Russia vs Saudi: How much pain can they take in oil price war?

Oil titans Russia and Saudi Arabia have accumulated vast financial cushions that will help them weather a lengthy price war. It’s a battle of nerves – so who will blink first?

Global oil prices crashed by a third after Riyadh discounted its crude and signalled it would raise output. Shares in national oil champions Saudi Aramco and Rosneft tanked.
The world’s top two oil exporters each have war chests of around $500 billion to weather economic shocks and are making bullish noises about their stamina as they square up.
Moscow said on Monday it could withstand oil prices of $25-$30 per barrel for 6-10 years. Riyadh, meanwhile, can afford oil at $30 a barrel, but would have to sell more crude to soften the hit to its revenue, according to sources familiar with the matter.
A war of attrition would nonetheless be damaging and force both countries to make difficult adjustments to their economies the longer it dragged on.
“As with any war this comes down to how much pain can be absorbed by each side,” said Hasnain Malik, head of equity strategy at Tellimer.
MbS OPENS THE TAPS
In Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gave the green light for the kingdom, the world’s top oil exporter, to pump at will after Russia rejected an OPEC proposal for deeper cuts to cope with the coronavirus outbreak, two sources familiar with the matter said.
The Saudi fiscal breakeven – the oil price at which it would balance its budget – is at around $80 a barrel, double that of Russia, said Malik at Tellimer.
Saudi Arabia enjoys foreign reserves of $500 billion and a low debt-to-GDP ratio of 25% that gives it ample room to borrow.
Saudi Arabia has raised over $100 billion in hard-currency debt since 2016 to offset the impact of lower oil prices.
International bonds issued by the government and its oil giant Aramco plunged in early trade on Monday, and the Saudi riyal fell sharply against the U.S. dollar in the forwards market.
Still, low global interest rates and a recent further cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve mean that despite market volatility borrowers could tap debt investors relatively cheaply.
The problem for Riyadh is that sustained low oil prices could likely constrain government spending on projects that are part of the crown prince’s drive to diversify the economy.
Monica Malik, chief economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, said that with oil prices in the low $30s, Saudi Arabia would post a double-digit deficit as percentage of GDP this year – up from Riyadh’s own 6.4% budget deficit projection.
‘TREASURE CHEST’
Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia has amassed reserves of $570 billion and the rouble has become free-floating, allowing it to swiftly adjust to market conditions and devalue.
Russia, say analysts, is much better placed to withstand an economic shock than it was in 2014 when the West imposed sanctions over its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea, or than in 2008 when it was buffeted by the global financial crisis.
“Many people criticised us, they said this is a kind of treasure chest, that the finance ministry is sitting on gold,” Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said last week about the reserves.
“But now the situation could change and we will finance all the expenses we have undertaken and are obliged to make with this treasure chest.”
The $570 billion reserves includes the country’s National Wealth Fund, which stands at $150.1 billion or 9.2% of Russia?s GDP. The finance ministry said on Monday the fund could be used to offset lower oil revenues if necessary.
The central bank meanwhile said it was suspending foreign currency purchases for 30 days in an attempt to ease downside pressure on the rouble and would take market conditions into account when deciding whether to go ahead with future Russian rouble OFZ government bond auctions.
Still, the rouble crashed to its weakest level since early 2016 on the interbank market and shares in Russian companies fell sharply in London with oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil down 20.4% and 18.5 percent respectively.
Oleg Vyugin, head of Moscow Exchange’s Supervisory Board, said Russia would face higher inflation and interest rates as a result of the price war.
Chris Weafer, director at Macro-Advisory consultancy, said it was still possible Moscow could decide to return to cooperating with OPEC by autumn if prices remained very low.
“Putin will be reluctant to run down financial reserves too far to fund an expanding deficit,” he added.

https://www.marketscreener.com/news/Russia-vs-Saudi-How-much-pain-can-they-take-in-oil-price-war–30131339/

Coronavirus testing available in every state – CDC

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said earlier today that coronavirus testing is now available in 78 state and local laboratories across all 50 states.

The agency has 75K test kits for public lab use with more available soon according to Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s immunization and respiratory diseases unit.

Most of the testing will likely be done in the private sector (all major reference labs are now online). The FDA will allow the use of laboratory-developed tests (LDTs) as long as they are verified by the CDC, while they wait for Emergency Use Authorization.

