New Coronavirus News from 9 Mar 2022

How Hong Kong Became China's Biggest COVID-19 Problem [TIME, 9 Mar 2022]

BY CHAD DE GUZMAN

Patients are treated at a makeshift area outside Caritas Medical Center in Hong Kong, March 2

Friday, Mar. 4 was an ominous day in the history of the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Health authorities recorded 294 cases, of which 233 were imported. To countries around the world that have made the decision to live with coronavirus and tally daily caseloads in the tens of thousands, these were figures to be envied. But with its zero-COVID policy, China steadfastly refuses to allow the virus to establish a foothold within its borders.

Worryingly, nearly half the imported figure—117 cases—were recorded in China’s most populous province, the southern economic powerhouse of Guangdong. The great majority of those cases, 96, were found in the city of Shenzhen, a booming technology and finance hub that is the jewel of the province. The others were discovered in nearby cities like Zhuhai and Zhongshan—and all but two of the imported cases originated from Hong Kong, where cases have exploded, fueled by the highly contagious Omicron variant. Two days earlier, on Mar. 2, the one-time British colony recorded more than 55,000 cases in a single day and earned the ghastly distinction of being the place with the highest COVID-19 mortality rate in the developed world.

Hong Kong’s differences with China are often emphasized. It is a Chinese territory, but operates semi-autonomously, with its own legal, political, and financial systems, and issuing its own travel documents. But while Hong Kong has an administrative border with China, it and the eight other cities of Guangdong’s Greater Bay Area are physically part of one vast, contiguous conurbation of 86 million people. The office towers of Shenzhen loom over Hong Kong’s northern suburbs and the two municipalities are connected by ferry, bus, and rail services that, at their quickest, take just 20 minutes.

Although only limited movement between Hong Kong and the mainland has been permitted during the pandemic, with significant restrictions on travelers, it is inevitable that Hong Kong’s COVID-19 crisis would spread to the densely populated hinterland, given its proximity.

Imported cases from Hong Kong have now been found in at least seven Guangdong cities and provincial authorities are scrambling to contain the damage.

The stakes are enormous. Modeling by Chinese researchers projects that hundreds of millions of infections would spread across the country, resulting in at least three million deaths, without aggressive zero-COVID policies. Given its patchy healthcare system and critically low number of ICU beds, a breach of the COVID defenses could spell disaster.

For now, most of the imported cases “will not spread infection because of the very strict precautions, the testing and the quarantine,” says Ben Cowling, who heads the division of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Hong Kong’s (HKU) School of Public Health. But, he warns, “the more opportunities the virus has, sooner or later, it will find a way.”

Leo Poon, head of the public health laboratory science division at HKU, agrees. He points out that even if travelers from Hong Kong present negative tests when entering mainland China, “they may still be in the incubation period” and “be able to spread the disease.”

With the Shenzhen skyline visible in the background, construction workers assemble a temporary Covid-19 isolation facility in Lok Ma Chau, Hong Kong, Feb. 27.

Hong Kong’s COVID-19 exodus
There was a dramatic exodus from Hong Kong during the first two years of the pandemic, as businesses and individuals chafed under onerous travel restrictions—including a notorious 21-day quarantine—imposed by local authorities to keep COVID-19 out. The latest wave of infection is only fueling the outflow of people, as thousands choose to leave Hong Kong altogether or sit out the surge elsewhere.

Many are fleeing stringent isolation requirements that have seen babies separated from parents and people fully recovered from COVID-19 left to languish in makeshift government holding centers days after meeting discharge criteria. The mental toll of extended confinement can be severe. In February, four suicide attempts were recorded in just over 24 hours at the notorious Penny’s Bay quarantine center, which one inhabitant described as like “living inside a mad house.”

“We don’t know what the government situation is going to be like, what sort of measures they’re going to take,” Hong Kong resident Edward Zhao tells TIME. “It’s just the uncertainty of what happens in the situation where the government decides to put you in quarantine.”

The 32-year-old is eyeing New Zealand as a temporary refuge. Singapore is another popular bolt hole. Australia has also seen a recent spike, mostly from middle-aged Hong Kong residents enrolling in degree courses Down Under, in the hope that they can bring their dependents with them on student visas.

Thousands more, however, are simply trying their luck in mainland China. Not all enter legally and undergo the mandatory two-week quarantine at a government-specified hotel. According to media reports, a few have paid people smugglers to get them across the border—potentially bringing COVID with them.

