The FDA is determined to step up the pace of coronavirus testing in the US to cope with the recent coronavirus outbreak, and it’s willing to greenlight technology at an early stage to make that happen. The regulator said it will allow
new diagnostic tech to be used to test for COVID-19 before an Emergency
Use Authorization request has gone through a review. This will only
apply to validated methods from labs that are certified to handle
“high-complexity” tests in line with key requirements, the FDA said, and
doesn’t amount to lowering standards — this is only to ensure there’s
“wide availability” of testing options.
There’s currently just one emergency authorization for COVID-19 in
use by the CDC and public health labs, the FDA added. Early US tests
were hurt by kits that included a bad reagent that rendered the tests
ineffective.
To some degree, this is damage control. On top of the problems with
early tests, there have been criticisms of the safety behind the
evacuation process and the ability of scientists to speak freely about
the current situation. Still, the expedited access could significantly
improve testing and give a clearer assessment of who’s infected. https://www.engadget.com/2020/02/29/fda-allows-early-coronavirus-testing-tech/
Pakistan said Saturday it has detected two new cases of coronavirus,
bringing the total number of patients with the infection in the country
to four.
Confirmation of the cases has set off alarm bells as authorities
scramble to screen hundreds of people who recently arrived from Iran, a
major new hotspot for the virus.
“One of the two patients has tested positive in the capital Islamabad and the other one in Karachi,” the prime minister‘s advisor on health Zafar Mirza told a press conference.
The earlier two cases were also detected in the same cities. Mirza
said they were “fast recovering” and one would be discharged from
hospital soon.
He said the government would further reinforce surveillance measures at border crossings with Iran and other neighbouring countries.
A senior official at the health department for Sindh province said
“the patient undergoing treatment in Karachi has a recent history of
travel to Iran from where he acquired the virus”.
But no information was immediately available about the patient being treated in Islamabad.
There are growing fears in Pakistan, sandwiched between China and
Iran, which are both fighting major outbreaks, about the country’s
ability to deal with the illness.
Islamabad has a history of failing to contain infectious diseases such as polio, tuberculosis and hepatitis.
The virus has now killed more than 2,900 people and infected over
83,000 worldwide, with an increasing number of new cases being reported
each day.
Mirza said top government officials have decided “a national campaign
will be launched to create greater awareness among the people about
coronavirus and precautions”. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-02-cases-coronavirus-pakistan.html
France on Saturday cancelled all gatherings of 5,000 people or more
in a bid to contain the coronavirus outbreak that is rapidly spreading
across the world, as the World Health Organization raised its risk alert
to its highest level.
The virus has now hit 59 countries across the globe, with more than
2,900 people killed and over 85,000 infected since it was first detected
in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
Its rapid spread beyond China’s borders in the past week has caused stock markets to sink to their lowest levels since the 2008 global financial crisis over fears that the disease could wreak havoc on the world economy.
The vast majority of infections have been in China but more daily
cases are now logged outside the country, with South Korea, Italy and
Iran emerging as major hotspots.
South Korea, which has the most infected people outside China,
reported its biggest surge in new cases on Saturday with 813 more
patients confirmed, bringing its total to 3,150.
The virus has also spread to previously untouched areas in recent
days, reaching nine new countries including Azerbaijan, Mexico and New
Zealand, as well as the first case in sub-Saharan Africa with Nigeria
reporting a case.
Qatar and Ecuador both confirmed their first cases on Saturday.
“We have now increased our assessment of the risk of spread and the
risk of impact of COVID-19 to very high at global level,” WHO chief
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters on Friday.
European nations are scrambling to contain the outbreak—with many
cases been linked to virus hotspot northern Italy—including in France
where a surge of new cases was confirmed Saturday.
The country cancelled all gatherings of more than 5,000 people in
close quarters after 16 new cases were confirmed Saturday, bringing the
country’s total to 73.
The Paris half-marathon scheduled for Sunday and an agricultural
symposium were axed in line with the new guidelines, though football
matches will not be cancelled.
“These measures are provisional and they will no doubt evolve. We
want them to last a little, because it will allow us to contain the
spread of the virus,” health minister Olivier Veran said. Economy, events hit
In the US, health officials
reported three more cases of the new coronavirus transmitted to people
who did not travel overseas or come in contact with anyone known to be
ill, indicating the disease was spreading in the country.
There are now four such cases in the United States, all on the
Pacific seaboard, in addition to some 60 other infections in the
country.
“The virus is here, present at some level, but we still don’t know to
what degree,” said Sara Cody, director of public health for
California’s Santa Clara County, the heart of Silicon Valley where tech
giants like Apple and Google are based.
