The food in your kitchen cabinets may not be what it seems.
“I guarantee you any time a product can be passed off as something more expensive, it will be. It’s that simple,” Larry Olmsted, author of “Real Food/Fake Food,” told CNBC.
Fraudsters motivated by economic gain secretly infiltrate the global food market through a variety of means, including counterfeits, dilutions, substitution and mislabeling.
This not only harms consumers’ wallets, but it also puts public health and safety at risk.
Some estimates say food fraud affects at least 1% of the global food industry at a cost as high as $40 billion a year, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
“We might not know the overall impact of food fraud because so much of what fraudsters do is hidden from us and has been for centuries.” Kristie Laurvick, senior manager of the foods program at the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention, told CNBC.
Even the FDA says it can’t estimate how often this fraud happens or its economic impact.
“Be aware of the product that you put on you or plug in the wall,” John Spink, director of the Food Fraud Prevention Think Tank, told CNBC.
Between 2012 and 2021, the most common type food fraud was lying about an animal’s origin and dilution or substitution, both ranking at 16% of recorded incidents by food-safety monitor Food Chain ID.
For example, dilution could entail adding a cheaper vegetable oil to an expensive extra virgin olive oil.
“If I drink scotch, I couldn’t tell you [the] difference between a $50 bottle and a $5,000 bottle. So, I know I could be deceived at that point,” Spink said.
The Food Fraud Prevention Think Tank suggests five questions a consumer can ask themselves to reduce their vulnerability to product fraud.
What type of product is it? Take extra caution with any product that you put on your body, ingest or plug in the wall.
Can you recognize the difference between products?
Do you know the retailer or supplier? Do you trust them?
Are you shopping online? If so, did you find the online supplier from a reliable source?
Complain. Is the supplier legitimate? If so, they will want to know.
Watch the video above to learn more about the different types of food fraud, how the industry is preventing risk, what consumers can do and where fraud in the olive oil, spices and seafood markets may be lurking.
Nearly a quarter of a million kindergartners are vulnerable to measles due to a dip in vaccination coverage during the pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC, in a report published Thursday, found that 93% of kindergartners were up to date with state-required vaccines during the 2021-22 school year, a decline of 2% from 2019-20.
“While this might not sound significant, it means nearly 250,000 kindergartners are potentially not protected against measles,” Dr. Georgina Peacock, head of the CDC’s immunization services division, said during a call with reporters Thursday.
“And we know that measles, mumps and rubella vaccination coverage for kindergartners is the lowest it has been in over a decade,” Peacock said.
Kindergartners are required to be vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella; chickenpox; polio; and diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. The vaccination rate for measles, mumps and rubella was 93.5% during the 2021-22 school year, below the target coverage of 95% to prevent outbreaks.
An ongoing measles outbreak in Columbus, Ohio, has spread to 83 children, 33 of whom were hospitalized. None of the children have died. The overwhelming majority of the kids, 78, were not vaccinated.
“These outbreaks harm children and cause significant disruptions in their opportunities to learn and grow and thrive,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, who heads the American Academy of Pediatrics committee on infectious disease. “This is alarming and it should be a call to action for all of us.”
The CDC report looked at whether the kindergartners had received the second dose of their measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. Two doses are 97% effective at preventing disease and one dose is about 93% effective, according to the CDC.
Measles is a highly contagious virus that spreads when someone coughs or sneezes and contaminates the air, where the virus can linger for up to two hours. It can also spread when a person touches a contaminated surface and then touches their eyes, nose or mouth.
The virus is so contagious that a single person can spread the virus to 90% of people close to them who do not have immunity through vaccination or a previous infection, according to the CDC.
Measles can be dangerous for children younger than 5, adults older than 20, pregnant women, and people with compromised immune systems.
About 1 in 5 unvaccinated people who catch it are hospitalized. About 1 in 20 kids get pneumonia, and one in 1,000 have brain swelling that can cause disabilities. Symptoms begin with a high fever, cough, runny nose and red eyes. White spots appear in the mouth two to three days later, and a rash breaks out on the body.
CDC officials said disruptions to schools and the health-care system during the Covid pandemic are largely responsible for the decline in vaccination rates.
“We know that the pandemic really had a disruption to health-care systems,” Peacock said. “Part of it is that well-child visits maybe were missed and people are still trying to catch up on those well-child visits.”