Guangdong authorities have been galvanized into action. Some cities are offering the equivalent of almost $80,000—more than four times the province’s average annual salary—as a reward for information leading to the detention of anyone from Hong Kong on the mainland illegally. Shenzhen has imposed strict lockdowns on city districts that abut the Hong Kong border. Security personnel train powerful searchlights on the coastline nightly, looking for Hong Kong’s COVID-19 refugees.

The irony is not lost on anyone in Hong Kong. Throughout its brief history, the affluent territory has been a place of sanctuary for those fleeing turmoil further north, be it war, hunger or communist revolution. The pattern of migration has never been reversed, until now.

Customers purchase Covid-19 rapid antigen test kits from a store on March 1 in Hong Kong

Anthony Kwan—Getty Images
How bad is Hong Kong’s current COVID-19 situation?

From the start of the pandemic in early 2020, to the beginning of the latest surge on Dec. 31 last year, Hong Kong registered a little over 12,000 infections and some 200 deaths in a population of 7.4 million. Harsh travel restrictions may have virtually cut the city off from the world, but they allowed Hong Kong to avoid the dangerously overburdened healthcare systems and high death tolls caused by the coronavirus elsewhere. The local economy even rebounded in 2021, with a 6.4% gain wiping out the 6.5% contraction of the year before.

These days, however, Hong Kong’s COVID-19 defenses are in stunning collapse. In just over two months, cases have soared to more than half a million and deaths have increased tenfold.
Bodies are piling up in ER departments because mortuaries are full. Hospitals are bursting with COVID-19 patients. Hundreds of thousands have lined up for hours, in all weather, for mandatory tests, ordered if contact tracers deem somebody to be the close contact of a case. (The results can take more than 10 days to arrive however, severely undermining their usefulness.)

Hong Kong’s desperately overcrowded housing—which can see as many as eight people share a 200 sq. ft. apartment—meanwhile makes self-isolation a luxury. Some people testing positive are sleeping in tenement stairwells, or in parks, to avoid infecting loved ones. The government’s equivocal messaging on whether or not a lockdown will be imposed has sparked waves of panic buying, with supermarket shelves stripped bare. Adding to the confusion, neither Hong Kong’s top official, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, nor the health secretary, Sophia Chan, held a press conference on the crisis between Feb. 22 and Mar. 9. Hundreds of thousands of cases were recorded during that crucial period.

“The [Hong Kong] government is sending conflicting signals,” says Jean-Pierre Cabestan, professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University. “It’s really a mess.”

Perhaps most glaring is the failure to protect the community most vulnerable to COVID-19: the elderly. Coronavirus has rampaged through more than 80% of the city’s residential care homes for seniors, infecting over 19,000 residents and 5,300 staffers. Just 15% of care home residents have been jabbed. Unsurprisingly, nine out of every 10 COVID-19 deaths in Hong Kong have occurred among the unvaccinated, most of them over the age of 70.

Karen Grépin, associate professor in health economics and policy at HKU’s School of Public Health, says sensationalized media coverage of side effects fueled vaccine hesitancy. She also believes that early messaging from the government, which recommended seeking medical opinion before vaccination, created the idea that vaccines were only for the healthy. “The elderly and those with underlying medical conditions began to believe that they were not good candidates for vaccination,” she tells TIME via email.

The consequences have been devastating. As one local Twitter user put it, while posting a photo of patients lying on gurneys in the forecourt of an overcrowded hospital: “Hong Kong, you’ve had two years to prepare for this.”

A man sits on a hill overlooking a residential estate in Hong Kong on March 4. COVID-19 has spread rapidly in the city's densely populated urban environment

What is China doing about Hong Kong’s COVID-19 crisis?

The central government has not hidden its disappointment in the city’s leadership. On Feb. 16, two pro-Beijing newspapers in Hong Kong ran front page stories on a message relayed to Chief Executive Lam by President Xi Jinping. He reportedly asked her to “mobilize all power and resources to take all necessary measures to ensure the safety and health of the Hong Kong people.” That the instruction was delivered so openly was considered highly significant—in effect, it was letting the Hong Kong public know that Xi had put Lam on notice.

Two weeks later, the head of Beijing’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, Xia Baolong, tersely reminded Hong Kong’s most senior officials to uphold their oaths of office. “Top Hong Kong officials must have the courage to shoulder arduous responsibility, and do a good job in organization and leadership, and fulfill their inaugural oath with concrete actions in the battle against the pandemic,” he said. A mainland expert on Hong Kong’s constitutional affairs told local media that the remarks amounted to “a warning letter” and that “the central government is saying that this is huge trouble.”