According to Johns Hopkins University, the number of U.S. cases is now 560, although the number should spike since testing is now widely available (in other words, the U.S. infection rate has been underreported due to the paucity of COVID-19 tests).

ETFs: THW, BME, GRX, IXJ, GDNA, KMED, XLV

Test-related tickers: Co-Diagnostics (CODX -20.1%), Chembio Diagnostics (CEMI -7.1%), OPKO Health (OPK -2.8%), LabCorp (LH -3.3%), Quest Diagnostics (DGX -2.3%), Abbott (ABT -6.2%), Roche (OTCQX:RHHBY-5.5%), Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO -6.4%), Becton, Dickinson (BDX -3.8%), Luminex (LMNX +0.4%)

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3549837-coronavirus-testing-available-in-every-state-cdc

High levels of virus ‘shed’ but most likely not infectious after recovery starts

People who contract the novel coronavirus emit high amounts of virus very early on in their infection, according to a new study from Germany that helps to explain the rapid and efficient way in which the virus has spread around the world.
At the same time, the study suggests that while people with mild infections can still test positive by throat swabs for days and even weeks after their illness, those who are only mildly sick are likely not still infectious by about 10 days after they start to experience symptoms.
The study, by scientists in Berlin and Munich, is one of the first outside China to look at clinical data from patients who have been diagnosed with Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and one of the first to try to map when people infected with the virus can infect others.

It was published Monday on a preprint server, meaning it has not yet been peer-reviewed, but it could still provide key information that the public health response has been lacking.
“This is a very important contribution to understanding both the natural history of Covid-19 clinical disease as well as the public health implications of viral shedding,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy.
The researchers monitored the viral shedding of nine people infected with the virus. In addition to tests looking for fragments of the virus’s RNA, they also tried to grow viruses from sputum, blood, urine, and stool samples taken from the patients. The latter type of testing — trying to grow viruses — is critical in the quest to determine how people infect one another and how long an infected person poses a risk to others.
Importantly, the scientists could not grow viruses from throat swabs or sputum specimens after day 8 of illness from people who had mild infections.
“Based on the present findings, early discharge with ensuing home isolation could be chosen for patients who are beyond day 10 of symptoms with less than 100,000 viral RNA copies per ml of sputum,” the authors said, suggesting that at that point “there is little residual risk of infectivity, based on cell culture.”
Public health officials and hospitals have been trying to make sense of patients who seem to have recovered from Covid-19 but who still test positive for the virus based in throat swabs and sputum samples. In some cases, people test positive for weeks after recovery, the World Health Organization has noted.
Those tests are conducted using PCR — polymerase chain reaction — which looks for tiny sections of the RNA of the virus. That type of test can indicate whether a patient is still shedding viral debris, but cannot indicate whether the person is still infectious.
The researchers found very high levels of virus emitted from the throat of patients from the earliest point in their illness —when people are generally still going about their daily routines. Viral shedding dropped after day 5 in all but two of the patients, who had more serious illness. The two, who developed early signs of pneumonia, continued to shed high levels of virus from the throat until about day 10 or 11.
This pattern of virus shedding is a marked departure from what was seen with the SARS coronavirus, which ignited an outbreak in 2002-2003. With that disease, peak shedding of virus occurred later, when the virus had moved into the deep lungs.
Shedding from the upper airways early in infection makes for a virus that is much harder to contain. The scientists said at peak shedding, people with Covid-19 are emitting more than a 1,000 more virus than was emitted during peak shedding of SARS infection, a fact that likely explains the rapid spread of the virus. The SARS outbreak was contained after about 8,000 cases; the global count of confirmed Covid-19 cases has already topped 110,000.

