Georgia Senate races near finish with Trump a central player
InternationalDec 29. 2020President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Valdosta, Ga., on Dec. 5. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Elijah Nouvelage
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Billy House, Eric Martin
The two Georgia runoffs that will decide control of the U.S. Senate begin their final stretch, with President Donald Trump again putting himself in the middle of the campaign.
Trump ignited controversy last week by holding up pandemic relief and government funding. Although he signed the legislation Sunday night, a week after it cleared Congress, his late action will end up delaying the stimulus payments he criticized as too low and cutting a week’s worth of expanded benefits for the jobless.
The outgoing president is also headed back to Georgia, where has has lashed out at the governor and other Republicans officials. He will appear with the two incumbent Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, on the eve of their Jan. 5 runoffs.
Both GOP incumbents had been promoting their votes for the bill with more limited aid. Trump’s complaints about the $600 stimulus payments echo those of Democrats, who had pushed for higher amounts during negotiations, undermining his own party and adding to a sense of crisis in Washington.
At an event outside the Impact United Methodist Church in East Point, Ga., on Sunday, Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock told the crowd to pay attention to “the kind of dysfunction in our government” as seen in the turmoil over the aid and spending bill.
The unusual dual runoff in Georgia pits Warnock against Loeffler and Perdue against Democrat Jon Ossoff after none of the candidates managed more than 50% of the vote in November.
Public polling shows both races essentially dead heats, and the outcome likely will depend on which party can best energize it’s voters. Roughly 2 million people have cast early ballots, according to state data compiled by the nonpartisan Georgia Votes website.
In November Perdue finished less than 2 percentage points ahead of Ossoff. Warnock got about a third of the vote in the 20-candidate scrum for the other seat. The Republican vote in that race was divided primarily between Loeffler and Representative Doug Collins, who together accounted for about 46% of the vote.
GOP supporters gather for a rally on Dec. 10, 2020, for Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. David Perdue in Augusta, Ga. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Melina Mara
President-elect Joe Biden narrowly won the state by 12,670 votes out of almost 5 million cast. He and Trump both have campaigned in the state ahead of the runoff.
Interest in both parties is high. Ossoff and Warnock each took in more than $100 million in campaign contributions over the last two months, a record-breaking amount. Perdue raised $68.1 million and Loeffler raised $64 million.
The Senate is currently divided 52-48 in favor of Republicans. Democrats would need to win both Georgia seats to gain nominal control, with incoming Vice President Kamala Harris providing a tie-breaking vote. Investors are bracing for a potential increase in stock market volatility as a result of the contests. If Democrats snatch back the majority it would help Biden’s legislative agenda get through Congress.
As the candidates stumped over the weekend, they kept a wary eye on Trump, who spent the holiday golfing at his Florida club.
Warnock and Ossoff on Sunday urged supporters to bear down in the last nine days of the campaign, and do everything they can to get the vote out.
At the event in East Point, Warnock called the election a “turning point.”
“This is one of the moments when the people have got to straighten out what the government has gotten wrong,” he said. “Don’t be like those people who shout in church, but don’t listen to what the preacher says.”
During a campaign appearance Sunday with supporters in Columbus, Loeffler described herself and Perdue as business people and “political outsiders just like Donald Trump.” Afterward she skipped without explanation a planned session to answer questions from reporters.
Loeffler and Perdue have tied their fortunes closely to Trump, who continues to have a tight grip on Republican voters. After the president signed the relief and funding bill, they put out a joint statement lauding the president and criticizing Democrats as “hellbent on a socialist agenda.”
“Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, COVID relief is again on its way to the millions of Georgia families and businesses who need it most,” they said.
Trump has also created a rift among Georgia Republicans that could reverberate in the runoff. He’s harshly criticized Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger while making unfounded claims of fraud in the November election. Loeffler and Perdue have called on Raffensperger to resign.
Veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz said his data show that Warner has caught up to Loeffler and Ossoff moved ahead of Perdue over the past week or 10 days. Trump’s recent actions had caused the shift, he said, and are depressing Republican turnout.
“They had a four-point generic ballot advantage. That is gone, because the president — it’s amazing,” Luntz said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” program. “We know it’s affecting turnout already. We can see on the ground.”
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Raymond Colitt, Chiara Albanese, James Regan
Germany is pushing to ramp up production of coronavirus vaccines as Europe faces pressure to close the gap with Britain and the U.S. in a bid to end to the pandemic.
With inoculations gradually getting started across the region, authorities are concerned the slow pace of the rollout could force longer lockdowns and cause more economic damage for months to come. Across Europe, more than 400,000 people have died of the virus, which has infected 16.2 million and continues to spread.
“We’re working intensely on having additional production here in Germany soon,” Jens Spahn, the country’s health minister, said Monday on ZDF television, adding that more capacity could be available at a facility in Marburg as soon as February. “That would increase the amount considerably.”
Less than a week after the European Union cleared a shot developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, the sense of urgency has grown amid concerns about a faster-spreading strain that emerged in the U.K. and has been found in Spain and elsewhere in Europe.
Like other European countries, Italy started its vaccination campaign on Sunday, administering a shot to health workers. The country is now seeking to speed up the process of inoculating the bulk of the population, which will take months, Health Minister Roberto Speranza said in an interview with La Stampa.
Italy plans to rely on a production hub in Pomezia, near Rome, where a part of the viral element of the AstraZeneca Plc’s shot is produced. A military airport near the capital will distribute the vaccine across the country.
While inoculations offer a way out of the pandemic, bottlenecks have disrupted distribution. In Spain, vaccines were held up by a logistic problem in Belgium and will be delayed until Tuesday.
To speed up the rollout, a debate has emerged about breaking BioNTech’s license or sharing it with other manufacturers. Spahn dismissed the proposal in favor of boosting existing capacity, saying more suppliers wouldn’t speed things up because production is complicated and requires preparation.
In addition to supply issues, authorities face the difficult task of convincing people that the shots are safe and effective. A poll in France published in Le Journal du Dimanche on Sunday showed that only 44% of those surveyed planned to receive the vaccine, with just 13% certain to.
“As of today we have no idea if these vaccines protect against transmission,” Dominique Le Guludec, president of France’s HAS health authority, told FranceInter radio. “The only certainty we have today regarding these vaccines is that they prevent symptomatic forms and severe forms. So they will stop the health system becoming saturated.”
