Baltic Dry Index. 665 -07 Brent Crude 21.44
Spot Gold 1730
Do you know who I am?
Chinese COVID-19 Vaccine Effective in Monkeys
"This is old school but it might
work."
by Victor Tangermann / 20 hours ago
Researchers at Beijing pharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech have developed an experimental COVID-19 vaccine that it says protected macaques from infection, Science Magazine reports.
The vaccine was based on a tried-and-true formulation that included an inactivated version of the virus SARS-CoV-2, as detailed in a preprint uploaded to the server bioRxiv on April 19.
“These data support the rapid clinical development of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines for humans,” reads the paper.
The team at Sinovac injected eight macaque monkeys with two different doses. Three weeks after injection, they introduced the coronavirus straight into the money’s lungs. There were reportedly no side effects.
None of the monkeys developed an infection beyond a small “viral blip.” A less fortunate control group of monkeys developed severe pneumonia after being infected by the virus.
“This is old school but it might work,” Florian Krammer, a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who co-authored a status report on COVID vaccine candidates, told Science Mag. “What I like most is that many vaccine producers, also in lower–middle-income countries, could make such a vaccine.”
Critics say, though, that the sample size in Sinovac’s trial was too small to produce generalizable results. Questions also remain about the viability of the vaccine candidate for use in humans — especially considering that monkeys don’t experience the same severe symptoms of COVID as humans.
In a separate Sinovac experiment, the researchers mixed a cocktail of antibodies from patients in China, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, and the United Kingdom with the virus.
According to the team, the antibodies “potently neutralized 10 representative SARS-CoV-2 strains, indicative of a possible broader neutralizing ability.”
And that’d be good news.
“This provides strong evidence that the virus is not mutating in a way that would make it resistant to a #COVID19 vaccine,” tweeted of Oregon Health & Science University immunologist Mark Slifka on Wednesday.
Sinovac Biotech is now planning trials on thousands of human subjects.
UK to start trials on whether plasma could help COVID-19 patients
April 25, 2020 / 12:04 AM
(Reuters) -
Britain is to start trials to see whether plasma collected from donors who have
recovered from COVID-19 could be an effective treatment for patients who are
severely unwell with the disease.
Up to 5,000
severely ill patients with COVID-19 could soon be treated each week with plasma
as part of a new approach to treating the virus, the health department said on
Saturday.
Plasma from
recovered COVID-19 patients can be transfused to patients who are struggling to
produce their own antibodies against the virus.
So-called
convalescent plasma was used as an effective treatment during the 2002 to 2004
SARS outbreak, the health department said.
In parallel
with the national randomised clinical trial, the government is scaling up the
national programme for collecting plasma so the treatment can be widely rolled
out if it is shown to be effective, the department said.
The
collection of plasma would be ramped up over April and May to deliver up to
10,000 units of plasma to the National Health Service (NHS) every week, enough
to treat 5,000 COVID-19 patients per week.
More
World leaders launch plan to speed COVID-19 drugs, vaccine; U.S. stays away
April 24, 2020 / 12:25 PM
GENEVA/ZURICH (Reuters) - World leaders
pledged on Friday to accelerate work on tests, drugs and vaccines against
COVID-19 and to share them around the globe, but the United States did not take
part in the launch of the World Health Organization (WHO) initiative.
French
President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and South African
President Cyril Ramaphosa were among those who joined a video conference to
launch what the WHO billed as a “landmark collaboration” to fight the pandemic.
The aim is
to speed development of safe and effective drugs, tests and vaccines to
prevent, diagnose and treat COVID-19, the lung disease caused be the novel
coronavirus - and ensure equal access to treatments for rich and poor.
“We are
facing a common threat which we can only defeat with a common approach,” WHO
Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said as he opened the virtual
meeting.
“Experience
has told us that even when tools are available they have not been equally
available to all. We cannot allow that to happen.”
During the
H1N1 swine flu pandemic in 2009, there was criticism that distribution of
vaccines was not equitable as wealthier countries were able to purchase more.
“We must
make sure that people who need them get them,” said Peter Sands, head of the
Global Fund to Fight on AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. “The lessons from AIDS
must be learned. Too many millions died before anti-retroviral medicines were
made widely accessible.”
European
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the objective at a global
pledging effort on May 4 would be to raise 7.5 billion euros ($8.10 billion) to
ramp up work on prevention, diagnostics and treatment.
More
Now
back to the not so good economic news. In America, will party politics over the
coming presidential election, start to slow down the speed of all the free
money economic rescue packages? Or will a race to give everyone free government
money get underway in an attempt to buy the next presidency?