Osterholm said the data in the paper confirm what the spread of the disease has been signaling — “early and potentially highly efficient transmission of the virus occurs before clinical symptoms or in conjunction with the very first mild symptoms.”
The study also looked at whether people who have been infected shed infectious virus in their stool. The report of last month’s international mission to China — co-led by the WHO and China — said that in several case studies in China, “viable virus” had been recovered from stool but that isn’t likely driving transmission of the virus.
The German researchers found high levels of viral fragments in 13 stool samples from four patients in their study, but they were unable to grow virus from any of them. The paper noted, though, that all the patients had mild illness, and the fact that they could not find virus in their stool doesn’t rule out that it could happen in other cases.
“Further studies should therefore address whether SARS-CoV-2 shed in stool is rendered non-infectious though contact with the gut environment,” they wrote, adding that their findings suggest measures to try to stop spread of the virus should focus on respiratory tract transmission — protecting others from the coughs and sneezes of people infected with the virus.
Virus could not be grown from blood or urine samples taken from the patients, the authors reported.
The study also noted that people who are infected begin to develop antibodies to the virus quickly, typically within six to 12 days. The rapid rise of antibodies may explain why about 80% of people infected with the virus do not develop severe disease.

People ‘shed’ high levels of coronavirus, study finds, but most are likely not infectious after recovery begins

For coronavirus vaccine, synthetic biologists try to outdo nature

Even as companies rush to develop and test vaccines against the new coronavirus, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institutes of Health are betting that scientists can do even better than what’s now in the pipeline.
If, as seems quite possible, the Covid-19 virus becomes a permanent part of the world’s microbial menagerie rather than being eradicated like the earlier SARS coronavirus, next-gen approaches will be needed to address shortcomings of even the most cutting-edge vaccines: They take years to develop and manufacture, they become obsolete if the virus evolves, and the immune response they produce is often weak.
With Gates and NIH funding, the emerging field of synthetic biology is answering the SOS over Covid-19, aiming to engineer vaccines that overcome these obstacles. “It’s all of us against the bug,” said Neil King of the University of Washington, who has been part of the hunt for a coronavirus vaccine since 2017.

Although the Gates Foundation is spreading its bets among several cutting-edge vaccine platforms, including those using genetic material, one based on synthetic biology has real promise. “We may need an approach that can get you millions and even billions of doses,” said immunologist and physician Lynda Stuart, who directs the foundation’s vaccine research. Gates announced last month that it will funnel $60 million to Covid-19 research, including vaccines.
A vaccine created through the tinkering of synbio looks not only scalable to a level of billions but also like it will work without the need for refrigeration. All that, Stuart said, “will be super important to protect people from coronavirus who are otherwise left behind, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa.”
King and his synbio colleagues knew there would be another coronavirus epidemic, like the SARS and MERS outbreaks before this one, he said, “and there will be another one after this,” perhaps from yet another member of this virus family. “We need a universal coronavirus vaccine.”
Achieving that is so high on scientists’ to-do list that when President Trump visited NIH last week, his tour included the lab that’s collaborating with UW’s, and researchers showed him a mock-up of what synthetic biology can do: Design and build nanoparticles out of proteins and attach viral molecules in a repetitive array so that, when the whole thing is packed into a vaccine, it can make people resistant to the new coronavirus. (The human immune system has evolved to interpret repetitive arrangements of molecules as a sign of danger: bacterial cell walls have repetitive chemical groups on them.)
With a few tweaks, the nanoparticle can be studded with molecules from additional coronaviruses to, scientists hope, protect against all of them — the original SARS virus, MERS, and, crucially, a mutated form of the Covid-19-causing virus, called SARS-CoV-2.

Even compared to the DNA and RNA vaccines against Covid-19 that Moderna Therapeutics, CureVac, and Inovio Pharmaceuticals are speeding toward human testing, the synbio approach has advantages. These companies’ experimental vaccines contain synthetic (that is, lab-made) strands of RNA or DNA that code for protein molecules on the virus’s surface. Once the vaccine delivers the genetic material into cells, the cells follow the genetic instructions to churn out the viral protein. The idea is that the body would see that as foreign, generate antibodies to it, and if all goes well thereby acquire immunity to the virus. But safety tests of mRNA vaccines have turned up adverse events, and it’s not clear how potent they’ll be. Moderna plans to begin safety testing in healthy volunteers next month.
With all due respect to nature, synthetic biologists believe they can do better. Using computers, they are designing new, self-assembling protein nanoparticles studded with viral proteins, called antigens: these porcupine-like particles would be the guts of a vaccine. If tests in lab animals of the first such nanoparticle vaccine are any indication, it should be more potent than either old-fashioned viral vaccines like those for influenza or the viral antigens on their own (without the nanoparticle).
The first step toward the molecule that was presented to Trump is to “play Legos with proteins,” as King put it.
That starts with the nanoparticle — the body of the porcupine. Its shape and composition must be such that the protein’s building blocks not only spontaneously self-assemble and stick together but also turn into something that can display the viral antigens in a way the immune system will strongly respond to. Using a computational protein-design algorithm, scientists might determine that, for instance, a nanoparticle 25 nanometers across and made of 60 identical pieces is ideal for presenting the antigens sotheir most immunity-inducing side faces outward, where the immune system can most easily “see” it.
“We might try 1 million variants on the computer” before finding the optimal shape and protein composition, meaning which protein sequence will spontaneously form the ideal nanoparticle, King said.