More recently, on Mar. 6, Chinese vice premier Han Zheng met Hong Kong delegates to the nation’s top advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. He told them that this was no time for “weariness” in the fight against COVID-19, expressed concern at the territory’s mortality rate, and voiced the hope that reports of Hong Kong’s private hospitals turning away coronavirus patients were “fake news.”

Shortly afterward, Liang Wannian of China’s National Health Commission appeared to rebuke Hong Kong officials, who have made compulsory universal testing the cornerstone of their strategy to tame the current surge in infections. “Reducing infection, severe cases and deaths is Hong Kong’s most urgent and top priority at the current stage,” Liang told China’s Xinhua news agency, adding that mass testing could come “after we achieve the first target.” The local administration seemingly backed down, with unnamed insiders telling local media that the exercise could be postponed for a month.

Read More: What the World Can Learn From China’s COVID-19 Rules at the Beijing Olympics
Sensing the threat that Hong Kong poses to its zero-COVID record, Beijing has involved Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, who leads the mainland’s fight against COVID-19. The deputy head of the National Health Commission, Wang Hesheng, a veteran of the original Wuhan outbreak, is assisting. According to media reports, hundreds of personnel have set up a Shenzhen command center to respond to developments in Hong Kong, working 16 hour days and authorized to cut through any red tape, given the urgency of the situation.

The coming weeks will be crucial. On Mar. 6, China reported some of its highest COVID-19 figures since Wuhan—and of the 214 new cases, nearly a third were found in Guangdong, the province bordering Hong Kong.

China’s zero-COVID strategy has been extremely successful. Since the start of the pandemic, the world’s most populous nation has registered just over 111,000 cases, with 4,636 deaths. It even managed to stage the Winter Olympics without major mishap. Could that be about to change as a result of Hong Kong’s Omicron surge?

“I would imagine in the mainland, there’ll be a lot of concern right now about the risk posed by people traveling from Hong Kong,” says HKU’s Cowling.

“There’ll be an unlucky event, where there’s transmission to, maybe, local staff in a hotel, or to local testing staff, or something—and then that will start an outbreak.”

New Coronavirus News from 15 Mar 2022

China orders 51 million into lockdown amid worst COVID outbreak since early 2020 [KTRK-TV, 15 Mar 2022]

by Britt Clennett and Karson Yiu

The entire northeastern province of Jilin and southern cities of Shenzhen and Dongguan are locked down.

HONG KONG -- China is facing its worst COVID crisis since early 2020, when the world first witnessed an entire population locked down to contain the coronavirus in Wuhan and its surrounding province.

Two years on, it's now sending tens of millions of people into lockdown in the entire northeastern province of Jilin, where 24 million people live, and the southern cities of Shenzhen and Dongguan, with 17.5 million and 10 million, respectively.

China, the last major country to relentlessly pursue a COVID-zero policy, reported 1,437 cases across dozens of cities on Monday. That's a fourfold jump in a week.

Although record case numbers are testing the resilience of China's no-tolerance approach, there is no sign the country is willing to pivot to 'living with the virus."

The epicenter of the omicron variant outbreak is the Northeastern Jilin province, where 895 cases were recorded, but there are also outbreaks and containment measures in place Shanghai, the financial powerhouse, and Shenzhen, the southern tech hub.

Authorities announced on Monday afternoon that all 24 million people in Jilin province would go into lockdown, including the previously locked down city of Changchun. It's the first provincial lockdown since Wuhan and Hubei in January 2020.

On Sunday, China ordered all of Shenzhen's 17.5 million residents into a seven-day lockdown, with three rounds of testing. All public transport is halted and all businesses, except essential services, will be closed until March 20.

As a result, Apple supplier Foxconn has shut two of its plants in the area and relocated production elsewhere.

The lockdown and outbreaks threaten manufacturing and tech production in Shenzhen, known as China's Silicon Valley. It's home to Huawei and Tencent, and is home to one of the country's key ports.

Professor Heiwai Tang at Hong Kong University told ABC News that he doesn't expect these week-long lockdowns to have a significant impact on the country's gross domestic product.

"It seems the lockdowns will be shorter this time with more tracking, which means a short disruption of work and production," Tang said. "If it ends up lasting for weeks it's another issue, including inflation risks."

Professor Michael Song from Hong Kong's Chinese University estimated that the two-month lockdown in Wuhan cost China 2% of its GDP.

There's immense pressure on local authorities to contain the virus, with state media reporting that the Jilin City mayor and the head of the Changchun city health commission were dismissed from their roles over the weekend.

Shanghai-based virologist Zhang Wenhong called the flare-up "the most difficult moment in the past two years" of China's efforts to stamp out the virus. Shanghai has so far avoided a full-scale lockdown.