After approving the first vaccine weeks after the U.S. and the U.K., the EU made a show of marking “Delivery Day” on Sunday, when doses of the vaccine were distributed.
But the fanfare doesn’t make up for the bloc’s supply gap. It may have enough vaccine for two-thirds of its population in the middle of September, three months behind the U.S., according to London-based research firm Airfinity Ltd.
As result, officials are pleading with pandemic-weary residents to stick to distancing and hygiene measures with most having to wait months for an inoculation.
“It’s important to see that not everyone will get their chance in these first days,” Spahn said, adding on Twitter that it could be midyear for widespread availability if other vaccines get approved.
Drugmakers from AstraZeneca Plc and GlaxoSmithKline Plc to BeiGene Ltd. agreed to cut prices on some of their newest drugs in China by an average of 51% to be covered by the country’s national insurance fund.
A total of 119 new therapies — treating ailments from pulmonary diseases and diabetes to cancers and lupus — were added for coverage by the state-run medical safety net after drawn-out negotiations, the National Healthcare Security Administration said in a notice posted on its website Monday.
The average price cut is 10 percentage points less than last year, a relief to both domestic and foreign drugmakers that have seen their profits eroded by Beijing’s push to drive down health-care costs. Companies are eager to get their treatments on the list even at steep discounts to gain access to the world’s second-biggest market for pharmaceuticals.
Patients in China will only need to pay for a small fraction of the cost of these drugs out of their own pocket as the lion’s share of the bill will be footed by China’s $373 billion (2.44 trillion yuan) national medical insurance fund, which covers more than 95% of the country’s 1.4 billion people. The list of medicines covered by the fund has been updated annually with new entries since 2017, when Beijing accelerated its campaign to bring new drugs to its growing middle class as quickly and cheaply as possible.
In total, Chinese patients can now draw on state insurance to pay for 2,800 medicines. Beijing also managed to slash prices more than 40% on average for 14 drugs whose annual sales exceed 1 billion yuan each. The new version of the drug-reimbursement list will be effective from March 1.
The drugs that made it on the latest list include AstraZeneca’s cancer therapy Zoladex. Brukinsa, the first cancer drug from China to ever receive U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval, developed by Beijing-based BeiGene, was also added.
Glaxo drugs Benlysta and Volibris, which treat lupus and high blood pressure in the lungs, respectively, made the list. Other top-of-the-line therapies from multinationals were a diabetes drug from Novo Nordisk S/A, a medicine for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease developed by Astra, and an ulcerative colitis therapy by Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.
The latest inclusions feature popular immune cancer therapies known as PD-1 inhibitors, cancer treatments that use the body’s immune system to fight tumors — a priority for Beijing given that China has around 4 million new cancer patients annually. Included are treatments developed by local companies BeiGene, Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine Co. and Shanghai Junshi Biosciences Co.
The list also highlights treatments for covid-19 such as the antivirals ribavirin and arbidol, although China has largely contained coronavirus flare-ups after the outbreak a year ago in Wuhan that sparked the pandemic.
It is unclear how deep a cut each company consented for individual therapies. The National Healthcare Security Administration in the past has reached agreements with some drugmakers to withhold the details of the price cuts. Those missing from the new list include Merck & Co. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s best-selling cancer therapies Keytruda and Opdivo.
For foreign drugmakers, the competition in China has brought significant sacrifices. New drugs are often brought to the market at prices lower than they are sold in the West, but still face competition from a growing legion of Chinese biotech firms developing similar medicines that can be sold more cheaply.
The process can be painful for local companies as well. Chinese drugmaker Simcere Pharmaceutical Group said it had agreed to slash the price of its newly approved stroke therapy by almost 70% to get it on the reimbursement list, figuring expanded access would fuel sales. Green Valley Pharmaceuticals, based in Shanghai, said it had participated in the price negotiations for its Alzheimer’s disease drug but didn’t obtain reimbursement status.
Global pharmaceutical companies’ older drugs that have gone off-patent are also facing price cuts. In a separate national campaign in which China’s public hospitals bulk-buy generic medications, prices have been driven down by as much as 90%.
Brexit deal hands a mix of relief, unwanted change to business
InternationalDec 29. 2020Automobiles manufactured by Vauxhall Motors in the factory parking lot in England’s Ellesmere Port on Feb. 5, 2018. Brexit had made Vauxhall, owned by France’s PSA Group, postpone further investment in its plant in Ellesmere Port. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Matthew Lloyd
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Joe Mayes, Siddharth Philip, Deirdre Hipwell
Britain and European Union may have signed a trade deal, but British businesses still face a raft of difficult changes.
More than four years in the making, the Brexit agreement avoids the worst-case scenario of new tariffs and quotas after Dec. 31. That’s a welcome relief, and gives companies greater scope to focus on containing the damage from the coronavirus pandemic.
The divorce will still create significant disruption for a range of industries. Mutual recognition of standards, which would have allowed firms to make products in the U.K. and market them in the EU without any extra certification process, isn’t part of the deal. Likewise, workers in Britain’s services industry — which makes up 80% of its economy — face new costs and bureaucracy as their professional qualifications will no longer be automatically recognized in the EU.
The deal also requires extra customs paperwork and checks at the EU border. The queues of trucks that formed around Dover, Britain’s busiest port, after France blocked incoming traffic has given Britons a taste of the disorder that could be in store.
While a deal is better than no deal, “there are more issues there which will only emerge over time because I think we’ve underestimated the interconnectedness of the European economies,” Ulrich Hoppe, director general of the German-British Chamber of Industry & Commerce, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
With the full text of the agreement being published only days before it comes into force, a chorus of business voices has pleaded for a grace period to comply with the changes.
Here is a look at what a Brexit deal means for a variety of industries.
Automotive
U.K. auto manufacturers generated about $107 billion (79 billion pounds) in sales last year and employed about 180,000 people. Carmakers now must decide whether to move forward with investment in new models and production capacity that had been put on hold for years.
Vauxhall, owned by France’s PSA Group, had been holding out for more clarity on Brexit before deciding whether to approve further investment in its plant in Ellesmere Port. For others, the delays to the deal have already taken a toll — Nissan Motor Co. has decided against producing an electric model in northern England.
The deal is good news because it mostly avoids tariffs and gives electric-car makers sufficient time to phase in the new requirements, raising the chance that PSA will further invest in Vauxhall, said David Bailey, a business economics professor at Birmingham Business School.