Here’s how bad state budget shortfalls could get, as aid battle set to ramp up
States could experience crushing budget shortfalls worse than seen during the 2008 Great Recession as they grapple with the coronavirus crisis, experts are warning, as debate in Washington turns to the next round of emergency aid.
A recent analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that states appear on the brink of shortfalls that could total more than $500 billion.
In a letter to congressional leaders this week, the National Governors Association asked for that sum to be approved, saying revenue losses will force states and territories “to make drastic cuts to the
programs we depend on to provide economic security, educational opportunities, and public safety.”
The national economic recovery will also be “dramatically hampered” without aid, the NGA wrote.
States are
stressed among other ways by the millions of people filing for unemployment benefits.
California,
for example, is expected to exhaust its unemployment compensation trust fund in
less than two weeks, according to a tracker by the Tax Foundation. California,
New York and Ohio could run out of money to pay claims filed to date by the end
of April, according to the group.
Jared Walczak, the foundation’s director of state tax policy, said relief for the trust funds has been discussed in prior downturns, in the form of forgiving some portion of unemployment insurance loans from the federal government.
President Donald Trump on Thursday signaled he would be open to including aid to states in the next round of assistance from Washington, saying it’s “certainly the next thing we’re going to be discussing.”
But the president left the type of aid vague and suggested Democratic-run states like New Jersey and New York were fiscally irresponsible before the crisis.
Trump’s remarks came after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called in an interview for a “pause” in Washington on more aid. “I think this whole business of additional assistance for state and local governments needs to be thoroughly evaluated,” McConnell told talk show host Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday blasted McConnell’s suggestion that states should pursue bankruptcy rather than ask for more federal aid.
Read:Next coronavirus aid package may not pass Congress until June as battle lines harden.
Oil futures mark a third straight gain, but U.S. prices post a record 32% weekly drop
Oil futures on Friday finished higher for a third straight session, but U.S. prices posted a record weekly loss of more than 32%, as commodity investors attempted to take stock of a historic collapse in prices that cast a spotlight on problems of oversupply and dwindling storage in the energy complex.
After the now-expired May Nymex contract on Monday fell into negative territory for the first time ever, meaning that sellers had to pay buyers to take crude off their hands, market participants have been struggling to manage the unprecedented volatility.
ReadSinking oil demand, drop in oil prices put U.S. fracking activity on track for a record monthly decline: report
“Any meaningful recovery in oil prices is unlikely to last after the utter chaos witnessed earlier this week,” said Lukman Otunuga, senior research analyst at FXTM. “Oil weakness is set to remain a major theme in Q2 given the overwhelming drop in demand, fears around slowing global growth and lack of storage space.”
“At this point, anything and everything is on the cards for both WTI & Brent, and this sentiment will most likely be reflected in price action moving forward,” he told MarketWatch.
June West Texas Intermediate crude CLM20, +4.12%, the U.S. benchmark grade, gained 44 cents, or 2.7%, to settle at $16.94 a barrel, but the contract traded as low as $15.64 in the overnight session. On Thursday, WTI surged nearly 20%.
Gains on Friday marked a third straight advance for the international and U.S. grade oils—the longest such streak of gains since a similar stretch ended March 25.
Despite those outsize gains, WTI still saw a 32.3% decline for the week, based on the June contract. That was the biggest weekly percentage loss on record, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
U.S. weighs taking equity stakes in U.S. energy companies, Mnuchin says
April 24, 2020 / 6:01 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government
is considering taking equity stakes in U.S. energy companies as it seeks to
help the nation’s oil and gas sector amid the coronavirus outbreak, Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday.
President
Donald Trump, speaking at a White House event with Mnuchin, said he wants to
help industry and suggested the federal government could buy fuel for the
country in advance as well as purchase airline tickets in advance.
“We’re
looking at a whole bunch of alternatives,” Mnuchin said.
---- The oil sector has been hit hard by a dramatic drop in demand as the coronavirus has effectively shut down economies around the globe.
“The energy
business is very important to me, and we’re going to build it up. This really
hurt the energy business as much as any other business because it totally
knocked out - the supply kept coming,” Trump said.
Trump helped
negotiate a reduction in output from OPEC and other countries including Russia,
but the move has not removed the market’s oversupply.
The
president encouraged Mnuchin to look at buying oil for later use.
“The United
States is the largest user of oil. We could buy oil at a great price into the
future. That gives them the infusion they need, and we have oil at a great
price into the future,” Trump said.
