US President Joe Biden says the Covid-19 pandemic in the US is finished, despite the country recording hundreds of deaths a day from the virus.
“The pandemic is over,” Mr Biden said in a wide-ranging interview televised on CBS on Sunday, when he also sought to reassure Americans about high levels of inflation.
“We still have a problem with Covid. We're still doing a lotta work on it. … but the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one's wearing masks,” he said on the sidelines of the Detroit auto show that opened on Wednesday, after a two-year absence.
Coronavirus-related fatalities have fallen significantly over the past year with the increased accessibility of vaccines and other medications.
But almost 400 Americans are dying every day from Covid-19, data from the Centres for Disease and Control and Prevention shows.
Dozens of protesters gathered outside the White House on Monday, calling on Mr Biden's administration to declare long Covid a national emergency, start a public health education campaign on the disease and support people who are suffering from lingering symptoms.
Long Covid can involve constant fatigue, respiratory and heart problems and other symptoms for months or years after an initial Covid-19 infection, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says.
Some who are suffering long Covid also say they deal with ME/CFS [myalgic encephalomyelitis and chronic fatigue syndrome], which brings about extreme fatigue after physical or mental activity.
It is also leading to millions leaving the American workforce.
“We are sick and disabled with ME/CFS and long Covid," ” said Ben HsuBorger, of the ME Action Network, who has ME/CFS.
"But we are here today, putting our bodies on the line, to tell President Biden that the pandemic is not over, that millions of us are being disabled from post-viral disease and we need urgent action from our government."
Long Covid is recognised as a disability by the US Health and Human Services Department, and it is estimated that between 10 to 30 per cent of people infected with coronavirus may have it.
Mr Biden asked Congress for another $22.4 billion to prepare for a possible surge in cases this autumn.
His comments come as the Federal Reserve is geared to raise interest rates yet again, a sign of the central bank's overarching focus on battling inflation after spending much of the previous years providing support to the US economy in response to the pandemic.
The Fed has been taking aggressive action to tackle the nation's highest inflation rate in decades, raising interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point in back-to-back meetings.
The central bank is expected to raise interest rates by 75 basis points again when it meets this week.
Raising the interest rates would make borrowing costs — such as taking out a mortgage, car loan or business loan — more expensive, which the Fed hopes would slow down the economy.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said his goal was to achieve a “soft landing” by slowing down the economy without driving it into a recession.
“I'm telling the American people that we're gonna get control of inflation,” Mr Biden said in the 60 Minutes interview, noting that he has his hopes of a soft landing.
The president has repeatedly pointed to the labour market as an indicator of a strong economy, but those gains could be undone by the Fed's weakening of the economy.
And the central bank's soft-landing goal took a hit last week when a government report showed US inflation over the past year was at 8.3 per cent.
Inflation has taken a toll on Americans, as a majority now say that price increases have caused financial hardship for their households, a new Gallup poll showed.
While lower petrol prices have provided some good news for the president, less than one-third of voters approve his handling of the economy.
Mr Biden's approval rating still hovers around 40 per cent, an indicator of Democrats' chances to retain their Congressional majorities after the midterm elections in November.
Up for re-election in 2024, Mr Biden said it was “much too early” to make a firm determination if he would run again, opening the possibility that he may decide against it.
“Look, my intention as I said to begin with is that I would run again. But it's just an intention. But is it a firm decision that I run again? That remains to be seen,” he told CBS.
How Tesla’s price correction has hit fund managers
Investing in disruptive technology can be a bumpy ride, as investors in Tesla were reminded on Friday, when its stock dropped 7.5 per cent in early trading to $575.
It recovered slightly but still ended the week 15 per cent lower and is down a third from its all-time high of $883 on January 26. The electric car maker’s market cap fell from $834 billion to about $567bn in that time, a drop of an astonishing $267bn, and a blow for those who bought Tesla stock late.
The collapse also hit fund managers that have gone big on Tesla, notably the UK-based Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF.
Tesla is the top holding in both funds, making up a hefty 10 per cent of total assets under management. Both funds have fallen by a quarter in the past month.
Matt Weller, global head of market research at GAIN Capital, recently warned that Tesla founder Elon Musk had “flown a bit too close to the sun”, after getting carried away by investing $1.5bn of the company’s money in Bitcoin.
He also predicted Tesla’s sales could struggle as traditional auto manufacturers ramp up electric car production, destroying its first mover advantage.
AJ Bell’s Russ Mould warns that many investors buy tech stocks when earnings forecasts are rising, almost regardless of valuation. “When it works, it really works. But when it goes wrong, elevated valuations leave little or no downside protection.”
A Tesla correction was probably baked in after last year’s astonishing share price surge, and many investors will see this as an opportunity to load up at a reduced price.
Dramatic swings are to be expected when investing in disruptive technology, as Ms Wood at ARK makes clear.
Every week, she sends subscribers a commentary listing “stocks in our strategies that have appreciated or dropped more than 15 per cent in a day” during the week.
Her latest commentary, issued on Friday, showed seven stocks displaying extreme volatility, led by ExOne, a leader in binder jetting 3D printing technology. It jumped 24 per cent, boosted by news that fellow 3D printing specialist Stratasys had beaten fourth-quarter revenues and earnings expectations, seen as good news for the sector.
By contrast, computational drug and material discovery company Schrödinger fell 27 per cent after quarterly and full-year results showed its core software sales and drug development pipeline slowing.
Despite that setback, Ms Wood remains positive, arguing that its “medicinal chemistry platform offers a powerful and unique view into chemical space”.
In her weekly video view, she remains bullish, stating that: “We are on the right side of change, and disruptive innovation is going to deliver exponential growth trajectories for many of our companies, in fact, most of them.”
Ms Wood remains committed to Tesla as she expects global electric car sales to compound at an average annual rate of 82 per cent for the next five years.
She said these are so “enormous that some people find them unbelievable”, and argues that this scepticism, especially among institutional investors, “festers” and creates a great opportunity for ARK.
Only you can decide whether you are a believer or a festering sceptic. If it’s the former, then buckle up.
Profile of Tamatem
Date started: March 2013
Founder: Hussam Hammo
Based: Amman, Jordan
Employees: 55
Funding: $6m
Funders: Wamda Capital, Modern Electronics (part of Al Falaisah Group) and North Base Media
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The Bio
Favourite vegetable: “I really like the taste of the beetroot, the potatoes and the eggplant we are producing.”
Holiday destination: “I like Paris very much, it’s a city very close to my heart.”
Book: “Das Kapital, by Karl Marx. I am not a communist, but there are a lot of lessons for the capitalist system, if you let it get out of control, and humanity.”
Musician: “I like very much Fairuz, the Lebanese singer, and the other is Umm Kulthum. Fairuz is for listening to in the morning, Umm Kulthum for the night.”
MATCH INFO
Hoffenheim v Liverpool
Uefa Champions League play-off, first leg
Location: Rhein-Neckar-Arena, Sinsheim
Kick-off: Tuesday, 10.45pm (UAE)
Evacuations to France hit by controversy
- Over 500 Gazans have been evacuated to France since November 2023
- Evacuations were paused after a student already in France posted anti-Semitic content and was subsequently expelled to Qatar
- The Foreign Ministry launched a review to determine how authorities failed to detect the posts before her entry
- Artists and researchers fall under a programme called Pause that began in 2017
- It has benefited more than 700 people from 44 countries, including Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Sudan
- Since the start of the Gaza war, it has also included 45 Gazan beneficiaries
- Unlike students, they are allowed to bring their families to France