“We know that the schools had a lot of things to focus on and in some cases maybe they were not able to gather all that documentation on the vaccinations,” Peacock said. “Or because children were at home for a lot of the pandemic, that may have not been the emphasis while they were focused on testing and doing all those other things related to the pandemic.”
In a separate report published Thursday, the CDC found that coverage for what’s known as the combined seven-vaccine series actually increased slightly among children born in 2018-19 by the time they turned two, compared with kids born in 2016-17.
This seven-vaccine series includes shots against measles, chickenpox, polio, hepatitis B, streptococcus pneumoniae, haemophilus influenzae or Hib, and diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis.
However, the CDC found that there were major income and racial disparities. Vaccination coverage declined by up to 5% during the pandemic for those living below the poverty level or in rural areas. Black and Hispanic children had lower vaccination rates than white children.
O’Leary said that while misinformation about vaccines is a problem, the vast majority of parents are still getting their kids vaccinated. He said inequality is the bigger issue.
“The things we really need to focus on are addressing access and child poverty,” O’Leary said.
The Covid omicron XBB.1.5 variant is rapidly becoming dominant in the U.S. because it is highly immune evasive and appears more effective at binding to cells than related subvariants, scientists say.
XBB.1.5 now represents about 41% of new cases nationwide in the U.S., nearly doubling in prevalence over the past week, according to the data published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The subvariant more than doubled as a share of cases every week through Dec. 24. In the past week, it nearly doubled from 21.7% prevalence.
Scientists and public health officials have been closely monitoring the XBB subvariant family for months because the strains have many mutations that could render the Covid-19 vaccines, including the omicron boosters, less effective and cause even more breakthrough infections.
XBB was first identified in India in August. It quickly become dominant there, as well as in Singapore. It has since evolved into a family of subvariants including XBB.1 and XBB.1.5.
Andrew Pekosz, a virologist at Johns Hopkins University, said XBB.1.5 is different from its family members because it has an additional mutation that makes it bind better to cells.
“The virus needs to bind tightly to cells to be more efficient at getting in and that could help the virus be a little bit more efficient at infecting people,” Pekosz said.
Yunlong Richard Cao, a scientist and assistant professor at Peking University, published data on Twitter Tuesday that indicated XBB.1.5 not only evades protective antibodies as effectively as the XBB.1 variant, which was highly immune evasive, but also is better at binding to cells through a key receptor.
Scientists at Columbia University, in a study published earlier this month in the journal Cell, warned that the rise of subvariants such as XBB could “further compromise the efficacy of current COVID-19 vaccines and result in a surge of breakthrough infections as well as re-infections.”
The XBB subvariants are also resistant to Evusheld, an antibody cocktail that many people with weak immune systems rely on for protection against Covid infection because they don’t mount a strong response to the vaccines.
The scientists described the resistance of the XBB subvariants to antibodies from vaccination and infection as “alarming.” The XBB subvariants were even more effective at dodging protection from the omicron boosters than the BQ subvariants, which are also highly immune evasive, the scientists found.
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Dr. David Ho, an author on the Columbia study, agreed with the other scientists that XBB.1.5 probably has a growth advantage because it binds better to cells than its XBB relatives. Ho also said XBB.1.5 is about as immune evasive as XBB and XBB.1, which were two of the subvariants most resistant to protective antibodies from infection and vaccination so far.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is leaving his role as White House chief medical advisor, has previously said that the XBB subvariants reduce the protection the boosters provide against infection “multifold.”
“You could expect some protection, but not the optimal protection,” Fauci told reporters during a White House briefing in November.
Fauci said he was encouraged by the case of Singapore, which had a major surge of infections from XBB but did not see hospitalizations rise at the same rate. Pekosz said XBB.1.5, in combination with holiday travel, could cause cases to rise in the U.S. But he said the boosters appear to be preventing severe disease.
“It does look like the vaccine, the bivalent booster is providing continued protection against hospitalization with these variants,” Pekosz said. “It really emphasizes the need to get a booster particularly into vulnerable populations to provide continued protection from severe disease with these new variants.”
Health officials in the U.S. have repeatedly called on the elderly in particular to make sure they are up to date on their vaccines and get treated with the antiviral Paxlovid if they have a breakthrough infection.