US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said the central bank was
ready to intervene if needed, given the “evolving” risks to the world’s
largest economy posed by the outbreak.
Official data released in China on Saturday showed the extent of the
damage caused to the world’s second-largest economy, with manufacturing
activity falling to its lowest level on record as key industries ground
to a standstill under drastic containment measures.
More global events were disrupted due to the epidemic, with the
United States delaying a regional summit of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations due in Las Vegas next month.
“This is not a time for panic. It is time to be prepared—fully prepared,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. South Korean cases
South Korea’s epidemic is centred in its fourth-largest city, Daegu,
whose streets have been largely deserted for days, apart from long
queues at the few shops with masks for sale.
Three women in the Daegu area died of the illness, taking the national toll to 17, authorities said Saturday.
South Korea’s total is expected to rise further with screening of
more than 210,000 members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a
secretive entity often accused of being a cult that is linked to around
half of the country’s cases.
While China reported 47 more deaths on Saturday, it recorded 427
infections—fewer new cases than South Korea—following unprecedented
quarantine efforts locking down tens of millions of people in the
worst-hit cities.
In Iran, unnamed health sources told the BBC that at least 210 people had died of the coronavirus—far beyond the official death toll, but Tehran angrily denied that figure.
The death toll in Iran jumped to 43 on Saturday. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-02-france-cancels-mass-virus.html
Stocks might still be searching for its bottom next week when
investors grapple with a slew of economic data potentially being dragged
down by the coronavirus.
“Look out for ISM surveys and Beige Book for early signs of COVID-19
impact,” said Michelle Meyer, Bank of America’s head of U.S. economics.
“We are already seeing evidence in early economic indicators.”
The Institute for Supply Management will release its manufacturing
gauge on Monday. The Fed will publish its latest Beige Book Wednesday,
which details anecdotal information on current economic conditions.
Iran’s coronavirus cases continue to spike, with more cases confirmed
among government officials days before a high-ranking delegation is
poised to attend a critical OPEC meeting in Austria.
There were 205 new coronavirus cases in the country, bringing the
total count to 593 with 43 fatalities, Health Ministry spokesman Kianush
Jahanpour said. That’s the highest number of deaths from the virus
outside of China.
The number of lawmakers infected rose to six on Saturday, after
Masoumeh Aghapour said she had tested positive for the virus, the
semi-official Tasnim news reported. So far 100 MPs have been tested and a
growing number of current and former officials are being diagnosed.
Previously, one of Iran’s vice presidents, Masoumeh Ebtekar, and deputy
health minister Iraj Harirchi were confirmed to have the virus. Tasnim
news agency reported that a lawmaker died of the flu, but said he had
not contracted the coronavirus.
Mostafa Pourmohammadi, a senior cleric and former interior minister,
has been hospitalised for the past several days on suspicion he may have
the virus, the semi-official Young Journalist’s Club reported.
Iran is set to send a delegation to a critical March 5 meeting of
OPEC ministers as the cartel looks for ways to respond to the potential
slump in oil demand triggered by the coronavirus outbreak. Saudi Arabia
has pushed for a further cut in production quotas. Austrian authorities
Friday ordered that flights from infected areas provide passenger lists
to health authorities, but so far travel from Iran is still permitted.
Iran’s oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh is scheduled to travel to
Vienna for the meeting. His plans remain in place, according to an
official at the ministry in Tehran, who could not be named because they
are not authorized to speak to the media.
Jahanpour said the death toll had increased by nine since Friday,
with 52 new cases identified in the capital Tehran and 21 in Qom, the
original center of the outbreak in Iran. He added that the number of
suspected cases was higher than what laboratory results have shown.
Jahanpour also said that 123 people who had been hospitalized with
symptoms had been released over recent days, but he didn’t specify
whether they had tested positive and when they had been admitted.
BBC Persian on Friday said that at least 210 people had died from coronavirus in Iran, a figure that the government rejected.
There is concern that the virus will spread further within the
government. A day before confirming she had tested positive for the
virus, Ebtekar attended a cabinet meeting with President Hassan Rouhani
and other cabinet ministers. Harirchi was shown coughing and sweating in
a televised press conference with government spokesman Ali Rabiei a day
before announcing his diagnosis. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-29/iranian-coronavirus-cases-jump-as-more-officials-infected
Italy was the first European country
to report a major surge in cases of the coronavirus, with numbers
quickly climbing into the hundreds.
The authorities have responded with travel restrictions in the north of the country that are bound to hit the economy.