Here are the key requirements for rules of origin, which determine what percentage of the value of a car’s components need to be sourced locally to qualify for tariff-free trade:
– Parts made in the U.K. as well as the EU count as local content.
– Gasoline and diesel cars need to be made with at least 55% local content to avoid tariffs – 5 percentage points more than what automakers and the U.K. wanted.
– Electric vehicles and hybrids will need 40% local content, 10 percentage points more than what the U.K. had asked for.
– Until 2023, batteries can have as much as 70% overseas content, and EVs and hybrids can have as much as 60% foreign content.
– From 2024 to 2026 – when European battery production is expected to be much more advanced – batteries can have 50% overseas content and EVs and hybrids 55% content.
The terms for electric and hybrid cars are more lenient because the region is still in the early stages of localizing battery production. However, the 40% local content requirement for EVs and hybrids may be difficult to meet for companies that source parts mainly in Asia, Bailey said.
Manufacturing
Producers are responsible for about 10% of U.K. gross domestic product, and have been spared the threat of new tariffs. But they face a raft of paperwork and new standards regulations which could create substantial pressure across the country on its first day outside the single market and customs union.
On standards, there is no mutual recognition of conformity assessments in the deal, meaning manufacturers will have to get their products approved separately by regulators in both markets. They may also have to run two separate production processes if U.K. and EU specifications differ, adding costs.
And at the border, the prospect of trucks turning up without the correct post-Brexit forms raises worries about serious traffic snarls. For example, as many as 10,000 trucks per day carrying everything from German car parts to Spanish lettuces, as well as U.K. exports to Europe, pass through Dover. This key port on the southeast coast has warned of 17-mile (27-kilometer) lines of vehicles on both sides of the English Channel if its average customs clearing is slowed by just two minutes.
Disruption is a nightmare for manufacturers because their years of investment into digitizing their operations have left them reliant on just-in-time supply chains. This helps them avoid the expense of stockpiles, but means that any delays in shipments spell trouble for the entire production process and the whole industry.
Retail
The thorny issue of tariffs had been British retailers’ biggest concern as higher import costs in a low-margin sector would have had to be passed on to consumers during a recession. This was particularly important for supermarket chains such as Tesco Plc and J Sainsbury Plc as the U.K. produces only about half the food it consumes, and the vast majority of imported food comes from the EU.
British wine merchants will be relieved that wine traveling between the U.K. and EU will require only simplified paperwork. In a no-deal scenario wines from the EU would have required expensive laboratory tests and other documentation, adding costs.
However, retailers still face a raft of new non-tariff barriers stemming from costs and staffing needed to manage extra customs paperwork which, in time, could filter down to the prices paid by shoppers at checkouts. Any upheaval could aggravate the impact the pandemic has had on consumer spending. The timing may mean additional pain – January is normally a dire month for retailers given that consumers usually pull back spending after their surge of shopping for Christmas.
Drugs
The pharmaceutical industry has long called for a mutual recognition agreement to protect the sector from unnecessary duplication and cost. The deal has achieved this at least in part, with inspections of drug manufacturing facilities to be valid in both regions.
However, the text doesn’t mention another industry request – mutual recognition of batch testing. This suggests U.K. safety tests on medicines may need to be conducted again before they can be sold in the EU, which would add time and cost burdens.
The pharmaceutical sector, like others, will also have to get to grips with customs and border checks. Coronavirus has given the issue extra weight and highlighted the need for the smooth passage of drugs and vaccines — about 45 million packs of medicines move from the U.K. to the EU every month, with 37 million going the other way.
The U.K. and EU have agreed to a one-year phase-in period for implementing regulation in Northern Ireland to give companies time to prepare to adjust packaging and distribution routes.
Aerospace
This heavily regulated industry contributes $27 billion (20 billion pounds) a year to the U.K. economy, and has long dealt with standards where the slightest change in a design or machine used to make an aircraft component can spark a safety reassessment. The Brexit agreement includes an accord on safety that maps out an approach based on mutual recognition and cooperation. This is essential as some parts crisscross the English Channel multiple times during the process of building a plane. Companies like Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc know that any major break with the status quo risks substantial disruption.
After year-end, the U.K. will oversee its own aircraft safety regime. That means handing the responsibility to the Civil Aviation Authority for the first time in decades. There’s a question of whether it will be able to take on so much work quickly enough to avoid disruption.
Airlines
Both sides agreed to explore a liberalization of rules that limit the operations of airlines outside of the territory where their ownership is based. Before the split, U.K. shareholders counted toward EU ownership requirements, but now they don’t. This threatens the rights of airlines like IAG SA and easyJet PLC to operate within the bloc.
IAG, the owner of British Airways, Iberia and Vueling, is incorporated in Spain but has significant U.K., U.S. and Qatari ownership. EasyJet has had difficulty keeping its EU share of ownership above the required 50% threshold. Both have said they’ll address their shareholder structure, but under the current setup their status as EU-controlled could be tested. Future changes to the rules could help insulate them from challenges. The U.K. and EU have agreed to consider making changes to the rules within 12 months.
Trucking
Hauliers face new restrictions when moving goods between the U.K. and the EU. Previously, U.K. drivers could do unlimited trips between EU countries, and as many as three deliveries within a single country in the bloc. An extra delivery within a country is known as a “cabotage” trip.
Now, British operators can only do two extra journeys when they move goods to the EU, and can only make one cabotage trip.
The restrictions are a major blow to the U.K. concert industry, which has relied on being able to move instruments and sound equipment on multiple trips between European countries without having to return to Britain.
Chemicals
This is the U.K.’s biggest manufacturing export sector, with annual turnover of about $42.5 billion (31.5 billion pounds). While the deal document contains signals that cooperation will continue, Britain’s access to a full spectrum of chemicals may still be at risk.
Chemical makers have yet to be told how aligned the U.K.’s new stand-alone regulatory framework will be with Europe’s Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals regime, considered the gold standard for the safety and control of more than 22,000 substances and fluids that are key in industries from aerospace to electronics. Based on a “one substance, one registration” principle, it’s taken companies years of investment to put together all the dossiers containing data on the properties and hazards of each chemical required by REACH.
The Brexit agreement includes a commitment to cooperate on sharing this data. However, the lack of a firm arrangement means companies may yet face having to repeat the time- and money-consuming process of repeating all that paperwork to operate in both markets.