Sales of existing homes fell 7.7% in November compared with October, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The seasonally adjusted annualized pace was 4.09 million units. That is weaker than the 4.17 million units housing analysts had predicted, and it was a much deeper fall than usual monthly declines.
Sales were down 35.4% year over year, marking the tenth straight month of declines. That was the weakest pace since November 2010, with the exception of May 2020, when sales fell sharply, albeit briefly, during the early days of the Covid pandemic. In November 2010, the nation was mired in the great recession as well as a foreclosure crisis.
These counts are based on closings, so the contracts were likely signed in September and October, when mortgage rates last peaked before coming down slightly last month. Rates are now about one percentage point lower than they were at the end of October, but still a little more than twice what they were at the start of this year.
“In essence, the residential real estate market was frozen in November, resembling the sales activity seen during the Covid-19 economic lockdowns in 2020,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. “The principal factor was the rapid increase in mortgage rates, which hurt housing affordability and reduced incentives for homeowners to list their homes. Plus, available housing inventory remains near historic lows.”
Read more: Mortgage refinance demand surged 6% last week
At the end of November there were 1.14 million homes for sale, which is an increase of 2.7% from November of last year, but at the current sales pace it represents a still-low 3.3 month supply.
Low supply kept prices higher than a year ago, up 3.5% to a median sale price of $370,700, but those annual gains are shrinking fast, well off the double digit gains seen earlier this year. It is still the highest November price the Realtors have ever recorded, and, at 129 straight months, it is the longest running streak of year-over-year price gains since the realtors began tracking this in 1968. Roughly 23% of homes sold above list price, due to tight supply.
“We have seen home prices come down from their summer peaks over the past five months. At the same time, we have also seen rent growth retreat for 10 consecutive months,” wrote George Ratiu, senior economist at Realtor.com in a release. “However, the cost of real estate remains challenging for many households looking for a place to call home, especially as high inflation and still-elevated interest rates have been eroding purchasing power.”
Sales decreased in all regions but fell hardest in the West, where prices are the highest, down nearly 46% from a year ago.
Homes sat on the market longer in November, an average 24 days, up from 21 days in October and 18 days in November 2021. Despite the slower market, 61% of homes went under contract in less than a month.
With prices still high and mortgage rates hitting a cyclical peak, first-time buyers remained on the sidelines. They were responsible for 28% of sales in November, which was unchanged from October, and up slightly from 26% in November 2021. Historically first-time buyers make up about 40% of the market. A separate survey from the Realtors put the annual share at 26%, the lowest since they began tracking.
Sales fell across all price categories, but took the steepest dive in the luxury million-dollar-plus category, dropping 41% year-over-year. That sector had seen the biggest gain in the first years of the pandemic.
Mortgage rates have come off their recent highs, but it remains to be seen if it will be enough to offset higher prices.
“The market may be thawing since mortgage rates have fallen for five straight weeks,” Yun added. “The average monthly mortgage payment is now almost $200 less than it was several weeks ago when interest rates reached their peak for this year.”
The Bank of Japan on Tuesday shocked global markets by widening the target range for its 10-year government bond yield.
Kazuhiro Nogi | Afp | Getty Images
Global markets were jolted overnight after the Bank of Japan unexpectedly widened its cap on 10-year Japanese government bond yields, sparking a sell-off in bonds and stocks around the world.
The central bank caught markets off guard by tweaking its yield curve control (YCC) policy to allow the yield on the 10-year Japanese Government Bond (JGB) to move 50 basis points either side of its 0% target, up from 25 basis points previously, in a move aimed at cushioning the effects of protracted monetary stimulus measures.
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In a policy statement, the BoJ said the move was intended to “improve market functioning and encourage a smoother formation of the entire yield curve, while maintaining accommodative financial conditions.”
The central bank introduced its yield curve control mechanism in September 2016, with the intention of lifting inflation towards its 2% target after a prolonged period of economic stagnation and ultra-low inflation.
The BoJ — an outlier compared with most major central banks — also left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at -0.1% Tuesday and vowed to significantly increase the rate of its 10-year government bond purchases, retaining its ultra-loose monetary policy stance. In contrast, other central banks around the world are continuing to hike rates and tighten monetary policy aggressively in an effort to rein in sky-high inflation.
The YCC change prompted the Japanese yen and bond yields around the world to rise, while stocks in Asia-Pacific tanked. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 2.5% on Tuesday afternoon. The 10-year JGB yield briefly climbed to over 0.43%, its highest level since 2015.