Trump said
that Russia and Saudi Arabia could make further production cuts amid the glut
in the oil market and added that Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota are cutting
production as well as Canada.
More
Meat shortage looms as coronavirus shuts packing plants, leaving farmers with tough choices
While
consumers face the prospect of meat shortages as coronavirus infections shut
down processing plants across the country, farmers are making tough choices
about what to do with livestock they can’t move to market.
Producers
are already changing ingredients in an effort to slow the growth of hogs and
cattle. David Mensink, who raises around 80,000 hogs a year near Preston,
Minn., said that around two weeks ago he began removing distillers corn oil, a
byproduct of ethanol production, from rations.
“It’s probably
the first time in my life I’ve ever changed a ration to make a pig grow
slower,” he told MarketWatch, in a phone interview as he took a break from
planting corn on Thursday. “We usually do all we can to provide the right
nutrition to make that pig grow as efficiently as we can.”
Despite those efforts, Mensink and other farmers have warned that shutdowns will create a backup that will likely force producers to begin euthanizing hogs.
Animals, of course, don’t stop growing once they reach slaughter weight. Oversize animals face steep discounts from meatpapackers—consumers don’t want oversize hams or other cuts of meat -- and producers also face the prospect of overcrowding.
COVID-19 outbreaks have closed around a dozen meat plants around the country in the past week, according to The Wall Street Journal, including three Tyson Foods Inc. TSN, -3.15% plants, while other facilities have curtailed operations to deal with or avert outbreaks of the deadly pathogen. Grocery executives have warned that supplies of some products could run short within two weeks, the report said.
Altogether, closures and partial shutdowns have taken out around 30% of the country’s hog-slaughter capacity, said Mensink, who is president of the Minnesota Pork Producers Association. That equates to around 150,000 hogs a day, or 750,000 a week. Bloomberg reported that hog producers in eastern Canada have began euthanizing hogs due to bottlenecks there.
Feedlot operators are also taking steps to slow the growth of cattle, but may be able to avoid euthanization for now. That’s because the growth rate of cattle can be more finely tuned than hogs.
More
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/meat-shortage-looms-as-coronavirus-shuts-packing-plants-leaving-farmers-with-tough-choices-2020-04-24?mod=home-page
In other news, Europe’s top economy reels, a new problem surfaces when the global economies come out of all the lockdowns.
'Full fury' of coronavirus sends German business morale to record low
April 24, 2020 / 10:16 AM
“Sentiment
at German companies is catastrophic,” Ifo President Clemens Fuest said in a
statement. “The coronavirus crisis is striking the German economy with full
fury.”
An Ifo
economist said the German economy would see signs of recovery from mid-year at
the earliest, adding that any recovery from a recession sparked by the
coronavirus pandemic would likely not be a V-shaped one.
Germany’s
central bank, the Bundesbank, said on Monday the economy is in a severe
recession. The government has responded with measures including a
750-billion-euro ($806.03 billion) stimulus package.
Another
survey published on Thursday showed that Germany’s private sector recession
deepened in April as services and manufacturing suffered record falls in output
due to the coronavirus outbreak and measures to contain it.
Buildings closed by coronavirus face another risk: Legionnaires’ disease
April 24, 2020 / 11:10 AM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Commercial
buildings shuttered for weeks to stem the spread of the coronavirus could fuel
another grisly lung infection: Legionnaires’ disease.
Public
health experts urged landlords across the globe to carefully re-open buildings
to prevent outbreaks of the severe, sometimes lethal, form of pneumonia.
The sudden
and sweeping closures of schools, factories, businesses and government offices
have created an unprecedented decline in water use. The lack of chlorinated
water flowing through pipes, combined with irregular temperature changes, have
created conditions ripe for the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease,
they said.
If diagnosed
early, Legionnaires’ disease poses less of a health risk than COVID-19, the
disease caused by the new coronavirus. Most cases can be successfully cured
with antibiotics, and Legionnaires cannot be spread from human to human
contact.
But as communities
consider reopening, any commercial facility vacated or underutilized for more
than three weeks is at risk for a Legionnaires’ outbreak, unless the water
pipes are properly flushed and otherwise sanitized, health experts and
government officials say.
“After
surviving COVID-19, who wants to open a building and have another set of
significant safety issues?” said Molly Scanlon, an Arizona environmental health
scientist who is leading a coronavirus task force for the American Institute of
Architects. “Our medical system is already under enough stress as it is.”