If ensuing talks fail to achieve regulatory alignment, the industry could face a 1 billion-pound bill to repeat all the safety documentation, according to Neil Hollis, BASF SE’s regulatory affairs manager.
Services
Services make up 80% of the U.K. economy and comprise a breadth of activities including IT, law, accountancy, insurance, consulting and architecture.
The EU is Britain’s largest export market for services, so the lack of automatic recognition for professional qualifications is a setback. It means firms will have to jump through extra bureaucratic hoops to have the right to provide services in an EU member state.
Short-term business travel between the U.K. and EU will continue unimpeded, but U.K. business visitors will only be able to travel to the EU for 90 days in any 180-day period.
Data
Movement of data generates $235 billion (174 billion pounds) of value in the U.K., according to the Confederation of British Industry, but the legal framework for this activity was in doubt because Britain is about to exit the EU’s data protection regime. The Brexit deal provides an interim solution that protects current data flows until a separate legal agreement is reached.
The temporary accord saves thousands of businesses from having to find alternative certifications before Jan. 1 to continue transfers, and postpones the risk of fines for violating the bloc’s strict privacy laws. This is a relief for any business which transfers data across the frontier from big tech platforms to airlines to banks.
EU officials said a so-called data adequacy decision, which would certify that U.K. data protection standards are comparable to the bloc’s, could be made in early 2021. Until then, the bridge offered by the Brexit deal leaves the existing rules place for as many as six months after Dec. 31.
Agriculture
British farmers welcomed the deal on tariffs, which will help products from barley to lamb remain competitive in the EU, the destination for more than 60% of the nation’s agricultural exports.
Still, even with the deal, there will be trade friction and the National Farmers Union called on the government to ensure cargoes of perishable foods aren’t left “languishing in queues at the border” in the new year. The British Meat Processors Association has also lamented that fresh-meat shipments won’t be prioritized in lines at the border, which may require traders to switch to trading lower-value frozen supply instead.
Fishing
A totemic sector for the campaign to leave the EU, despite its tiny contribution to U.K. GDP, the fishing industry is not happy with the agreement struck with the bloc and accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of selling out coastal communities to get a deal.
Under the agreement, 25% of EU rights to catch fish in U.K. waters will be transferred to British boats over 5 1/2 years, much less than London’s demand for an 80% cut. After the phasing-in period, there will be annual negotiations over allocations, with each side able to use tariffs in retaliation if they disagree. The U.K. says they should be proportionate and limited to fish.
“Throughout the fishing industry there is a profound sense of disillusionment, betrayal, and fury that after all the rhetoric, promises and assurances, the Government caved-in on fish,” the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations said in a statement. “Some of the bellwether stocks tell the story most vividly, After a further five years adjustment period, the U.K.’s share of Channel cod will have increased from 9.3% to 10.2%.”
David Henig, U.K. director of the European Centre for the International Political Economy think tank, said the industry had lost out in the trade-off in the final days of the talks.
“In the end for the U.K. it seems the fear of losing car manufacturing, coupled with fear of border chaos, were a higher priority than fish or the level playing field,” he wrote in a blog post on Sunday. “This meant that the U.K. settled on other issues such as fish without any reward.”
Seconds after Usmaan Ahmad heard metallic bangs in his Tesla Model S last month and pulled off a suburban Dallas thoroughfare, flames started shooting out of his five-year-old car.
The sound was like “if you were to drop an axle of a normal car” on the ground, Ahmad, 41, said. Only the car was intact, he recalled. Suddenly, as he stood on the side of the road, the car ignited in flames, concentrated around the front passenger-side wheel. “This was shooting out like a flamethrower,” recalled Ahmad, who works in strategy and business development for a health-care system.
The combustion of Ahmad’s car is one of a growing number of fire incidents involving older Tesla Model S and X vehicles that experts say are related to the battery, raising questions about the safety and durability of electric vehicles as they age. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is evaluating the fire of Ahmad’s vehicle in Frisco, Tex., and has contacted Tesla over the matter, NHTSA spokesman Sean Rushton said this month. The agency opened an investigation last year into alleged battery defects that could cause fires in older Tesla sedans and SUVs.
Tesla did not respond to requests for comment sent to multiple representatives.
A lawsuit and defect petition that spurred the NHTSA probe allege Tesla manipulated its battery software in older model cars to reduce the risk of fire, lowering the range and lengthening charging times as it sought to address an undisclosed defect. The attorney filing suit on behalf of Tesla owners last year cited an “alarming number of car fires” that appeared to be spontaneous. Since the agency agreed to look into the issue last year, little more has been disclosed about the status of the probe.
Tesla has argued its cars are 10 times less likely to catch fire than gasoline vehicles, citing data from the National Fire Protection Association and U.S. Federal Highway Administration on the number of incidents by mileage traveled for its fleet of electric cars vs. other vehicles. Tesla said in 2018 that its vehicles had five fires per billion miles traveled, vs. 55 fires per billion miles traveled in the United States.
Other electric vehicle models have faced federal scrutiny and voluntary recalls over fire risks. Last month, NHTSA announced General Motors was recalling more than 50,000 Chevrolet Bolt electric cars in the United States over the potential for fire in its high-voltage battery pack, after the agency confirmed there were five known fires involving the vehicle, resulting in two injuries. NHTSA advised owners to park their cars outside until the problem is repaired.
General Motors spokesman Daniel Flores said dealers were updating the cars’ battery software to limit their charge capacity to 90 percent while the company addressed the issue. The batteries, he said, “may pose a risk of fire when charged to full, or very close to full, capacity,” and the company is “working around-the-clock to identify the root cause.”
Audi recalled its e-tron SUV last year shortly after its U.S. launch following the discovery of a potential fire risk, which the company said was a wiring harness issue. Audi spokesman Mark Dahncke said that Audi recorded no fires globally and that the recall was done out of an abundance of caution.
And federal regulators investigated General Motors for battery fire risks in its plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt in 2011, a problem GM agreed to address.
There were 189,500 highway vehicle fires in the United States in 2019, according to the National Fire Protection Association, encompassing passenger and other types of road-going vehicles. Experts say electric cars catch fire at a similar rate to gas cars, if not less often. But the duration and intensity of the fires, fueled by chemicals and the extreme heat buildup in lithium-ion battery systems, can make the fires in electric cars harder to put out.