U.S. Treasury yields spiked, with the 10-year note climbing by around 7 basis points to exceed 3.66% and the 30-year bond rising by around 9 basis points to 3.7%. Yields move inversely to prices.
Shares in Europe also retreated at the open, with the pan-European Stoxx 600 shedding 1% in early trade before recovering slightly. European government bonds also sold off, with Germany’s 10-year bund yield adding almost 9 basis points to 2.2840%.
‘Testing the water’
“The decision is being read as a sign of testing the water, for a potential withdrawal of the stimulus which has been pumped into the economy to try and prod demand and wake up prices,” said Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
“But the Bank is still staying firmly plugged into its bond purchase program, claiming this is just fine tuning, not the start of a reversal of policy.”
That sentiment was echoed by Mizuho Bank, which said in an email Tuesday that the market moves reflect a sudden flurry of bets on a hawkish policy pivot from the BoJ, but argued that the “popular bet does not mean that is the policy reality, or the intended policy perception.”
“Fact is, there is nothing in the fundamental nature of the move or the accompanying communique that challenges our fundamental view that the BoJ will calibrate policy to relieve JPY pressures, but not turn overtly hawkish,” said Vishnu Varathan, head of economics and strategy for the Asia and Oceania Treasury Department at Mizuho.
“For one, there was every effort made to emphasize that policy accommodation is being maintained, whether this was in reference to intended as well as potential step-up in bond purchases or suggesting no further YCC target band expansion (for now).”
Spikes in volatility
The Bank of Japan noted in its statement that since early spring, market volatility around the world had risen, “and this has significantly affected these markets in Japan.”
“The functioning of bond markets has deteriorated, particularly in terms of relative relationships among interest rates of bonds with different maturities and arbitrage relationships between spot and futures markets,” it added.
The central bank said if these market conditions persisted, it could have a “negative impact on financial conditions such as issuance conditions for corporate bonds.”
Luis Costa, head of CEEMEA strategy at Citi, indicated on Tuesday that the market move may be an overreaction, telling CNBC there was “absolutely nothing stunning” about the BoJ’s decision.
“You have to take this BoJ measure in the context of a positioning in dollar-yen that was obviously not expecting this tweak. It’s a tweak,” he said.
Japanese inflation is projected to come in at 3.7% annually in November, according to a Reuters poll last week — a 40-year high, but still well below the levels seen in comparable Western economies.
Costa said the Bank of Japan’s move was not geared toward combating inflation but addressing the “infrastructure and the dynamics of JGB trading” and the gap in volatility between the trade in JGBs and the rest of the market.
A container crane stands idle at the Port of Los Angeles amid a cargo slowdown on November 16, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. The country’s busiest container port complex, the ports of Los Angeles and neighboring Long Beach, saw imports of shipping containers drop 26 percent in October compared with the same month in 2021.
Mario Tama | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The official container count may not be out, but the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey tells CNBC it will be the No. 1 port moving the most containers in the U.S. for the fourth month in a row.
Unresolved port labor negotiations and the AB5 trucking law — which concerns the employment status of drivers — have migrated trade away from the West Coast to the East Coast and Gulf ports, cementing what seems to be with each month a more likely permanent shift, and benefitting not only the ports but East Coast warehousing as well as the two large railroads that service the ports, CSX and Norfolk Southern. According to ITS Logistics which monitors rail cargo trends, the volume of freight moving out of the East Coast doubles that of the West Coast.
“The port is working extremely hard on making it the most attractive port for ocean carriers and cargo shippers,” Richard Cotton, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, told CNBC.
There are a variety of reasons why trade is being diverted, but Cotton said the message that shippers and cargo carriers are sending is also about diversification. “They don’t want to have all their eggs in one basket so what we see happening in terms of the decline of other ports, is that much of it has come to the Port of New York and New Jersey,” he said.
“The Atlantic Ocean region volumes are high once again, as shippers continue to avoid the West Coast due to the uncertainty of the IWLU contract negotiations,” said Paul Brashier, vice president, drayage and intermodal at ITS Logistics.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union and Pacific Maritime Association (which represents the terminals and ocean carriers) have been engaged in a labor dispute for much of this year.
New York first topped California in cargo volume in August.