Across the border from Shenzhen, neighboring Hong Kong is also still tackling its deadliest wave yet, driven by Omicron. Hong Kong recorded 26,908 cases and 286 more deaths on Monday, officials said. Hong Kong's death rate is the highest in the developed world, in part because of sluggish vaccination rates among the elderly.

Mega isolation facilities are being built across the Hong Kong for people with mild cases. One facility, with 3,900 beds, was built in a week. ABC News witnessed several busloads of people arriving at the facility from all over the city.

Self-titled "Asia's world city," Hong Kong is undergoing strict social-distancing measures and still has strict border measures in place, leading to an expat exodus. Many businesses are closed until late April.

The mental-health strain of the strict lockdown has also becoming apparent. Last month, police reported three suicide attempts in 27 hours at one of the quarantine camps.

New Coronavirus News from 14 Mar 2022

Two years into the coronavirus pandemic, Fauci hopes the world will not forget lessons from a 'catastrophic experience' [CNBC, 14 Mar 2022]

by Meg Tirrell

As the two-year anniversary of the coronavirus pandemic declaration approached last week, White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci was in no mood to predict the future.

“The answer is: We don’t know. I mean, that’s it,” Fauci told CNBC when asked what may come next for Covid-19 vaccinations. Given the durability of protection from the shots, “it is likely that we’re not done with this when it comes to vaccines,” he said.

Two years into a pandemic that has killed more than 6 million people globally, and nearly 1 million in the U.S., leaders in public health, academia and industry expressed ambivalence as much of the rest of the world — or at least the U.S. — appears to be trying to move on.
Despite progress in beating back the highly transmissible omicron variant, they stressed that globe leaders cannot let their vigilance lapse.

“Everybody wants to return to normal, everybody wants to put the virus behind us in the rearview mirror, which is, I think, what we should aspire to,” said Fauci, who is also the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

While he acknowledged “we are going in the right direction” as cases, hospitalizations and deaths decline after the omicron surge, he pointed out “we have gone in the right direction in four other variants” before the pandemic took a devastating turn.

As states and cities scrap many of their pandemic restrictions, dire public health conditions linger. The U.S. is still recording more than 1,200 deaths per day from the coronavirus.
Hospitalizations have recently ticked higher in the United Kingdom, a previous harbinger for what may hit the U.S.

As the world on Friday marked two years since the World Health Organization first called the coronavirus a pandemic, the agency’s scientists argued last week that the more important anniversary came more than a month earlier. In January 2020, the WHO warned that the disease that would come to be known as Covid-19 was a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

“Everybody wants to return to normal, everybody wants to put the virus behind us in the rearview mirror, which is, I think, what we should aspire to... We have been going in the right direction; however, we have gone in the right direction in four other variants.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci
DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

“What we were saying in January was: ‘It’s coming, it’s real, get ready,’” said Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s health emergencies program, in a briefing Thursday. “What I was most stunned by was the lack of response, was the lack of urgency, in relation to WHO’s highest level of alert.”

That lower level of urgency appears to have settled in once again. Congress last week sidelined new funding for the Covid response despite White House press secretary Jen Psaki’s warning that the U.S. needs funds to secure critical supplies.

She said that without more aid, the U.S. risks dropping testing capacity within weeks, running out of monoclonal antibody drugs by May — exhausting the only medicine to preventively protect the immunocompromised by July — and going through antiviral pills by September.

“I am concerned,” Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday morning about the lack of new federal funding. He noted that because vaccine boosters and antiviral pills are only cleared through Emergency Use Authorization, the government is the only allowed purchaser.

“So if the government doesn’t have money, nobody can get the vaccine,” Bourla said.

While concerns about pandemic preparedness have not gone away, neither has work on the vaccines, new medicines and Covid surveillance.

Moderna said last week that it had started a trial of a vaccine against both omicron and the original strain of the virus to help inform public health authorities making decisions about boosters for the fall.

Bourla also said Friday that Pfizer expects to submit data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration soon for a fourth shot, or a second booster, of its vaccine. He said data shows that while protection against hospitalization and death from the omicron variant is high with three doses, “it doesn’t last long — after three or four months, it starts waning.”

Dr. Clay Marsh, chancellor and executive dean for health sciences at West Virginia University and the state’s Covid czar, agreed that emerging information from Israel and the UK — both of which are administering additional doses to the elderly — supports considering additional boosters in the U.S.

“To me, that’s something that the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and the FDA should be leading,” Marsh said. “And I don’t see it.”