“Battery fires can take up to 24 hours to extinguish,” Tesla says in an emergency response guide for the Model S on its website. “Consider allowing the battery to burn while protecting exposures.”
As a report prepared for NHTSA suggests, electric vehicle fires can result from a chain reaction of events where, for example, a defect causes overheating in a single cell. Through that vector, the heat can ignite highly flammable materials surrounding the source and spread to the rest of the battery, eventually spiraling out of control as temperature and pressure rise unabated, a process known as “thermal runaway.” But the issue may not be inherent to batteries, but rather the fact that the current crop of electric vehicles are relatively new to market and uniform safety standards have yet to be adopted, research has said.
An October 2017 Battelle report prepared for NHTSA on the safety of lithium-ion batteries for electric and plug-in hybrid cars “suggests that the technology and industry has not matured sufficiently to have established comprehensive safety codes and standards that mitigate risks.”
Tesla has come under particular scrutiny over concerns its computerized cars made emergency responses and investigations more difficult, with features such as retracting door handles that proved an impediment to first responders, for example, and proprietary systems with critical incident information that have required Tesla’s cooperation to decode.
The NHTSA defect petition that led to the probe cited alleged “high-voltage battery fires that are not related to collision or impact damage to the battery pack.” It focused on Model S and X vehicles from model years 2012 through 2019 and homed in on their battery management systems, including thermal management and charging control, NHTSA said.
One of the most gruesome incidents involving the Model S was the case of driver Omar Awan, who was trapped in a burning car in South Florida in 2019 after the car’s electronic door handles failed to retract following a fiery crash, his family said. The man’s family blamed that design feature in a wrongful-death lawsuit, saying his death was caused by the design features rather than the crash itself.
The battery reignited at least three times in the impound lot, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
Another fatal wreck in South Florida, in 2018, led the family of a teenage victim to sue Tesla, alleging the battery pack was defective. The firm representing that family alleged there were at least a dozen cases of Model S batteries igniting after a collision or while parked.
In 2019, Tesla said it sent investigators to the site of a Model S explosion in a Shanghai car park after video showed smoke billowing from the parked car before a fiery blast.
And a Tesla Model S burst into flames while sitting in traffic on a Los Angeles street in 2018, with fire shooting similarly from the wheel well. Tesla called it an “extraordinarily unusual occurrence.”
The Frisco incident bore resemblances to many of the previous cases, although Ahmad had been driving the Tesla Model S 85D shortly before it ignited. Ahmad said his battery was at around a 60 percent charge, he said, and he was cruising lightly on the way home from Home Depot.
Firefighters showed up within minutes after Robert Watson, 41, of Frisco witnessed black smoke and called 911. One of Watson’s sons started recording the fire, which was growing in intensity.
“It looked like the back of a jet engine with the afterburner on coming out of that front passenger wheel,” recalled Watson, who works for a technology company. The firefighters had the blaze under control in about 10 minutes, witnesses recalled.
But there was another issue. As he stood on the side of the road, Ahmad said, a firefighter asked how to get inside the cabin as they worked to douse the flames.
Ahmad thought to try the key fob but knew it might be futile. The Model S uses retractable door handles that are electronically controlled, popping out when they detect a nearby fob.
The firefighter “looked at me and he said, ‘You’re lucky you got out when you did, because you could have gotten stuck in there,'” Ahmad said. It raised similar concerns to the Florida crash involving Awan.
Keith Gall, battalion chief of administrative services for the Frisco Fire Department, told The Washington Post the fire involving Ahmad’s Tesla was deemed “unintentional,” though he did not elaborate. The car was destroyed, Ahmad said, and is sitting in an insurance lot. Now he is awaiting answers on the potential cause, though he said Tesla had not initially proved eager to investigate the fire.
“I am assuming the battery exploded and caused the fire, but would like to request Tesla please look into this,” he wrote Nov. 25 to a Tesla service center representative, who later responded they were glad he was safe and would look into the matter.
Since then, Tesla has repeatedly cited insurance hurdles. Once Ahmad files a claim, the parties will agree to jointly inspect the car, one Tesla representative told him.
“Until this is done, there is no time frame,” the Tesla rep told him in an email shared with The Post. A month after Ahmad’s email to Tesla, the company and his insurance agency agreed to jointly inspect the car, Ahmad said.
Ahmad said he wants to determine the root cause of the problem so this doesn’t happen to someone else.
Ahmad fears for others who have the same model vehicle and even for his parents, whom he convinced to get a Tesla Model X SUV.
“I don’t want anybody else to experience something this scary,” he said.
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Iain Rogers
German officials ruled out a rapid lifting of the nation’s coronavirus restrictions as the country’s death toll from the disease ticked above 30,000.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told Bild am Sonntag newspaper that Germany “must not risk everything we have achieved with quick easing, otherwise it will start all over again.”
“If the lockdown does not have a sufficient effect, the measures must be tightened,” he said, adding that a “third wave” must be avoided “at all costs.”
German cases and deaths have been on the rise since October, prompting Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to impose a harder shutdown — with schools and nonessential stores shuttered — until at least Jan. 10. Germany joined European Union partners in starting vaccinations on Sunday, but officials have said it will take months for the program to have a tangible impact on the spread of the disease.
“I expect that we will have to extend the measures,” Manuela Schwesig, the state premier of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, said in reference to the nationwide lockdown. “We are not through this yet,” she said in an interview with Bild newspaper.
Germany has recorded several hundred coronavirus-related deaths each day in the past few weeks. The number of fatalities rose by another 351 in the 24 hours through Monday morning, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, after having crossed the 30,000 mark for the first time on Sunday. Total cases exceed 1.65 million.
Seehofer, a member of the Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s CDU, accused some senior colleagues of failing to recognize the seriousness of the pandemic. Merkel pushed for tighter restrictions to be introduced earlier, but faced resistance among the heads of Germany’s 16 states.
The virus curbs from October onward were “inadequate” and some top officials, including regional leaders, “simply underestimated the gravity of the situation,” Seehofer told Bild.
“You can only get the spread of a highly infectious and potentially deadly virus under control with rigorous countermeasures,” he said, adding that Germany still lacks “satisfactory solutions” for schools and public transport.
By Syndication Washington Post, The Japan News-Yomiuri
The suspensions of the entry of foreign visitors and the Go To Travel campaign began Monday.