While volume remains low on the West Coast, the elevated ocean dray on the East Coast started back in January, “when all of the smoke around IWLU started,” Brashier said. “And honestly, we can’t see these trends changing in 2023 until there’s a resolution on that contract,” he added.
East Coast ports making major investments
East Coast ports like Georgia, Virginia and Maryland have been increasing their investment to accommodate the increase in rail capacity. The Port of Virginia is currently deciding if it will open a second inland port. This long-term infrastructure investment is attracting ocean carriers like MSC that have announced plans to build new terminals at the ports of New Orleans and Baltimore.
“What is attracting the trade is the long-term investments the East Coast and Gulf ports are making to meet today’s trade demands,” said William Doyle, executive director for the Maryland Port Administration “Our mix of public-private partnerships have resulted in the investments of the Howard Street Tunnel, investments at our Seagirt Marine container terminal and Dundalk Marine Terminal (berths and on dock warehousing), and dredging. This is just the beginning.”
Private sector investment and state funding have also fueled port investment in Georgia. The Mason Mega Rail Terminal is a $220 million project for the Georgia Ports Authority. At 85 acres and 18 working tracks, the rail yard is now the largest of its kind for a port terminal in North America.
“The expanded infrastructure doubles the Port of Savannah’s previous rail capacity to 2 million twenty-foot equivalent container units per year, and allows Georgia Ports to better serve major inland markets such as Atlanta, Birmingham, Chicago, Memphis, Dallas, and New Orleans,” said a Georgia Ports Authority spokesperson.
The Port Authority of Virginia tells CNBC it does not see any lull in future investments.
“We move more than one-third of our total cargo volume by rail and with our investments, we believe we can push that number to somewhere near 40%,” said Stephen Edwards, CEO and executive director of the Virginia Port Authority. “We’re creating a superior rail operation – on-dock, double-stack and served by both of the East’s Class I carriers — that reaches deep into many of the Midwest’s traditional manufacturing and population centers.”
Edwards added they are also adding landside capacity and capability, channel depth, and see more private investment in Virginia by port users – logistics companies, warehouses, distribution centers, manufacturing, etc. Total investments in their rails, terminals, and widening and deepening of Norfolk Harbor is $1.4 billion.
Cotton also was confident that New York’s gains will be lasting, especially after five years of investments.
“If you compare today’s performance to prior years, it has absolutely stayed at an extraordinary level above the prior years. We are not seeing the decline the other ports are seeing,” he said. “The port will continue to set records for the rest of the year and we think that trend will continue. There may be seasonal declines, but the port is hitting on all cylinders.”
CSX, Norfolk Southern rail expansion
CSX said it cannot provide container volumes since the ports maintain and publish the data, but it is seeing growth in the movement of containers.
“CSX continues to see the East Coast ports as a growth opportunity as volumes shift from congested West coast gateways,” said Cindy Schild, CSX spokesperson.
Broad assets are underway, she said, to expand all aspects of port container handling capacity across the Eastern seaboard (e.g., on-dock rail capacity increases, inland port investments, new marine terminals, and terminal expansions, dredging, as well as near dock transload facilities.)
“All of these developments will benefit CSX. There is a high degree of correlation between port TEU throughput and our intermodal, as well as carload, rail volumes,” Schild said, adding that interest from port authorities and other stakeholders in inland port container initiatives are also on the rise.
The creation of inland ports can enable rails including CSX to connect to global markets otherwise served by trucks.
“The development of inland ports has an added benefit for port authorities and communities by alleviating congestion and reducing emissions from truck traffic at port, as well as efficiently increasing overall port throughput capacity,” Schild said.
Norfolk Southern told CNBC it is primed to take advantage of this trade shift.
“Strategic corridor investments and the opening of a dozen new intermodal facilities since 2014 have created the capacity and productivity to support volume growth on our network,” said Ed Elkins, executive vice president & chief marketing officer. “As the global economy becomes even more reliant on the East Coast for supply chain needs, we see a great possibility for smart, sustainable growth.”
West Coast port decline
Cargo volumes on the West Coast remained soft at the Port of Los Angeles in November, which saw a 21% decrease year over year in volumes. Overall, the port moved 7% less cargo in the first 11 months of 2022 compared to last year, which was an all-time record.