The next step is to take lab-made DNA that codes for the designed protein, stick it into E. coli bacteria, and wait for the bugs to follow the genetic instructions, manufacturing the desired protein like a tiny, living assembly line. Extracted from the bacteria, purified, and mixed together in a test tube, the proteins spontaneously self-assemble into the bespoke nanoparticle.
“When it works, we get exactly the protein we designed by computer, with every atom where we want it,” King said.
The next step is to stick the quills onto the porcupine. For the virus that causes Covid-19, the quills are the “spike protein,” a molecule that fits into receptors on cells and ushers the virus inside. Scientists led by UW’s David Baker predicted the structure of this antigen from the virus’s genome, and scientists at the University of Texas, Austin, and NIH confirmed it with a Nobel-winning form of electron microscopy.
King and his colleagues then scrutinize the spike protein to see which part of it might work best in a vaccine and how to position multiple copies of it. “It turns out that if you stick 20 of them onto your nanoparticle in an ordered, repetitive array, you can get a stronger immune response than with the [spike] protein alone,” Baker said — another reason why the nanoparticle approach might prove more effective than RNA and DNA vaccines. NIH and the UW groups have begun testing the antigen-studded nanoparticles in mice to see what kind of immune response they trigger.
Making nanoparticles the core of a vaccine “does a number of useful things,” Stuart said. It reduces or eliminates the need for an adjuvant, an ingredient that boosts the immune response; the nanoparticle is enough on its own. Sticking antigens on it makes the whole complex so tolerant of heat (“you could almost boil it,” Stuart said) that refrigeration isn’t necessary, a crucial feature for vaccines to be deployed in resource-poor countries. And because the nanoparticle can be studded with antigens from several viruses, she said, “you could get a pan-coronavirus vaccine.”
They’re cautiously optimistic because of a recent success. An experimental vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the main cause of pneumonia in children, is also made of a computer-designed nanoparticle that self-assembles from protein building blocks and is studded with an engineered version of RSV’s key antigen. When tested in mice and monkeys, it produced 10 times more antibodies than an experimental RSV vaccine based on traditional technology, King’s team reported last year in Cell. The Seattle biotech start-up Icosavax is moving the vaccine toward clinical trials. (King chairs its scientific advisory board.)
It was the first time the structure and other characteristics of an antigen had been designed at the atomic level and incorporated into a vaccine, scientists at vaccine giant GSK wrote, hailing the work as “a quantum leap” in vaccine design.
The Gates Foundation, in addition to supporting the research, is working to pair the scientists with manufacturers, Stuart said: “We want to identify the people who can manufacture these at scale.”
As Covid-19 spreads, “scale” is looking larger than anyone imagined.

To develop a coronavirus vaccine, synthetic biologists try to outdo nature

Cuomo unveils NY state’s hand sanitizer made by prisoners

New York’s jailbirds are helping to combat the coronavirus.
Gov. Cuomo on Monday unveiled what he called the state’s weapon against despicable price-gougers taking advantage of coronavirus fears — a new hand sanitizer produced by New York prison inmates.
Cuomo said the “superior product” is not only cheaper than brands made by greedy commercial businesses but also will be ready available to New York governments, the MTA, schools and even the prisons where it’s being made.
“It’s much cheaper for us to make it ourselves than to buy it on the open market,” said Cuomo, adding that a gallon jug of the state-produced product costs $6 to make.
It has a “floral bouquet” fragrance, the governor added.
Corcraft, the state Corrections Department’s manufacturing service fueled by inmate workers, is manufacturing the sanitizer, Cuomo said.

