World shares rally to four-week highs as investors bet on China revival

Global stock markets rallied to four-week highs on Monday as investors counted on a revival in Chinese activity to boost global growth, even as surging coronavirus cases delayed business re-openings across the United States.

MSCI’s All-Country World Index, which tracks shares across 49 countries, rose 0.7% to its highest since June 6 after the start of European trading.

European shares jumped, with the pan-European STOXX 600 index rising 1.64%. Stocks exposed to China, like carmakers, industrials, energy firms and luxury goods makers rose strongly, while banks also rallied.

In Asia, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan climbed 1.6% to its highest since February, with the bullish sentiment spilling into other markets.

E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 firmed 1.2%.

Chinese blue chips jumped 5.7% on top of a 7% gain last week to their loftiest level in five years. Even Japan’s Nikkei, which has lagged with a soft domestic economy, managed a rise of 1.8%.

Among the reasons investors cited for the buying was improving economic data – UBS noted Citi’s Economic Surprise Index for the U.S. has risen to its highest level on record. The index measures how well economic data releases are faring relative to consensus forecasts.

Some cited an editorial in the China Securities Journal, which said on Monday that China needed a bull market to help fund its rapidly developing digital economy.

“We advise against regarding uncertainty as a reason for exiting markets. Instead, we see ways for investors to cope with uncertainty – including averaging into markets – or even take advantage of volatility,” said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management.

In Hong Kong, Jefferies chief global equity strategist Sean Darby said the positive sentiment towards Asian markets was the result of better than expected regional economic data and elevated liquidity levels.

“All of the global monetary policy indicators are flashing green right now. It is very loose and that should mean markets which have underperformed should do well,” Darby told Reuters.

“The dollar has also been weaker over the past five days so emerging markets, led by China, normally do well on that back of that.”

Most markets gained ground last week as a raft of economic data from June beat expectations, although the resurgence of coronavirus cases in the United States is clouding the future.

In the first four days of July alone, 15 states have reported record increases in new cases of COVID-19, which has infected nearly 3 million Americans and killed about 130,000, according to a Reuters tally.

Analysts estimate that reopenings affecting 40% of the U.S. population have now been wound back.

“Markets will have to climb a wall of worry in July as economic activity likely softens from the V-shaped recovery seen over recent months,” said Robert Rennie, head of financial market strategy at Westpac.

“We must remember too that U.S. and China relations are deteriorating noticeably.”

Two U.S. aircraft carriers conducted exercises in the disputed South China Sea on Saturday, the U.S. Navy said, as China also carried out military drills that have been criticised by the Pentagon and neighbouring states.

The risks, combined with unceasing stimulus from central banks, have kept sovereign bonds supported in the face of better economic data. While U.S. 10-year yields edged up to 0.7% on Monday, well off the June top of 0.959%.

Germany’s benchmark 10-year Bund yield edged up, pulling further away from recent five-week lows in the face of rallying equity markets.

Analysts at Citi estimate global central banks are likely to buy $6 trillion of financial assets over the next 12 months, more than twice the previous peak.

Major currencies have been largely rangebound with the dollar index down 0.3% at 96.894, having spent an entire month in a snug band of 95.714 to 97.808.

The dollar was a shade firmer on the yen at 107.57 on Monday, while the euro rose above the $1.13 mark.

In commodity markets, gold has benefited from super-low interest rates across the globe as negative real yields for many bonds make the non-interest paying metal more attractive.

Spot gold traded at $1,776.21 per ounce, just off last week’s peak of $1,788.96.

Oil prices were mixed with Brent crude futures up 1.87% at $43.58 a barrel, while U.S. crude gained 0.84% to $40.99 amid worries the surge in U.S. coronavirus cases would curb fuel demand.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets/world-shares-rally-to-four-week-highs-as-investors-bet-on-china-revival-idUSKBN24701T

CytoDyn inks distribution deal for leronlimab for COVID-19

CytoDyn (OTCQB:CYDY) has signed an exclusive Distribution and Supply Agreement with American Regent, a Daiichi Sankyo Group company for the  distribution of leronlimab for the treatment of COVID-19 in the U.S.

Under the terms of agreement, CytoDyn will supply leronlimab and receive quarterly payments based on a profit-sharing arrangement.

CytoDyn is currently enrolling a Phase 2b/3 clinical trial for 390 severe and critically ill COVID-19 patients.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3588584-cytodyn-inks-distribution-deal-for-leronlimab-for-covidminus-19

Overwhelmed S. California transfer covid patients to Bay Area hospitals

Stanford and UCSF are among the hospitals treating COVID-19 patients from Imperial County along the Mexican border

The calls have been relentless. This patient needed to be flown by plane to the Bay Area for care — did he have a crew? That patient was awaiting transfer by helicopter to Santa Barbara for treatment. Could they swing it?

“Everyone’s tired because this has been going on for so long,” said Sergio Cardenas, a longtime flight nurse who now serves as Reach Air Medical Services’ program director in Imperial County, a swath of agricultural land wedged into the southeast corner of the state against Mexico and Arizona that has become the California county hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic. “We see this as a marathon, not a sprint.”