Marsh said the state has enough vaccine supply to administer additional boosters, if authorized. He noted that antiviral pills — or at least the most preferred one, Pfizer’s Paxlovid — still are not plentiful.

States have received about 689,000 courses of Paxlovid since it started shipping in December, federal data shows, compared with more than 2 million courses of Merck’s antiviral pill, molnupiravir. But Merck’s drug is typically a last-choice option for prescribers due to lower efficacy and safety concerns for some groups, Marsh said.

He noted that Paxlovid can also be complicated to prescribe because it interacts with some commonly used medications, like statins.

Monoclonal antibody drugs are typically the next choice after Paxlovid, he explained. There are two available as treatments — sotrovimab, from Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline, and bebtelovimab, just authorized from Eli Lilly — after omicron rendered earlier antibody drugs such as a Regeneron cocktail ineffective.

In an interview last week, Regeneron’s chief scientist said the company is assessing variants to decide on the best new combination of antibodies to bring through clinical testing and the FDA authorization process.

“What we learned is that no single antibody and even the cocktail of antibodies that we employed can withstand all these variants,” Regeneron’s Dr. George Yancopoulos explained.
“So what you have to have is a very large collection of different antibodies, which is what we’ve been assembling over the years.”

He said the company is discussing with the FDA a strategy to have a series of antibody drugs tested in humans for safety and initial data. In the case of a new surge, Regeneron would be able to rapidly choose the right antibodies to put in a new drug.

The timeline for getting that drug to market would depend on whether the agency adopts a more flexible regulatory pathway, similar to what it did for Covid vaccines, he said. It could mean the difference between months and weeks for the availability of a new drug during a surge.

Whether another surge will take place is, of course, an open question. Cases have climbed slightly in Europe, Evercore ISI’s Michael Newshel pointed out Thursday in his research note on Covid surveillance. What’s more, The U.K.’s rise in hospitalizations has perplexed experts there.

In the U.S., the University of California San Francisco’s Dr. Bob Wachter suggested the U.K. data may mean a “need to resume more caution in a month or two.”

If a new surge happens, the first clues may come from wastewater. While the U.S. system for monitoring sewage for upticks in the coronavirus is still piecemeal, in cities where it is employed, it can provide a lead time of as many as a few weeks before cases start to rise, said Dr. Mariana Matus, CEO and co-founder of Biobot Analytics.

The company works with a network of wastewater treatment plants across 37 states, covering about 20 million people. Each week, it tests samples comprising less than a cup of wastewater for their concentration of the coronavirus; one $350 test can represent between 10,000 and 2 million people, Matus said in an interview.

“People who get infected with the disease will start shedding very early on ahead of developing symptoms,” she explained. “So they start to produce a signal in the wastewater even before they feel that they should go and get a test. And that’s super powerful.”

Testing volumes have declined along with the omicron health crisis in the U.S., making this kind of passive surveillance more helpful, especially in large population centers like New York City and Los Angeles, Marsh said.

Though cases are declining, experts stressed it’s not time to become complacent about Covid.

“The problem here and throughout the world is that the memory of what happened fades very quickly,” Fauci warned. “I would hope that this completely catastrophic experience that we’ve had over the last two-plus years will make it so that we don’t forget, and we do the kind of pandemic preparedness that is absolutely essential.”

S. Korea's new COVID-19 cases above 300,000 for 3rd day as omicron rages [The Korea Herald, 14 Mar 2022]

South Korea reported more than 300,000 new COVID-19 cases for a third consecutive day Monday as the virus wave, fueled by the highly contagious omicron variant, continued to grip the nation.

The country added 309,790 new COVID-19 infections, the majority of which coming from local transmissions, putting the total caseload at 6,866,222, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.

Monday's count is a drop from the previous day's 350,190, due largely to fewer tests on the weekend. South Korea logged an all-time high of 383,664 on Saturday, after reporting more than 300,000 virus cases for the first time last Wednesday.

The death toll from COVID-19 came to 10,595, up 200 from Sunday, with the fatality rate standing at 0.15 percent.

The number of critically ill patients hit a record high of 1,158, up 84 from the previous day.

As of 9 p.m. Monday, 324,917 new cases had been confirmed nationwide, up 23,373 from the same time the previous day, according to health authorities and local governments.

Daily cases are counted until midnight and announced the following morning.

South Korea has seen the infection cases spike exponentially since the beginning of this year, with the daily figures soaring from four digits to five digits in late January. It took 13 days to jump from 100,000 to 200,000 and eight days to top 300,000.