He said that while the CDC recommends products with 60 percent alcohol and private manufacturers such as Purell contain 70 percent, New York’s version is 75 percent.
He said the state will be churning out 100,000 gallons a week and then ramp up production as needed.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/09/coronavirus-in-ny-cuomo-unveils-states-hand-sanitizer-made-by-prisoners/

Italy’s neighbors act to curb spread of coronavirus

Swiss customs officers began examining Italian commuters’ Swiss work permits on Monday and Austria readied spot health checks of people crossing its southern border in an effort to contain the coronavirus.

Italy, which is the worst-hit European nation, has imposed a virtual lockdown on the northern region of Lombardy and parts of neighboring Veneto.
In a new measure, the Swiss government required Italians who work in Switzerland to show papers proving they have a job before entering. The customs agency said it was using spot checks and “risk-based” border controls.
But Italians will not be prevented from working in Switzerland, a decision that is important for the economy of the Italian-speaking southern canton of Ticino, where more than 70,000 Italian cross-border commuters hold work permits.
Nearly 4,000 work in the canton’s health care system, Swiss media say. “This should ensure the continued functioning of the Ticino health system,” the Swiss government said.
Bern has told Swiss residents not to go to affected regions in northern Italy but the border remains open for goods and international trains have been operating largely on schedule.
“If the situation degenerates we would accept with pain other measures but, even though there are some difficulties at customs, the situation is manageable,” the head of Ticino’s chamber of commerce, Luca Albertoni, told broadcaster RTS.
Switzerland has reported 312 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 so far and two deaths. Austria has reported 131 confirmed cases.

BUYING TIME

Under Austria’s new measures, mobile health check teams will from Tuesday check travelers in the Brenner pass region and other crossing points.

“Our goal remains to contain the coronavirus as long as and as well as possible to prevent more people falling ill and thus buy time until there is an effective therapy against the virus,” said the governor of Tyrol province, Guenther Platter.
Carinthia province said it would conduct “fever checks” at the border, while the Red Cross had begun mobile throat swabs by specially trained medics.
Slovenia will start health checks at the Ljubljana airport and is preparing to do so at the Italian border, Health Minister Ales Sabeder said. He did not say when they would start.
Croatia said people arriving from the areas mostly affected — including northern Italy, South Korea, China, and Iran — would have to go into quarantine for 14 days.
In the French ski resort of Montgenevre, close to the border with Italy, the number of visitors were normal at the weekend. Local officials did not plan any specific measures for the moment.
Austria’s state rail operator, OeBB, said staff now get off at the border with Italy instead of going to the final destination. The same applies to Italian trains heading north.

There are about 20 daily OeBB trains between Austria and Italy. Only the two night trains to Venice and Milan have been canceled and rail cargo has not been affected, it said.
Switzerland had already temporarily banned gatherings of more than 1,000 people to help curb the disease, a move France adopted and Germany’s health minister recommended at the weekend.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-neighbours/italys-neighbors-act-to-curb-spread-of-coronavirus-idUSKBN20W1Q4?il=0

Head of Port Authority Rick Cotton has coronavirus

The head of the Port Authority — who has been visiting local airports — has the coronavirus, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.
Cuomo said he himself “could have been in contact” with infected PA Executive Director Rick Cotton but hasn’t been tested because he’s an “improbable positive,” meaning he isn’t likely to have the virus.
The governor didn’t say how Cotton may have contracted the potentially deadly bug but noted that the executive director “has been at the airports, obviously, when many people were coming back with the virus.
Cuomo specifically mentioned JFK Airport in Queens.
Cotton “will be working from home, and now the senior team that works with Rick will also be tested so several of them may be on quarantine and they’ll be working from home,” Cuomo said.
The PA chief and his “senior leadership team” are under a 14-day quarantine, officials later added.
Cuomo also revealed that the state total of confirmed coronavirus cases is now at 142, or 37 more than Sunday.
They include at least six more in New York City and an additional 37 in Westchester County, which is currently the hardest-hit area in the state.
“These numbers are going to continue to go in one direction — and that is up,” Cuomo warned.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/09/coronavirus-in-ny-head-of-port-authority-rick-cotton-has-coronavirus/