“Imports into the United States have begun to level off, in addition to cargo that has shifted away from West Coast ports due to protracted labor negotiations,” said Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka during a media briefing on Thursday. “In the months ahead, we’re going to have to work harder and smarter to earn cargo back. Every ship, every train, every truck needs to be handled with the top-level service our customers expect and deserve.”
The trend of trade continuing to move to the Port of New York and New Jersey over Los Angeles can be tracked in FreightWaves SONAR charts, which shows the incoming vessel capacity.
The Port of Long Beach processed 588,742 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) last month, down 21% from November 2021. Imports slid 28.4% to 259,442 TEUs. Exports increased 13.8% to 124,988 TEUs.
“While some import volume has shifted to other gateways, we are confident that a good portion of it will return to the San Pedro Bay,” said Port of Long Beach Executive Director Mario Cordero. “As we move toward normalization of the supply chain, it’s time to refocus our efforts on engaging in sustainable and transformative operations that will secure our place as a leader in transpacific trade.”
During the first 11 months of 2022, the Port of Long Beach has moved 8,589,553 TEUs, down just 0.5% from 2021, which was the port’s strongest year on record.
While the East Coast gains are significant, there was a “leveling” off of imports detected on the East Coast in November, according to port TEU data from the CNBC Supply Chain Heat Map.
The CNBC Supply Chain Heat Map data providers are artificial intelligence and predictive analytics company Everstream Analytics; global freight booking platform Freightos, creator of the Freightos Baltic Dry Index; logistics provider OL USA; supply chain intelligence platform FreightWaves; supply chain platform Blume Global; third-party logistics provider Orient Star Group; global maritime analytics provider MarineTraffic; maritime visibility data company Project44; maritime transport data company MDS Transmodal UK; ocean and air freight rate benchmarking and market analytics platform Xeneta; leading provider of research and analysis Sea-Intelligence ApS; Crane Worldwide Logistics; DHL Global Forwarding; freight logistics provider Seko Logistics; Planet, provider of global, daily satellite imagery and geospatial solutions, and ITS Logistics provides port and rail drayage services in 22 coastal ports and 30 rail ramps throughout North America.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday released new body mass index charts for children in response to the growing obesity crisis in the U.S.
The previous BMI chart for children ages 2 to 19, published in 2000, is based on data from 1963 to 1980, but obesity and severe obesity in children has increased significantly since the ’80s. More than 4.5 million children and teenagers had severe obesity in 2018, according to the CDC.
BMI is calculated using a mathematical formula that measures body fat, generally by dividing an individual’s height by their weight. For adults, a healthy BMI runs from 18.5 to 24.9, or 111 lbs. to about 150 lbs. for someone who is 5’5″. At 5’10”, a healthy BMI runs between 129 lbs. and 175 lbs. For adults ages 20 and older, a BMI of 30 and above is considered obese.
The previous charts for children did not go beyond a BMI of 37. The new charts extend to a BMI of 60 and measure whether it falls within healthy parameters based on a percentile measured against other children of the same age and gender.
“Prior to today’s release, the growth charts did not extend high enough to plot BMI for the increasing number of children with severe obesity,” said Dr. Karen Hacker, director of the CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
BMI for kids up to 20-year-olds runs along a sliding range, depending on age and gender. Under the new guidelines, healthy BMI for kids can range from as low as around 13 to about 17 for a 6-year-old girl or boy to a range of as much as roughly 18 to around 26 for a 20-year-old young woman.
The extended charts will help health-care providers work with families to treat children who are suffering from obesity, Hacker said. The BMI charts from 2000 will still be used for children who are not obese, according to the CDC.
Obesity has increased significantly among children over the past 40 years. During the four-year period ended in 1980, 5.5% of children ages 2 to 19 were obese and 1.3% were severely obese. By 2018, 19.3% of kids were obese and 6.1% were severely obese, according to National Center for Health Statistics.
Obesity for children is defined as a BMI that is higher than 95% of kids of the same age and gender, according to the CDC. Severe obesity is a BMI that is 120% higher than the 95th percentile.
Although children’s BMI is calculated using the same formula as adults, a healthy weight is measured in relation to other kids of the same age and gender. This is because children’s height and weight can vary significantly as they grow.
Evusheld injection, a new COVID treatment that people can take before becoming symptomatic, in Chicago on Friday, Feb. 4, 2022.