The government is hoping to prevent the spread of infections with a new variant of the novel coronavirus from overseas by putting the entry ban into force through the end of January.
Furthermore, the government is asking people to refrain from travel during the year-end and New Year holidays by temporarily halting the tourism promotion campaign through Jan. 11.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga emphasized that the entry ban was an action he had taken at an early stage.
“I gave instructions on the policy on Saturday in order to deal with the situation ahead of time,” he said on Monday morning, responding to questions from reporters at the Prime Minister’s Office. “I would like to ask the public to take thorough measures against infection such as washing their hands and wearing masks. I hope they have quiet year-end and New Year holidays.”
The government had allowed foreign students and expatriates to enter since October on an exceptional basis. After the spread of the new variant, the government had suspended entries from Britain and South Africa, and on Monday it extended the suspension to all countries.
Business personnel traffic with 11 countries and regions, including China and South Korea, will continue in accordance with bilateral agreements. However, if the variant of the virus spreads, the government will consider suspending it.
On the other hand, the return of Japanese nationals from overseas and the reentry of foreign nationals with resident status will continue to be permitted. But travelers returning or reentering Japan from a short-term business trip are again being required to quarantine at home or elsewhere for 14 days.
Domestic flight bookings
Due to the surge in domestic infection numbers, the Go To Travel campaign has been suspended for the first time since it started in July.
The suspension is scheduled to last for 15 days, until Jan. 11, but may be extended depending on the future infection situation.
There were few passengers returning to their hometowns or going on trips at the domestic terminal of Haneda Airport in Tokyo on Monday morning, despite the year-end holiday season. The electronic board was lined with announcements of flight cancellations.
The number of bookings for domestic flights from Dec. 25 to Jan. 3 fell sharply to 801,113 for All Nippon Airways, down 42.4% from the previous year, and 511,965 for Japan Airlines Group, down 51.5%, it was announced on Dec. 18.
There was no noticeable congestion on the Shinkansen bullet trains departing from Tokyo. As of 10 a.m. Monday, the occupancy rate of unreserved seats on the Tohoku, Yamagata, Joetsu and Hokuriku Shinkansen lines was between 10-30%, while that of the Tokaido Shinkansen was up to 30%.
The government will discuss what to do with the travel campaign after Jan. 12 at a meeting of the subcommittee on coronavirus countermeasures, which it plans to hold on or after Jan. 4. Depending on the infection situation, the suspension may be continued or only partially lifted.
Special measures law
In addition, the ruling and opposition parties will enact amendments to the special measures law for pandemic influenza prior to the enactment of the fiscal budget in the Diet session to be convened in January.
Hiroshi Moriyama, chairperson of the Liberal Democratic Party Diet Affairs Committee, and Jun Azumi, his counterpart in the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, talked in the Diet Building and agreed on doing so Monday morning.
In order to strengthen measures against the novel coronavirus, the government is considering including in the proposed amendment specified support measures for stores and other businesses that close or shorten their hours in response to requests, as well as penalties for those that do not.
By The Washington Post · Seung Min Kim, Jeff Stein, Mike DeBonis, Toluse Olorunnipa
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump late Sunday signed a stimulus and spending bill into law, three people briefed on his decision said, averting a Tuesday government shutdown. His decision to back down and sign the measure will release $900 billion in stimulus funds into the economy that had been held up for nearly a week.
The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose Trump’s move, which took place while Trump was vacationing in Florida. They said the president had repeatedly changed his mind on the matter.
Trump’s signing came less than a week after he demanded changes to the bill. He had suggested that he would refuse to sign it into law unless those demands were met. On Tuesday, he referred to the bill as a “disgrace.” It was unclear what prompted him to change his mind late Sunday, but he was under tremendous pressure from Republicans to acquiesce.
The government would have shut down on Tuesday if Trump did not act. In addition to containing money to fund government operations, the spending package includes emergency relief money that finances a new round of stimulus checks, unemployment aid, and small business assistance, among other things.
Before the signed the bill, Trump hinted Sunday evening that there had been a development. He tweeted that there was “Good news on Covid Relief Bill. Information to follow!”
Congress overwhelmingly passed the bipartisan bill Monday night, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin praised it, something congressional leaders in both major political parties interpreted as a sign that Trump was supportive. But the president released a video on Tuesday demanding changes. He said, among other things, that the bill should have authorized stimulus checks of $2,000 per person instead of the $600 payments. Trump also wanted spending cuts to be included in the package, a concern he had not raised until after Congress passed the bill.
Before the video was posted, Mnuchin had said the stimulus checks could be sent as soon as this week. The $600 payments had been Mnuchin’s idea to begin with. It’s unclear whether the roughly week-long delay would push back the issuance of the payments, or whether they could still go out this week.
Trump’s declaration that he wanted changes made to the bill stunned congressional leaders and many White House aides. The spending and stimulus bill had been negotiated with Mnuchin and other White House officials, and the treasury secretary had praised the legislation in a Dec. 21 CNBC appearance.
In recent days, Trump issued a number of tweets appearing to continue his insistence on the $2,000 checks. Authorizing the larger checks, however, did not seem politically feasible in time to avert a shutdown Tuesday. Many Democrats supported the idea of larger stimulus checks, but a number of Republicans opposed it. Approving such a change without unanimous consent in one day is not possible.
The consequences of inaction would have been immense.
Hundreds of thousands of federal employees would have been sent home without pay. The many federal employees who would continue to work because they are deemed “essential,” such as members of the military, would not have be paid until a new funding bill were authorized.
Eviction protections for millions of Americans would lapse later this week, more than 14 million people would lose unemployment benefits, and no stimulus checks would be issued. New money for vaccine distribution, small-business aid, the ailing airline industry, and schools also would have been frozen.
Earlier Sunday, lawmakers expressed a mix of frustration and fury that Trump had not signaled publicly what he planned to do.
“I understand he wants to be remembered for advocating for big checks, but the danger is he’ll be remembered for chaos and misery and erratic behavior if he allows this to expire,” Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said on Fox News on Sunday. “So I think the best thing to do, as I [said], sign this and then make the case for subsequent legislation.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on ABC News said the president was behaving as an “extraordinary narcissist” and was almost “pathologically narcissistic” in his eleventh-hour campaign against the bill.
“It is insane. It is really insane, and this president has got to finally . . . do the right thing for the American people and stop worrying about his ego,” Sanders said.
