After a another grim day in new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths, a glimmer of hope on the vaccine front was provided when Pfizer Inc. said it has enough data on its vaccine candidate’s safety to seek emergency-use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.
Pfizer
PFE,
said Wednesday that more interim results from its study of its vaccine candidate, developed with Germany-based partner BioNTech SE, showed that it was 95% effective. Pfizer said it has accumulated 170 infections in the study; last week, when it said the vaccine candidate was more than 90% effective, it had accumulated 94 infections.
The news comes two days after Moderna Inc.
MRNA,
said a first interim analysis of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, based on 95 cases, showed that it was 94.5% effective.
Pfizer didn’t disclose safety details from the latest data, but did say it now has the safety data needed to seek FDA approval.
The upbeat news couldn’t come soon enough, as the U.S. recorded at least 1,583 new deaths on Wednesday, and 159,508 news cases of the coronavirus illness COVID-19 on Wednesday, according to New York Times data.
The case tally has averaged 158,265 a day over the past week, which is up 79% from the daily average just two weeks ago.
Hospitalizations rose to a record 76,830 on Wednesday, breaking the previous record of 73,014 set on Tuesday, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
The COVID Tracking Project
Total new cases in the U.S. reached 11.42million while deaths rose to 249,430, both roughly one-fifth of the world’s totals, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
This week, 48 states and Washington, D.C. have seen cases rise, led by Illinois with 12,601 new cases in the past day, followed by Texas with 11,957 and California with 10,595.
And 44 states are seeing test positivity rates of more than 5% in the past week, a threshold deemed dangerous by the World Health Organization.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, 87, from Iowa became the latest government official to test positive. The longest serving Republican senator is third in line for the presidency.
Iowa is one of just two states that have seen new cases trend lower in the past week, but also had one of the highest positivity rates at 51.0%, JHU data showed.
The recent spike in cases and deaths have led to new restrictions on movement in a number of states and cities this week. Los Angeles imposed new restrictions on businesses on Tuesday, and is preparing for a mandatory curfew of all nonessential workers. Restrictions were also announced in states including Michigan, Washington, New Jersey, New Mexico and Oregon, and the cities of New York and Chicago.
In other news…
The U.S.’s leading infectious disease doctor, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, said a smooth transition of power from President Trump to President-elect Biden was “critical.”
Fauci said it was a “good thing” that Biden’s scientific advisors are already talking to companies, although he had not been in touch with Biden. Fauci also praised Biden for its “considerable, if fact, if not profound,” understanding of science.
Latest tallies
The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide grew to 55.95 million, the Johns Hopkins data show, and the death toll has increased to 1.34 million.
The U.S. is by far the world leader, in both cases and deaths.
Brazil has the second highest death toll at 166,699 and the third highest case tally at 5.91 million.
India is second in cases with 8.91 million and third in deaths at 130,993.
Mexico has the fourth highest death toll at 99,026 and is 11th in cases at 1.01 million.
The U.K. has 53,368 deaths, the highest in Europe and fifth most in the world, and is seventh in cases at 1.43 million.
What companies are saying
Carnival Corp.
CCL,
said it has cancelled additional cruises for the first part of 2021, including all cruises leaving from U.S. ports through Jan. 31. In addition, the cruise operator said it has cancelled embarkations from Baltimore, Charleston, Jacksonville, Long Beach, Mobile, New Orleans and San Diego are cancelled through Feb. 28, and embarkations on Carnival Legend out of Tampa through March 26. Carnival said the cancellations come as it works to meet the requirements outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for resuming cruise ship operations amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
TJX Cos.
TJX,
reported fiscal third-quarter earnings that beat expectations and says it expects to declare a dividend in December 2020. Net income totaled $866.7 million, or 71 cents per share, up from $828.3 million, or 68 cents per share, last year. Sales of $10.12 billion were down from $10.45 billion last year. The FactSet consensus was for EPS of 40 cents and sales of $9.38 billion. Comparable sales for “open-only” stores, defined as the measure of sales increase or decrease for the days that stores were operating versus the sales for the same days the previous year, fell 5%. TJX banners include TJ Maxx and HomeGoods. Some store locations were closed for a period during the quarter due to COVID-19. Due to the ongoing uncertainty of the pandemic, TJX did not provide guidance, but says open-only comp store sales have fallen 7% for the first two weeks of the quarter.
Lowe’s Companies LOW, -6.28% reported fiscal third-quarter sales that rose above expectations, but an adjusted profit that was just in line with forecasts. Net income fell to $692 million, or 91 cents a share, from $1.05 billion, or $1.36 a share, in the year-ago period. Excluding non-recurring items, such as losses on the extinguishment of debt, adjusted earnings per share came to $1.98, matching the FactSet consensus of $1.98. Sales increased 28.3% to $22.31 billion, above the FactSet consensus of $21.17 billion, as U.S. same-store sales jumped 30.4% to beat expectations of a 23.0% rise. The company invested $245 million in COVID-related support for its employees during the quarter, and repurchased $621 million worth of its stock.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. NCLH, -5.07% said late-Tuesday that it started a secondary offer of 40 million ordinary shares. Net proceeds from the offering will be used for general corporate purposes, Norwegian said. Barclays and J.P. Morgan are the underwriters. Norwegian last week reported worse-than-feared third-quarter losses and sales that dwindled to the millions of dollars rather than billions as the pandemic continues to keep most of its ships docked.