Chris Sweda | Tribune News Service | Getty Images
The omicron subvariants that have become dominant in recent months present a serious threat to the effectiveness of the new boosters, render antibody treatments ineffective and could cause a surge of breakthrough infections, according to a new study.
The BQ.1, BQ.1.1, XBB and XBB.1 omicron subvariants are the most immune evasive variants of Covid-19 to date, according to scientists affiliated with Columbia University and the University of Michigan. These variants, taken together, are causing 72% of new infections in the U.S. right now, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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The scientists, in a study published online Tuesday in the peer-reviewed journal Cell, found that these subvariants are “barely susceptible to neutralization” by the vaccines, including the new omicron boosters. The immune response of people who were vaccinated and had breakthrough infections with prior omicron variants was also weaker against the subvariants.
“Together, our findings indicate that BQ and XBB subvariants present serious threats to current COVID-19 vaccines, render inactive all authorized antibodies, and may have gained dominance in the population because of their advantage in evading antibodies,” the scientists wrote.
Although these subvariants are more likely to cause breakthrough infections, the vaccines have been shown to remain effective at preventing hospitalization and severe disease from omicron, the scientists wrote.
The study examined blood samples from people who received three or four shots of the original vaccines, those who received the new omicron boosters after three shots of the original vaccines, and individuals vaccinated with the original shots who also had breakthrough infections from the BA.2 or BA.5 subvariants.
For people who received the omicron boosters, antibodies that block infection were 24 times lower against BQ.1, 41 times lower against BQ.1.1, 66 times lower against XBB and 85 times lower against XBB.1 compared to their performance against the ancestral strain that emerged in Wuhan, China in 2019.
However, people who received the omicron boosters had modestly higher antibody levels against all of these subvariants compared with people who received three or four shots of the original vaccines, according to the study.
People who were vaccinated and had breakthrough infections had the highest antibody levels of any group in the study, though neutralization was also much lower against the subvariants than the ancestral strain.
The subvariants have evolved away from previous versions of omicron in dramatic fashion. BQ.1.1, for example, is about as different from omicron BA.5 as the latter subvariant is from ancestral Covid strain, according to the study.
“Therefore, it is alarming that these newly emerged subvariants could further compromise the efficacy of current COVID-19 vaccines and result in a surge of breakthrough infections, as well as re-infections,” the scientists wrote.
XBB.1, however, presents the biggest challenge. It is about 49 times more resistant to antibody neutralization than the BA.5 subvariant, according to the study. XBB.1, fortunately, is currently causing no more than 1% of infections in the U.S., according to CDC data.
BQ.1.1 and BQ.1 represent 37% and 31% of new infections respectively, while XBB is causing 4.7% of new infections, according to CDC data.
Antibodies ineffective
Key antibody drugs, Evusheld and bebtelovimab, were “completely inactive” against the new subvariants, according to the study. These antibodies are used primarily by people with weak immune systems.
Evusheld is an antibody cocktail used to prevent Covid in people with weak immune systems who don’t respond strongly to the vaccines. Bebtelovimab is used to prevent Covid from progressing to severe disease in organ transplant patients and other individuals who cannot take other treatments.
“This poses a serious problem for millions of immunocompromised individuals who do not respond robustly to COVID-19 vaccines,” the scientists wrote. “The urgent need to develop active monoclonal antibodies for clinical use is obvious.”
The FDA has already pulled its authorization of bebtelovimab nationwide because it is no longer effective against the dominant omicron variants in the U.S. Evusheld remains authorized as the only option for pre-exposure prophylaxis.
New Covid infections increased by about 50% to 459,000 for the week ending Dec. 7, according to CDC data. Covid deaths increased 61% to nearly 3,000 during the same week. Hospital admissions have plateaued at 4,700 per day on average after rising in November, according to the data.
White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, in a press briefing last month, said U.S. health officials are hoping there’s enough immunity in the population from vaccination, infection or both to prevent the massive surge of infections and hospitalizations the U.S. suffered last winter when omicron first arrived.
A prospective home buyer, left, is shown a home by a real estate agent in Coral Gables, Florida.
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The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage dropped to 6.28% Tuesday, according to Mortgage News Daily. It is now at the lowest level since mid-September.
The decline came after a lower-than-expected reading of the November’s consumer price index, a widely watched measure of inflation. The report sent investors rushing into U.S. Treasury bonds, causing yields to drop. Mortgage rates follow loosely the yield on the 10-year Treasury.