In a step to rein in the virus surge, the government announced the inoculation program for some 3.07 million children aged between 5 and 11 starting March 31.

The decision was made in consideration that those in the age group account for more than 15 percent of all COVID-19 patients, Interior Minister Jeon Hae-cheol said in a briefing on the virus response.

He added the vaccines have proven to be "safe and effective" in other countries that introduced the vaccination program ahead of South Korea.

The first batch of Pfizer vaccines, approved for children, was set to arrive in South Korea by air later in the day, officials said.

The government projects the omicron wave to enter its peak stage this week. The daily average of infected patients soared from 190,000 in the first week of March to 280,000 last week.

Sohn Young-rae, a senior health ministry official, told reporters that the government will consider readjusting social distancing rules. The current measures, which are due to end this week, include an 11 p.m. curfew for restaurants and cafes, and a six-person cap on private gatherings.

Health authorities have shifted the focus to treating serious cases and preventing deaths, ending its rigorous contact tracing program seen as a successful containment strategy in the early days of the pandemic.

Starting this week, uninfected students and school staff members can attend school in person even if family members who live with them are virus positive.

Of the locally transmitted cases reported Monday, 56,807 cases came from Seoul and 77,420 from the surrounding Gyeonggi Province.

The western port city of Incheon reported 18,238 cases. Cases from overseas rose 62 to 30,302.

Of the 52 million population, 32.1 million people, or 62.6 percent, had received booster shots as of Monday. The number of fully vaccinated people came to 44.43 million, representing 86.6 percent.

Vaccine maker stocks rise as China battles worst Covid outbreak since 2020 [CNBC, 14 Mar 2022]

by Spencer Kimball

Shares of the major vaccine makers rose on Monday as China battles its worst Covid outbreak since 2020, fueling fear that the pandemic will drag on which could drive demand for future vaccine orders.

Moderna’s stock jumped more than 8% to close at $150.07. In the morning, the biotech company’s stock had surged nearly 20% to hit an intraday high of $166.75.

BioNTech soared 12% to close at $151.92, Pfizer jumped 4% to $52.25, and Johnson & Johnson rose more than 1% to $171.69. Novavax turned negative and closed down more than 1% at $71.93, after jumping nearly 15% in the morning to hit an intraday high of $83.25.

The vaccine makers’ stocks rose even as the broader market fell, with traders monitoring the impact of the war in Ukraine and anticipating a rate hike by the Federal Reserve this week.

Major cities in China have placed fresh restrictions on business activity to fight the outbreak, driven by the omicron Covid variant. Shenzhen, a major tech hub in southern China, has told companies to halt all non-essential business activity or have employees work from home, while Changchun in the northeast has entered a lockdown. Apple supplier Foxconn has halted production in Shenzhen, while Toyota and Volkswagen have suspended production in Changchun.

In Shanghai, China’s financial hub, schools have gone back to online classes and officials told residents not to leave the city unless absolutely necessary. China has a strict zero-Covid strategy that uses tough measures to quickly stamp out outbreaks.

Mainland China reported more than 1,400 new Covid infections as of Sunday for a total of over 8,500 domestically transmitted cases, according to China’s National Health Commission. While low by international standards, it’s the most in China since March of 2020. China has not reported any new Covid deaths.

Jefferies’ analysts, in a note on Monday, said the outbreak and lockdowns in China have fueled fear among investors that the pandemic will take longer to resolve than expected.


“Vaccine makers will continue to trade on global fear of more waves,” Michael Yee, an equity analyst, wrote in the Monday note.

While China will likely continue to rely on its domestic vaccine Sinopharm, the outbreak will keep the world on alert and probably drive demand for Moderna’s vaccine on the margins, according the Jefferies’ note. Moderna is projecting at least $19 billion in vaccine sales for 2022, while Pfizer is projecting $32 billion in revenue for its shots.

In the U.S., Covid infections continue to decline after an unprecedented surge of infection driven by the omicron variant in December and January. The U.S. reported an average of more than 35,000 new Covid cases on Sunday, a 24% drop from the week prior, according to a CNBC analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University. New Covid cases in the U.S. peaked at an average of more than 800,000 cases a day on Jan. 15. However, more than 1,200 people are still dying every day on average from Covid in the U.S., though that’s down 9% from the week prior, according to the data.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week that 98% of people in the U.S. now live in areas where they no longer need to wear facemasks in indoor public places.

Dr. Gottlieb says China is 'very vulnerable' to omicron subvariant spread despite 'zero-Covid policy' [CNBC, 14 Mar 2022]

by Krystal Hur

Low levels of natural immunity are complicating China’s efforts to limit spread during its recent surge in cases of the new Covid omicron BA.2 subvariant, Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Monday.