For years, the company has helped the state move patients from hospital to hospital, flying people who had suffered bad heart attacks or traumatic injuries that required more care than the county’s two hospitals could provide to places like San Diego or Palm Springs. Then COVID-19 hit. In recent weeks the company has been transferring patients overwhelmingly battling the highly infectious disease to distances farther than before — including to places such as Silicon Valley.

“COVID is a different animal,” Cardenas said.

According to the California Emergency Medical Services Authority, at least 15 people have been moved from Imperial to hospitals in the Bay Area. UCSF — which has relatively low numbers of coronavirus patients and can offer highly specialized care — said this week it had received at least three. Stanford has also accepted patients.

The process of transporting patients isn’t new to hospitals and health care workers, and California has a process in place for figuring out who should go where.

“As a state with a high risk of earthquakes and wildfires, this type of system enables us to respond to large-scale emergencies,” said Adrienne Green, UCSF Medical Center’s chief medical officer.

But with the number of coronavirus cases across the Golden State soaring above 237,000 and hospitals in Imperial County at capacity — and with nearby hospitals in Riverside and Los Angeles also filling quickly — the system has been tested as never before.

At least 500 patients have been transported out of Imperial County during the pandemic. One night, Cardenas said, his team mobilized five or six helicopters and three or four planes to move patients.

Before the coronavirus hit, transfers typically took three-and-a-half hours. Now, with flight nurses and flight paramedics having to put on and safely remove masks, gloves, gowns and goggles in the searing desert heat, the process can take hours longer. And at times, he’s had to tell hospitals they’ll have to wait because “we just don’t have anybody.”

Imperial has become the entryway for U.S. citizens living in Mexico seeking medical care. Around 7,000 people in the county have contracted the virus. More than 100 have died, with almost one in four people tested turning up positive.

Recently, Green said, Imperial County reached out to San Francisco’s public health department for assistance. So did Marin County, where an outbreak at San Quentin State Prison has sickened more than 1,000 inmates and sent officials scrambling to find hospital space, including by reopening a surge site at the beleaguered Seton Medical Center in Daly City. UCSF has taken at least four patients from the prison.

Hospitals can also reach out directly to other hospitals, according to Stanford Health Care’s associate chief nursing officer, Rudy Arthofer, who oversees transfer care at Stanford. And in a disaster scenario like the ongoing pandemic, state agencies can step in.

If a hospital needs help with intensive or specialty care, they request that. If they’ve run out of capacity more generally to provide what’s known as acute care, they will ask for help with that. Very sick patients in Imperial County might not be stable enough for, say, an airplane trip to San Francisco International Airport. So they might be transferred by ambulance to an adjacent county, like Riverside, instead.

But as fewer hospitals have space to accommodate transfer patients, the logistics of getting everybody the care they need get more complicated.

According to the state’s hospital data, Imperial, which has fewer than 300 beds and a couple of dozen ICU beds, was down to zero ICU beds on June 22, a figure that has since fluctuated but remained low. At the end of June, Riverside, which has roughly 385 ICU beds under normal circumstances, had filled nearly all of them. And health officials are warning that the more than 2,000 ICU beds in Los Angeles could be full in weeks.

As hospitals in the Bay Area prepare to accept more transfer patients, they’re also trying to balance the need to provide specialty care.

“As we begin to receive more COVID-19 transfers we are also trying to maintain our ability to provide this other much-needed service to patients across Northern California,” Green said.

Counties and hospitals keep track of not only how many beds they have available, but other resources like personal protective gear for health care workers and medication, like remdesivir, one of the first drugs that has shown promise to treat the virus but one that is in short supply.

 

“Because the number of COVID-19-positive inpatients at Stanford Health Care is still low (16 as of June 30), medication supply levels, including remdesivir, are not a concern in the decision to accept transfer patients,” Arthofer said.

The state is closely tracking and moving resources, too, from health care workers to equipment like ventilators to supplies. If local and regional resources run low, the state can step in to fill the request from elsewhere or seek assistance from the Department of Homeland Security’s national stockpile of supplies.

“This is a new day and age, and it’s been a lot of learning for everybody,” Cardenas said. “A lot of people say take care of yourself, but even on your days off, you’re not really off because you’re trying to prepare mentally for tomorrow.”

Overwhelmed Southern California transferring coronavirus patients to Bay Area hospitals

Quest, LabCorp warn of covid testing delays as demand surges amid outbreaks

As COVID-19 test positivity rates resurged in recent weeks, private test providers have made efforts to sound the alarm that the rising demand for testing may outpace their ability to process the new influx without accumulating a backlog.

The development is eerily reminiscent of initial coronavirus testing failures in the U.S. when the pandemic first hit earlier this year.

Despite massive increases in the ability to process COVID-19 tests across the country in recent months, in the last week, two of the top commercial testing labs — Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp — both said their testing capacity is under strain amid coronavirus outbreaks that hit predominantly southern and western states hardest.