Millions of American families who have lost their jobs during the pandemic and are still struggling have no choice but to await the president’s decision.
Deseree and Matthew Cox have had little income since August, when Matthew Cox was let go from his management job in pest control. His application for unemployment benefits from Florida has never made it through the system’s queue. The $300 per week Matthew Cox, 38, scrapes together driving for DoorDash hardly makes a dent covering bills, rent and food for themselves and their two children with special needs.
The Coxes have depleted their savings and moved from South Florida to the Indianapolis area for cheaper cost of living and to be near family who could help with child care. But they say they need the extended unemployment benefits, rental assistance, extended eviction moratoriums and direct payments promised by Congress’s stimulus package.
At one point, Deseree Cox, 37, said she could not afford a medication her son needs “just for him to be able to function.”
“People will die without this money,” Deseree Cox said. “People will get evicted. People will not be able to get their medication. To [lawmakers], $600 or $2,000, it seems so little. But to the American people right now, it’s just everything.”
Since the president posted the video on Dec. 22, White House aides have not offered public briefings on his strategy or plans. Instead, Trump has issued tweets reiterating his demand for changes but not saying much more. Vice President Mike Pence is in Vail, Colo., and has been out of sight in recent days.
The White House has provided virtually no information about what its plans are to head off the potential economic calamity of a shutdown and the failure of the relief effort. A White House spokesman declined to comment when asked about the president’s intentions. Negotiations between congressional leaders and the administration were at a standstill on Sunday, and a backup plan had not materialized.
Before Trump signaled that he would sign the bill, people close to the White House described a chaotic scene in which senior officials anxiously await the president’s next move. Republicans have expressed increasing concern that by refusing to sign the bill, Trump could hurt the party’s prospects in the Georgia Senate races on Jan. 5. If Republicans lose those two seats, Democrats will control the chamber.
On Sunday, Trump said he planned to travel to Georgia on Jan. 4 to help campaign for the two Republican candidates.
“Everybody in the White House is trying to figure out what’s in Trump’s head, if this is a bluff or if he’s going to carry this out. He’s been confronted with all the facts and evidence,” said one person briefed by several White House officials over the weekend, speaking on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal discussions. “Nobody knows what Trump is going to do. It’s a bizarre situation.”
One person who interacted with Trump in Palm Beach, Fla., in recent days said the president had not discussed the economic relief bill or the looming government funding deadline. Instead, Trump has been far more focused on his failed effort to reverse the election result, lashing out at Republicans in Congress and members of his own administration for not joining him in the fight.
Trump tweeted several times over the weekend to criticize the aid package, saying: “Increase payments to the people, get rid of the “pork.” He also tweeted: “$2000 + $2000 plus other family members. Not $600. Remember, it was China’s fault!”
Increasing the stimulus payments from $600 per person to $2,000 per adult would add roughly $370 billion to the cost of the bill. In the Cares Act, which passed in March, lawmakers approved stimulus payments of $1,200, which went to more than 100 million Americans.
The 5,593-page bill that Trump now has signaled he will sign was introduced Monday and approved by the House and Senate later that day. It was a fast turnaround, but it was supported by broad majorities in both chambers. The Senate passed the measure 92 to 6.
With Trump and Pence ensconced in resort towns over the weekend, the incoming Biden administration seized on the void to allege that the Trump administration was exhibiting rudderless leadership by delaying an announcement.
On Saturday, Biden accused Trump of an “abdication of responsibility” that would lead to “devastating consequences.”
Biden’s transition team announced Sunday that he would deliver remarks Monday after a briefing by his national security team.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris also weighed in Sunday, saying American families needed economic support.
“Educators, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, custodians, and the nurses who keep our schools running are being stretched to their limit by this pandemic,” she wrote on Twitter. She added that she and Biden “are committed to ensuring they get the relief they deserve.”
Millions of Americans are days away from losing unemployment payments, housing assistance and other critical coronavirus aid, as federal relief begins to evaporate amid President Donald Trump’s continued refusal to sign a $900 billion congressional stimulus deal into law.
The programs – adopted at the start of the still-worsening pandemic – have helped people purchase groceries, pay their bills, stay current on their rents and mortgages and take sick leave over the past nine months. All are set to expire this week a result of Trump’s last-minute decision to reject a bipartisan aid package that his own administration had helped negotiate.
The economic unraveling is set to take place over several days.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers also sought to use the stimulus deal to plus up some federal safety-net support, enhance vaccine distribution, extend new lifelines to cash-starved businesses and distribute one-time, $600 checks to most Americans. They coupled their new aid with a must-pass measure that would fund the government’s operations through September 2021.
With that agreement now in tatters, however, Washington has found itself scrambling in anticipation of a government shutdown on Tuesday – a halt that threatens to undermine the government’s ability to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis it has wrought.
“I don’t now how to describe it other than traumatic,” said G. William Hoagland, a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
With millions of Americans bracing for sudden, severe financial hardship, Trump spent much of the weekend mounting false attacks against Democrats and tweeting disproven conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election. He has held off in signing the stimulus in an attempt to secure larger one-time direct payments to Americans, an idea his own party does not support and moved to block this past week.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday as the president decamped to one of his golf courses in Florida.
Here’s what will happen if the bill isn’t signed into law:
– Unemployment benefits lapse:
The economic blow is likely to land hardest on 14 million people who lost their jobs early in the pandemic and still have not been rehired. They have exhausted their benefits, and they are unlikely to see any more aid until Trump signs the stimulus into law.
The day after Christmas marked the last week for which these workers could have applied to receive their weekly unemployment checks. Some of the workers now at greatest risk participate in the so-called “gig economy,” driving for Uber or delivering for GrubHub, as they stand to lose access to the tranche of jobless aid Congress authorized back in March.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers extended unemployment benefits as part of the $900 billion package they adopted last week. But Trump’s newfound opposition to their bipartisan stimulus deal prevented it from being implemented before December 26. The missed deadline means workers now face at least a week, if not likely more, during which they will receive no financial help at all.
Even if Trump had signed the $900 billion deal into law, it might have taken some states weeks to implement the payments given the archaic nature of their computer systems. But the president’s approach threatens even greater delays, keeping checks out of the hands of workers who need it most – with no guarantee they’ll ever receive the payments they missed.