So far, a number of towns in Lombardy in northern Italy have been
locked down, with very limited numbers of people being allowed in or
out.
That matters, because northern Italy is the country’s industrial
powerhouse. Lombardy alone accounts for 40% of Italian industrial
output. Milan is Italy’s key centre for finance and a range of other
services.
Milan is not one of the areas covered by the shutdown. But even so,
major tourist and cultural sites such as the cathedral (the Duomo) and
the opera house La Scala have been closed.
Milan is also one of the world’s major fashion centres. Fashion Week
in late February did survive – after a fashion, as it were – but it was
affected. For instance, Giorgio Armani’s collection was shown without an
audience.
Had the coronavirus arrived a few weeks earlier, it seems likely
there would have been much more disruption to this major event in
Milan’s calendar.
There is some debate about whether the response in Lombardy has been
too aggressive. But it is certainly true that public perceptions, well
founded or not, translate into decisions about whether to travel or go
out that have a real impact on businesses.
Persistent problem
Italy has struggled with persistently slow growth for many years. So
could this health crisis be the factor that tips the country into
another recession?
By any measure, the Italian economy is in a bad way.
In 2019, total production of goods and services was approximately the
same as it was 15 years earlier. What’s more, it was still 4% below the
level it reached in 2007, just before the financial crisis.
Unemployment is also a persistent problem, especially among young
people. The unemployment rate among under-25s is 28.9%, with only Spain
and Greece having higher figures in the EU.
In the last two years, Italy has also had to contend with weaker
global growth and a slowdown in international trade. In the final
quarter of last year, GDP fell by 0.3%.
Prof Roberto Perotti of Bocconi University in Milan says more of the same is now in prospect:
“GDP will almost certainly shrink this quarter as well, so Italy will
technically be in a recession [often defined as two consecutive
quarters of declining GDP]. It will probably shrink for the whole year,”
he says.
Tourism woes
It is true that even without the virus, another contraction in the
current quarter would have been a distinct possibility. But the odds
have strengthened now that economic activity will be hit by the health
crisis.
How severe it will be for Italy obviously depends on the unknowable (at this stage) course of the disease.
How it affects tourism will be an important factor. This is not the
main season, apart from skiing in the mountains. The areas affected so
far are not the main tourist areas. But as the summer approaches and if
the virus spreads to other areas of Italy, that could change.
Already some flights to northern Italy have been cancelled. EasyJet,
for example, said it was a response to “softening demand” – in other
words, people choosing not to go there.
Prof Perotti thinks that tourist numbers will go to almost zero in
the near future. And even if the virus problem goes away by the summer,
the industry won’t quickly get back to normal. “Tourism,” he says, “has a
long memory.”
He thinks the overall impact on Italy will depend to a large extent on how the big economies react, notably the US and Germany.
The message from Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is: “It’s time to stop
the panic.” He has called on the national broadcaster to tone down its
coverage.
Financial squeeze
One consequence of Italy’s protracted sluggishness has been stretched
government finances. Its government debt is equivalent to 133% of GDP.
In the EU, only Greece exceeds that figure. EU rules for the
government finances set a target of 60% or less. Several other countries
are above that threshold, but Greece and Italy stand out. So Italy
could really do without additional stress on its government finances.
Prof Perotti thinks the virus could aggravate that problem: “The
direct cost of the health intervention, I don’t think is huge. Now if
there is a big recession, the lost revenue from that will be a big
issue.”
Weaker economic activity will mean less tax revenue. Prof Perotti
thinks the government will use it as an excuse to get more leeway in the
continuing discussions that Italy is having with the European
Commission about getting its finances into line with the rules.
But Italy probably can’t expect very much help from monetary policy,
which is in the hands of the European Central Bank. Interest rates are
already very low: one of the ECB’s main rates is below zero. In any
event, Prof Perotti thinks it will only act if “things get very ugly for
the whole of the eurozone”.
At the moment, Italy looks like the economy most exposed to the
consequences of the new coronavirus and one with many other pre-existing
challenges. But if the spread continues, then Italy might not look like
such a special case for long. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51650974
In Aberdeen, South Dakota, more than 650 employees at one of 3M’s (NYSE:MMM) largest manufacturing plants are working overtime to increase face mask output.
“We immediately ramped up production in this facility,” said
facility manager Andy Rehder. “We have capacity to do that and we did
that immediately… really from a more standard five-day to a seven-day
week.”
The Department of Health and Human Services said
earlier this week the U.S. currently has a stockpile of roughly 30M N95
masks, but needs nearly 300M amid rising risks from the U.S. coronavirus
outbreak.