In a statement last week, Quest Diagnostics said that while the company had the capacity to perform about 770,000 COVID-19 tests a week, “Despite the rapid expansion of our testing capacity, demand for testing has been growing faster. Orders for our molecular diagnostic services grew by approximately 50% over the past three weeks”

By Monday, Quest’s message became more dire, with the company saying in a statement, “Demand for COVID-19 molecular diagnostic testing reaches unprecedented levels, extending turnaround times.”

“We have continued to experience surging demand for these services, with recent daily orders outpacing capacity. As a result, while our average turnaround time continues to be 1 day for priority 1 patients, it is now 3-5 days for all other populations,” Quest said. Priority 1 patients include hospital patients, pre-operative patients in acute care settings and symptomatic health care workers.

The commercial lab is ramping up its testing capacity with the goal of being able to process 150,000 molecular diagnostic tests a day. This week, Quest expects to ramp up our capacity to reach 115,000 of these tests a day.

“While we have the supplies to meet our current capacity target, we continue to work with our industry partners on platforms, reagent test kits and other supplies to ramp to our target capacity of 150,000 tests a day,” the commercial lab added.

Quest Diagnostics has performed and reported results of approximately 5.75 million COVID-19 molecular diagnostic tests and approximately 2.20 million COVID-19 antibody tests.

As for LabCorp, the other top commercial lab company processing COVID-19 tests, the turnaround for processing tests will be delayed due to increasing demands in the supply chain, the company said in a statement issued over the weekend and updated Tuesday.

“In recent weeks, we have seen a steady increase in demand for molecular testing and we are doing everything we can to continue delivering results in a timely manner while continually increasing testing capacity,” LabCorp said in the statement, adding the new update on Tuesday that “with the recent increase in demand, results on average may take 1-2 days longer.”

The commercial lab added, “LabCorp also continues developing innovations in COVID-19 testing to increase capacity, eliminate supply constraints, and increase access and convenience for specific markets and populations.”

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/quest-labcorp-warn-coronavirus-testing-delays-demand-surges/story

Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine Produces More Antibodies Than the Disease Itself

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is developing four coronavirus vaccines — but it may have struck gold on the first try.

On July 1, the company released the preliminary results for its first coronavirus vaccine trial, and based on the available data, Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine appears to have triggered a strong immune response in study participants.

Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine appears to be both effective and tolerable.

“Our first vaccine candidate is eliciting antibody levels to neutralize the virus that is equivalent to or better than what you see in people who have had COVID-19,” Phil Dormitzer, a Pfizer vaccine developer, told ABC News.

This news means Pfizer and its partner, German company BioNTech, are still on track to produce 100 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine in 2020, according to Dormitzer.

“The goal that we’ve set is to distribute millions of vaccine doses in 2020 and executing on that, of course, means everything has to go well,” he said. “We need the regulatory approval to do so. But that is our plan.”

Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine

Pfizer enlisted 45 healthy adults, ages 18-55, in its combined Phase 1 and 2 vaccine trial. Nine of the participants received a placebo. The rest were divided equally into three groups that received 10-microgram, 30-mcg, or 100-mcg doses of the vaccine.

Three weeks later, Pfizer gave participants in the 10-mcg and 30-mcg groups a second dose of the vaccine. Those in the placebo group received another dose of the placebo.

(The 100-mcg group didn’t receive a second dose of anything, as about half of them experienced a fever after the first shot, suggesting that dose was too high.)

Seven days after receiving the second dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, the people in the 10-mcg and 30-mcg groups had levels of coronavirus antibodies in their blood that were high enough to neutralize the virus, according to Pfizer’s study, published on the preprint server medRXiv.

None of the participants suffered severe side effects, though more than half of those who received a second dose did report some kind of adverse reaction, such as a fever or sleep disturbance.

Pfizer is now seeking approval to begin a combined Phase 2b and 3 trial, involving up to 30,000 healthy participants in late July.

A Scalable Coronavirus Vaccine

This is all good news, as it suggests Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine tends to be both effective and tolerable. However, there are reasons to temper expectations.

The results of the trial have yet to be peer-reviewed, and the sample size was small and limited, meaning we don’t know if the vaccine would have the same antibody-generating effect in minors, seniors, or pregnant women.

“The goal that we’ve set is to distribute millions of vaccine doses in 2020.”

Phil Dormitzer

There is one other big reason to be hopeful about this vaccine, though.

Like the vaccine that Moderna is currently developing, Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine uses a gene-based technology, called messenger RNA, to prompt the creation of antibodies.

This type of vaccine is extremely new — the FDA has yet to approve a single mRNA vaccine — but it would be far easier to produce in large quantities than most other types of vaccines, meaning that Pfizer’s goal of manufacturing 1.2 billion doses in 2021, while ambitious, is potentially achievable.

https://www.freethink.com/articles/pfizers-covid-19-vaccine