“China has a population that’s very vulnerable to this new variant. This is a much more contagious variant, it’s going to be harder to control, and they don’t have a population that has natural immunity,” the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner said in an interview on “Squawk Box.”

The BA.2 omicron subvariant, colloquially called “stealth” omicron, was first identified in late 2021.

“They haven’t deployed vaccines that are very effective against this particular variant, this omicron variant, and so they’re very vulnerable to spread right now. They didn’t use the time that they bought themselves to really put in place measures that would prevent omicron from spreading,” said Gottlieb, who is on the board of Covid vaccine maker Pfizer.

The increasing number of BA.2 cases in mainland China has led some major cities on Monday to shutter nonessential businesses and move schools to online instruction. The outbreak is the mainland’s worst since the height of the pandemic in 2020, and the strict response to it indicates a continuation of China’s zero-Covid strategy.

China’s zero-Covid policy entails strict quarantines and travel restrictions both domestic and international. While the policy has successfully kept cases down since the height of the pandemic, health officials have warned that China’s resulting lack of exposure to Covid leaves it vulnerable to harder-to-control strains such as omicron.

The latest omicron outbreak in China also has economic repercussions, since it could hinder already struggling supply chains, particularly for tech companies.

Apple shares dropped more than 2% midday, as the Chinese city of Shenzhen’s health orders halted activity at production plants of Foxconn, an important supplier to the iPhone maker. Activity will resume once Foxconn receives government approval to do so, the company told CNBC.

Gottlieb said China’s outbreak could be bigger than what is being reported, adding uncertainty to the situation.

“We really don’t know how large the outbreak is in China right now,” Gottlieb said. “We don’t know if there’s tens of thousands of cases or hundreds of thousands of cases.”

Mainland China reported 1,437 new confirmed cases as of Sunday for a total of 8,531 domestically transmitted active cases.

“People are going to get infected in those homes where they’re confining people right now, and the big question is: How much infection do they have and how long will this last?” Gottlieb said.

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic testing start-up Tempus, health-care tech company Aetion and biotech company Illumina. He also serves as co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings’ and Royal Caribbean’s “Healthy Sail Panel.”

China locks down entire buildings and even cities as "stealth Omicron" variant fuels record COVID cases [CBS News, 14 Mar 2022]

Taipei, Taiwan — China banned most people from leaving a coronavirus-hit northeastern province and mobilized military reservists Monday as the fast-spreading "stealth Omicron" variant BA.2 fuels the country's biggest outbreak since the start of the pandemic two years ago.

The National Health Commission reported 1,337 locally transmitted cases in the latest 24-hour period, including 895 in the industrial province of Jilin. A government notice said that police permission would be required for people to leave the area or travel from one city to another.

The hard-hit province sent 7,000 reservists to help with the response, from keeping order and registering people at testing centers to using drones to carry out aerial spraying and disinfection, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Hundreds of cases were reported in other provinces and cities along China's east coast and inland as well. Beijing, which had six news cases, and Shanghai, with 41, locked down residential and office buildings where infected people had been found.

"Every day when I go to work, I worry that if our office building will suddenly be locked down then I won't be able to get home, so I have bought a sleeping bag and stored some fast food in the office in advance, just in case," said Yimeng Li, a Shanghai resident.

While mainland China's numbers are small compared to many other countries, and even the semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong, they are the highest since COVID-19 killed thousands in the central city of Wuhan in early 2020. No deaths have been reported in the latest outbreaks.

Hong Kong on Monday reported 26,908 new cases and 249 deaths in its latest 24-hour period. The city counts its cases differently than the mainland, combining both rapid antigen tests and PCR test results.

The city's leader, Carrie Lam, said authorities would not tighten pandemic restrictions for now. "I have to consider whether the public, whether the people would accept further measures," she said at a press briefing.

Mainland China has seen relatively few infections since the initial Wuhan outbreak as the government has held fast to its zero-tolerance strategy, which is focused on stopping transmission of the coronavirus by relying on strict lockdowns and mandatory quarantines for anyone who has come into contact with a positive case.

The government has indicated it will continue to stick to its strategy of stopping transmission for the time being.

Officials on Sunday locked down the southern city of Shenzhen, which has 17.5 million people and is a major tech and finance hub that borders Hong Kong. That followed the lockdown of Changchun, home to 9 million people in Jilin province, starting last Friday.