“Fourteen million people not getting paid for a week in this economy is not good,” said Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst for the National Employment Law Project, which advocates for out-of-work Americans. “That’s an immediate hardship.”
– A looming eviction crisis:
As many as 17 million households are behind on their rent and may face the immediate threat of eviction starting January 1. Out of work – and out of cash – these families have benefited from limited federal eviction protections that are set to expire in four days, further adding to the pressure on the president to act.
“We’re facing the very real possibility of tens of millions of people losing their homes this winter,” said Diane Yentel, the president of the National Low-Income Housing Coalition.
The Trump administration issued a moratorium on evictions this fall out of a belief that a homelessness crisis could worsen in the coronavirus pandemic, forcing people into cramped living conditions. Housing experts praised the policy, even though it caused some headaches – allowing landlords, for example, to start legal proceedings against tenants even if they could not yet remove people from their homes.
Once it expires at midnight Dec. 31, there “may be many families who lose their homes immediately,” said Yentel, adding her organization’s repeated efforts to contact the Trump administration have gone unanswered.
Lawmakers sought to implement an eviction moratorium of their own as part of the $900 billion stimulus that Trump has not yet signed. The package also includes $25 billion to help renters pay back their bills and other costs, including their electricity and water payments, amid growing concerns that Americans are falling far behind on their bills.
– Other new programs put on hold:
Unless the sprawling stimulus package is signed into law, hundreds of billions of dollars in aid for small businesses, households, schools, transportation services, vaccine distribution, internet access and more will fall into limbo. Republican and Democratic lawmakers agreed that the $900 billion relief package would not entirely heal the economy. But there was still hope that their targeted aid could help fill the recovery’s lingering gaps during a brutal winter.
It also set aside stimulus checks up to $600, including for adults and children. Initially, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said millions of Americans could start receiving payments as soon as this week. But that pledge was thwarted Dec. 22 when Trump demanded Congress revisit the bill and raise the level of stimulus checks to $2,000 (Trump has also demanded reductions in money for foreign aid). Trump has doubled down over the weekend, though it is wildly unclear what his involvement is in new negotiations, or if his insistence on larger payments will derail the entire bill.
Small businesses were supposed to see a lift through $284 billion for first and second forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans, and $20 billion for targeted grants through the Economic Injury Disaster Loans program. The package provides $15 billion in additional aid for the arts and entertainment industry, including independent movie theaters, entertainment venues, music clubs and cultural institutions.
Billions were tagged for the airline industry, highways, airports, buses and Amtrak, delivering much-needed help to ailing transit systems that have announced massive cuts in staff and service to make ends meet. More than $800 million in relief was specified for public transit in the Washington region in particular.
– A costly government shutdown:
A government shutdown normally causes great disruption, freezing Washington in place and leaving millions of federal workers without a paycheck. But a lapse in funding this week could prove especially harmful in the midst of a global pandemic that already has taxed federal agencies.
Along with stimulus relief, lawmakers last week had approved a measure that keeps the government running after a spending stopgap expires Monday night. That means a shutdown is set to kick in on Tuesday unless Trump signs the bill – or Congress comes up with another solution.
“Not signing the bill also means that the federal government will be closed after Monday, which will idle a large portion of the federal work force at the time when the pandemic is bearing down hardest on the American economy,” said Ernie Tedeschi, an economist and former Treasury Department official during the Obama administration.
Lawmakers could try to quickly pass stopgap funding measures on Monday, as they have for weeks in an attempt to buy more time. But it’s unclear how long such a temporary solution would last, or whether the Senate could even move fast enough to pass it while much of Capitol Hill is away for the holidays.
There is also the open question of whether Trump would sign such a bill into law, as he has often pointed to his demands for larger stimulus checks despite the crucial funding measures in the stalled legislation.
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Bailey Lipschultz, Chris Strohm
Current and former U.S. health officials took to the airwaves Sunday to warn Americans of a potential jump in covid-19 cases after the holidays.
“A surge upon a surge” may be on the way after the Christmas and New Year’s period, Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease doctor, warned on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Former U.S. Food and Drug Administration chief Scott Gottlieb said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “we have a grim month ahead of us” after a recent increase in cases, with hospitalizations rising on a lag of a few weeks.
The comments came as the number of confirmed cases in the U.S. approach 19 million and deaths are more than 332,000. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases warned that the U.S. is at a “very critical point” in combating the pandemic after many Americans ignored guidance to avoid travel.
Flying has picked up recently while remaining well below year-ago levels. Figures from the Transportation Security Administration show more than 1 million people moved through U.S. airport checkpoints on five of the past nine days heading into and through the holidays.
Admiral Brett Giroir, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said the risks entailed by traveling depend mostly on what people do once they get to their destinations, as actually being in an airplane is typically safe.
“What we really worry about is the mingling of different bubbles once you get to your destination,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Vaccinations in the U.S. began Dec. 14 with health-care workers and residents of nursing homes. So far almost 2 million doses have been administered in the country, according to a state-by-state tally compiled by Bloomberg. Those numbers are accelerating as a second vaccine by Moderna Inc. is distributed.
Health officials are on alert for a more infectious covid strain that’s emerged in the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, Ireland and Japan, although there’s no clear evidence it results in more severe cases of the disease.
Travelers coming to the U.S. from the U.K. face more restrictions because of the new variant, with the U.S. insisting on testing negative for covid-19 within 72 hours of departing the country.
Gottlieb, a board member of Pfizer Inc., said that he believes the U.K. strain is already in the U.S., and in “a reasonable number at this point.”
He saw signs that U.S. new daily covid-19 cases are starting to plateau, but since hospitalizations and the number of deaths tend to lag by two to three weeks, “we have a very difficult month ahead of us.”
President Donald Trump has remained silent about the new variant and the worsening crisis gripping some parts of the U.S. He took to Twitter on Saturday to criticize Democratic governors for taking emergency steps to contain the outbreak.
“The lockdowns in Democrat run states are absolutely ruining the lives of so many people,” Trump tweeted.
President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Valdosta, Ga., on Dec. 5. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Elijah Nouvelage
Automobiles manufactured by Vauxhall Motors in the factory parking lot in England’s Ellesmere Port on Feb. 5, 2018. Brexit had made Vauxhall, owned by France’s PSA Group, postpone further investment in its plant in Ellesmere Port. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Matthew Lloyd
President Trump
Anthony Fauci
SootinClaimon.Com 