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“The second consecutive month of reassuring CPI data continues to build a case that inflation has turned a corner, but rates will be careful about reading too much into that potential shift given the volatility of the data in recent months,” said Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily. “The bond market will also want to see what the Fed does with this info in tomorrow’s updated Fed rate forecasts in the dot plot.”
Mortgage rates began rising at the start of this year and accelerated in the spring and summer, with the 30-year fixed going from around 3% to well over 7% by the end of October. That sent the housing market into an early deep freeze. Sales of existing homes have fallen for nine straight months and were down 24% in October year-over-year, according to the latest read from the National Association of Realtors.
But rates then fell sharply in November, after the CPI report for October indicated that inflation was cooling. The rate ended November at 6.63%. Some suggested, albeit cautiously, that the drop in rates might be bringing buyers back to the market.
“There are some very very modest green shoots over the last few weeks, as rates have come down, but I am not ready to get sucked back into the conversation we had in August when we felt better,” Doug Yearley, CEO of luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers, said on the company’s quarterly earnings call with analysts last week. Yearly was referring to a very brief rate drop in August.
Redfin reported homebuyer demand “has started ticking up” in November. It’s demand index, which measures requests for home tours and other homebuying services from Redfin agents, was up 1.5% from a month earlier but down 20% from a year earlier during the four weeks ending Nov. 27.
“There have been a handful of pieces of relatively good news for the housing market lately, but we’re far from out of the woods,” said Redfin deputy chief economist Taylor Marr. “Key indicators of homebuying demand will likely be teetering on a knife’s edge with every data release that comes out related to the Fed’s path to eventually bringing rates down.”
All that optimism, however, did not translate into higher mortgage rate locks for homebuyers, which are generally an indicator of future home sales. Those rate locks fell 22% in November, compared with October, and were down 48% year-over-year, according to mortgage tech and data firm Black Knight.
“It’s still extremely unaffordable even with rates coming down, even with prices coming down in each of the last four months. We’re still less affordable than we were at the peak of the market in 2006, and you’re seeing that play out in the rate lock numbers,” said Andrew Walden, vice president of enterprise research strategy at Black Knight.
Walden points to inventory still being about 40% shy of where it should be, while the homebuilders continue to pull back and potential sellers stay on the sidelines. Even as prices weaken and rates come down, he said both are still substantially higher than they should be compared with incomes to make housing affordable by historical standards. And none of those are going to move that much any time in the near future.
“As we move throughout 2023 you’re going to see prices continue to soften, you’re going to see incomes hopefully continue to grow and eat up some of that gap, and I think likely we are going to see rates come down from where they are today, but it’s going to take an extended period of time to get there,” said Walden.
Inflation has already peaked, but it will remain above pre-Covid levels in 2023, said David Mann, chief economist for Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa at the Mastercard Economics Institute.
“Inflation has seen its peak this year, but it will still be above what we had been used to pre-pandemic next year,” Mann told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Friday.
It’ll take a few years to return to 2019 levels, he said.
“We do expect that we go back down in the direction of where we were back in 2019 where we were still debating how many countries needed negative interest rates.”
Central banks around the world have been hiking interest rates as recently as November in response to high inflation.
They include central banks from the Group of 10 countries — such as the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Reserve Bank of Australia — as well those of emerging markets, such as Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines, Reuters reported.
The Fed will hold its December policy meeting this week, where it is expected to hike interest rates by 50 basis points. The central bank has raised rates by 375 basis points so far this year.
“Inflation has become that big challenge. It’s been spiking and staying very high,” Mann said. But he warned that it would be risky if central banks end up hiking rates more than they need to.
“The challenge is if you’ve lost orientation of where the sky and the ground is, you’re not quite sure where you need to end up,” Mann said.
It would be a “serious scenario” if central banks “end up going slightly too far and then need to reverse relatively quickly,” he added.
Consumer spending
Despite high inflation, Mann said, U.S. consumers are still willing to engage in discretionary spending in areas such as travel.
Travel recovery in the U.S. is strong and people are still choosing to spend on experiences rather than material goods, Mann said.
And they are being frugal about their spending on necessities in order to be able to afford non-essentials, he added.
“There is something in the back of people’s minds that worries them that even though it’s not very likely, it’s still possible that those [Covid] restrictions [will] come back,” he said.