On Monday, Zhang Wenhong, a prominent infectious disease expert at a hospital affiliated with Shanghai's Fudan University noted in an essay for China's business outlet Caixin that the numbers for the mainland were still in the beginning stages of an "exponential rise."

China's vast passenger rail network said it would cut service significantly, and both China Railway and airlines said they would offer free refunds to people who had already bought tickets. Shanghai suspended bus service to other cities and provinces.

Shanghai has recorded 713 cases in March, of which 632 are asymptomatic cases. China counts positive and asymptomatic cases separately in its national numbers. Schools in China's largest city have switched to remote learning.

In Beijing, several buildings were sealed off over the weekend. Residents said they were willing to follow the zero-tolerance policies despite any personal impact.

"I think only when the epidemic is totally wiped out can we ease up," said Tong Xin, 38, a shop owner in the Silk Market, a tourist-oriented mall in the Chinese capital.

Much of the current outbreak across Chinese cities is being driven by the variant commonly known as "stealth Omicron," or the B.A.2 lineage of the Omicron variant, Zhang noted. Early research suggests it spreads faster than the original Omicron, which itself spread faster than the original virus and other variants.

"But if our country opens up quickly now, it will cause a large number of infections in people in a short period of time," Zhang wrote Monday. "No matter how low the death rate is, it will still cause a run on medical resources and a short term shock to social life, causing irreparable harm to families and society."

Covid-19 cases continue to rise in China's worst outbreak since Wuhan [CNN, 14 Mar 2022]

(CNN)China reported thousands of new local Covid-19 cases Sunday as the Omicron variant drove the worst outbreak in the country since Wuhan in early 2020, according to the National Health Commission (NHC).

Health officials said 2,125 cases were reported across 58 cities in 19 of 31 mainland provinces, marking the fourth consecutive day China reported more than 1,000 daily local cases. More than 10,000 cases have been reported since the latest outbreak began in early March, the NHC said.

Saturday, the commission reported 3,122 local cases -- the highest number of daily infections since the Wuhan outbreak and the first time new cases have exceeded 3,000 in a day, NHC data showed.

Throughout the pandemic, China has adhered to a strict zero-Covid policy that aims to stamp out all outbreaks and chains of transmission using a combination of border controls, mass testing, quarantine procedures and lockdowns.

Nearly half of the total infections in the latest outbreak have been reported in northeastern Jilin province, with 4,605 cases since March 1, when the first clusters of cases in Jilin's border city Yanbian were identified, according to the provincial government.

The bulk of cases on Sunday, 1,026, were also reported in Jilin province, according to the NHC. Jilin province's city of Jilin has locked down 504 neighborhoods and launched eight rounds of mass testing, the municipal government said.

Two major Chinese cities -- northeastern industrial hub Changchun and southern economic hub Shenzhen -- are under lockdown, with more than 26 million residents forbidden from leaving their homes.

Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, recorded 66 positive cases Saturday and health authorities announced in a news release Sunday evening that from March 14 to March 20, all businesses in the city -- apart from those deemed essential or supplying Hong Kong -- would suspend operations or introduce work from home measures.

Public transport has also been suspended, as well as indoor dining, while all public venues excluding grocery stores and pharmacies have been closed, the authorities said.

Shenzhen will conduct three rounds of mass PCR testing for all residents during the lockdown, according to the release. Residents have been advised to avoid leaving the city unless necessary, and those who need to travel must present a negative PCR result issued within 24 hours of their departure.

Major Apple supplier Foxconn announced it suspended its operations in Shenzhen to comply with Covid-19 restrictions in the city.

"The date of factory resumption is to be advised by the local government," Foxconn said, adding "Due to our diversified production sites in China, we have adjusted the production line to minimize the potential impact."

The restrictions imposed on Shenzhen appear less stringent than those on Changchun, a city of 9 million that entered a strict lockdown Friday. Residents there have been banned from leaving their homes, while only one person per household is permitted to go grocery shopping every second day.

In Shanghai, 169 cases were reported Sunday, bringing its total number of infections in this latest outbreak to at least 778 since March 1, according to the municipal government
The city launched a "2+12" policy mandating people in the same neighborhood, workplace or school with close contacts of Covid cases to follow two days of home isolation and 12 days of health monitoring, according to the municipal government. The city also advised its 24.87 million residents not to leave the city unless necessary.

Chinese officials have been under pressure to bring outbreaks under control and have been reprimanded by higher administrations for "poor performance" as cases grow.

China has dismissed at least 26 government officials this month in cities where outbreaks have occurred, including a mayor and a director of municipal health commission in Jilin province, and a vice mayor and a deputy director of the provincial police department in Guangdong.