Those at
risk include schools, gyms, factories, hotels, restaurants and outpatient
surgical centers, Scanlon said. According to guidance updated Wednesday by the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the threat also applies to hot
tubs, water fountains, sprinkler systems and millions of water cooling towers
atop commercial buildings.
“It’s
a worldwide problem, one that can be solved with precautions,” said British
microbiologist Susanne Surman-Lee, who co-drafted reopening guidelines for the
European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. “Most major
corporations with consultants are likely to be aware of the stagnant water
systems issue, but this is going to be a challenge for smaller retail-style
shops, health clubs and hotels.”
More
Finally,
progress? Wireless charging for EV
trucks arrives, but just how safe is it if put into the real world? Space Force
arms up. There’s never been a weapon invented that hasn’t been used.
UPS delivery truck wirelessly charged over 11-inch gap
Paul Ridden
April 23, 2020
Back in 2016, the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge
National Laboratory developed a 20-kW
wireless charger for electric vehicles with a reported 90 percent efficiency.
That was for passenger EVs, and now researchers have successfully tested a
system for a medium duty, plug-in hybrid delivery truck.The grid-connected 20-kilowatt bi-directional wireless charging system was tested on a UPS delivery truck, transferring power from a charging pad over an 11-inch gap using two electromagnetic coupling coils at more than 92 percent efficiency.
The setup comprises the lab's custom coil design and control system, and wide bandgap power conversion systems. It draws from the grid and converts energy to direct current voltage, before a high-frequency inverter switches that to alternating current. A magnetic field is subsequently created and this sends power over the gap where it's converted back to direct current to charge the truck's 60-kWh batteries.
The research team notes that where it might take up to six hours to charge the vehicle's battery over a conventional wired charging setup, the wireless charging system could do so in around three hours.
Since it's a bi-directional system, the truck's batteries could be used to store energy from on-site renewables like solar panels or wind turbines. Technical team lead on the project, Omer Onar, reckons that scaling up the technology to a 50 truck fleet could give operators megawatt-scale energy storage options.
"UPS appreciates the Department of Energy’s support on this effort," said VP of Global Energy and Procurement at UPS, Mike Whitlatch. "This project demonstrates innovative ways to utilize vehicle battery storage at fleet scale to power the vehicle, add resiliency to our facilities and support the grid."
Further testing and data analysis is now being undertaken, but as the passenger prototype has already been scaled up to 120-kW at 97 percent efficiency over a six-inch gap, perhaps a future where wireless battery charging for light and medium duty all-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles takes around the same time as filling up with fuel at a gas station is not too far off.
Space Force Unveils Its First Weapon, a Satellite Jammer
April 23rd 20__Dan Robitzski
The U.S. Space
Force recently acquired its first offensive weaponry: a device capable of
blocking satellite communications, temporarily rendering orbiting satellites
useless.The technology behind these Counter Communications Systems, as they’re called, has already existed for years, Interesting Engineering reports, but the devices were only delivered to the military last month. With them, the U.S. can now disable enemy satellites from the ground.
While these weapons are new for the U.S. military, they had already been deployed elsewhere. For instance, Popular Mechanics reports that Russia’s military has had similar weapons in place since 2019.
And while the technical details of how the jammers work are kept under wraps, PopMech reports that there have been at least 13 similar systems up and running around the world back in 2017.
While the Counter Communication Systems don’t actually damage the satellites they target, they pose a major threat to military and other communication networks that rely on satellites to relay messages.
That means soldiers could be cut off from communication networks while they’re on a mission. And in a far more drastic scenario, missile alert systems could suddenly be disabled, leaving whatever nation got jammed vulnerable to a devastating attack.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/space-force-first-weapon-satellite-jammer?mc_cid=7c8129a889&utm_term=0_03cd0a26cd-7c8129a889-247582573&utm_medium=email&mc_eid=f4cd094325&utm_source=The%20Future%20Is&utm_campaign=7c8129a889-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_23_06_27
This weekend’s musical diversion. Georg Philipp
Telemann again, easier to play than last week’s Locatelli, more tuneful too,
although Locatelli was simply showing off his talent with a violin. Here
Hamburg’s Telemann is actually trying to entertain his audience.
Jean-Claude Juncker. Failed Luxembourg Prime Minister and
ex-president of the Euro Group of Finance Ministers. Confessed liar. Ex-European
Commission President. Scotch connoisseur.
DJIA: 21,917 +45 Down. NASDAQ: 7,700 +149
Down. SP500: 2,585 +38 Down.
The NASDAQ and S&P have joined the DJIA in down. All three monthly
slow indexes have collapsed.
No comments:
Post a Comment