursing homes and correctional and residential care facilities, that’s up from 107 outbreaks in early August.
As of Wednesday, 415 COVID-19 patients were in intensive care units across the state. On Aug. 1, 372 patients were in ICUs.
As of Aug. 17, 6,177,877 North Carolinians have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. Eighty-nine percent of people over the age of 65 have been completely vaccinated, while 55 percent of the total population is fully vaccinated.
Stock Market Futures Advance As Big Tech Earnings Take Center Stage
Stock market futures are steadily on the rise in early morning trading on Tuesday. Notably, the tech-heavy Nasdaq seems to have a lead on the other major stock market indexes now. Understandably, this would be thanks to growing investor optimism around the biggest names in tech reporting earnings this week. For some, the current movement in the tech industry would be baffling. After all, we are still amidst a global semiconductor chip shortage that has and continues to limit the business capacity of countless tech firms globally.
To help shed some light on this is Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. In a recent note, Ives said, “We continue to strongly believe despite the lingering black cloud chip shortage that 3Q tech earnings will be standouts this week thus helping drive the sector higher into year-end as the Street continues to underestimate the fundamentals of this multi-trillion digital transformation playing out among consumer and enterprise tech names.”
Not to mention, there are an estimated 165 companies in the S&P 500 reporting earnings this week as well. Should the pattern of strong earnings figures persist, some would argue that the markets could continue to gain. As of 6:48 a.m. ET, the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq futures are up by 0.33{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}, 0.38{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}, and 0.55{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} respectively.
Tesla Joins The $1 Trillion Market Cap Club After Massive Hertz EV Order
Safe to say, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) seems to be starting this trading week on a hot streak. Throughout intraday trading on Monday, TSLA stock soared by over 12{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} to close at record levels. In fact, the company’s shares hit an intraday high of $1,045.02 per share.
Now, for the most part, all this is due to several positive pieces of news from Tesla and regarding the company. Diving right into it, Tesla received an order for a whopping 100,000 electric vehicles (EVs) from car rental firm, Hertz. Should things go as planned, Tesla could be looking at a payout of over $4 billion from this order.
Additionally, the company is also looking to further optimize its EV manufacturing operations. According to Tesla, it is transitioning towards using lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries in its vehicles. In theory, LFP tech is much cheaper to produce while boasting more stability than conventional EV batteries. Also, the company topped new car sales figures in Europe throughout September according to automotive industry intelligence firm, JATO Dynamics. Topping all of this news is a massive upgrade and target price raise from Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) analyst, Adam Jonas. In essence, Jonas hit TSLA stock with an Overweight rating and a price target of $1,200. As such, investors could be eyeing TSLA stock in the stock market today.
Facebook Gains After Earnings Beat As Investors Buy Into Current Weakness
Among the tech titans kicking things off this earnings week is Facebook (NASDAQ: FB). In brief, the company posted an earnings per share of $3.22 on revenue of $29.01 billion for the quarter. This came in above estimates of $3.19 for earnings but fell short of revenue projections of $29.57 billion. Despite its somewhat mixed results for the quarter, Facebook continues to make strategic plays. To begin with, the company is adding $50 billion to its current stock repurchase program. This could be another factor explaining FB stock’s gains in pre-market trading today after a recent losing streak.
Even with the ongoing private document dump by whistleblowers, investors seem to see long-term growth potential in Facebook. Backing this up is CEO Mark Zuckerberg via the company’s earnings call after yesterday’s market close.
In it, Zuckerberg noted that Facebook is focusing strongly on its video Reels feature. He also added that “Reels has the potential to be something of that scale,” referring to Facebook’s flagship News Feed and Stories features. Given that it is considered by many as a competitor to the increasingly popular TikTok, the move makes sense. All this coupled with the company’s growing efforts in building the “metaverse” continue to build hype around FB stock now.
In other tech-related earnings news, Google parent company Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is set to report its latest quarterly results after the closing bell. Now, thanks to its massive presence across numerous fields in the tech world, Google continues to dominate. This seems to be the case from its booming ad and consumer tech services to its major cloud computing division, Google Cloud.
For some perspective, the company raked in a total revenue of $61.88 billion in its second fiscal quarter. Furthermore, the firm also saw year-over-year gains of over 166{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} in both its net income and earnings per share.
However, even with GOOGL stock holding on to year-to-date gains of over 55{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}, analysts appear to be bullish on Alphabet. As it stands, Wall Street expects the tech giant to post an earnings per share surge of over 40{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} year-over-year. Alongside this are projections of year-over-year gains of 37{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} in total revenue and 50{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} in Google Cloud revenue. For one thing, there appears to be a focus on the company’s cloud computing division this quarter. Given the growing need for cloud computing services across the board, this would make sense. Regardless, investors would likely be tuning in their radars to GOOGL stock in the stock market now.
To highlight, there are plenty of big names posting their latest quarterly results today. This is apparent given the current lineup both in the pre and post-market hours. For starters, the likes of 3M (NYSE: MMM), General Electric (NYSE: GE), Raytheon Technologies (NYSE: RTX), Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), and Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) are reporting before the opening bell.
Subsequently, most tech investors would be watching the post-market earnings closely today. This is because Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), AMD (NASDAQ: AMD), Visa (NYSE: V), Twitter (NYSE: TWTR), Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD), and QuantumScape (NYSE: QS) are on tap. All in all, we could be looking at an exciting day in the stock market ahead.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
