- Regional leaders absent as Mnangagwa sworn in as Zimbabwe president Financial Times
- Zimbabwe President Mnangagwa LIVE | Emmerson Mnangagwa Sworn In Second Term As Zimbabwe President CNN-News18
- Zimbabwean president at his inauguration says the disputed election reveals a ‘mature democracy’ Yahoo News
- Mnangagwa’s inauguration marred by arrests, abductions and torture of political activists. Amnesty International
- Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa sworn in for second term Al Jazeera English
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Stock futures move higher after Friday’s big sell-off, investors monitor omicron Covid variant
A trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), on Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Stock futures moved higher in overnight trading Sunday following Friday’s big sell-off as investors monitor the latest developments related to the Covid omicron variant.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained about 215 points, or 0.6%. S&P 500 futures added 0.7% and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.7%.
Stocks are coming off a holiday-shortened session Friday in which the Dow posted its worst day since October 2020. The Dow was down 905 points, or 2.5%. The S&P 500 tumbled 2.3% and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 2.2%. The three major indexes were negative for the week.
“The pandemic and COVID variants remain one of the biggest risks to markets, and are likely to continue to inject volatility over the next year(s). It’s hard to say at this point how lasting or impactful this latest variant will be for markets,” Keith Lerner, co-chief investment officer at Truist Advisory Services, said in a note Friday.
The World Health Organization on Friday labeled the omicron strain a “variant of concern.” While scientists continue to research the variant, omicron’s large number of mutations has raised alarm. Preliminary evidence suggests the strain has an increased risk of reinfection, according to the WHO.
The variant was first reported to the WHO from South Africa and has been found in the U.K., Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Australia and Hong Kong, but not yet in the U.S. Many countries, including the U.S., moved to restrict travel from southern Africa.
Vaccine makers have announced measures to investigate omicron with testing already underway. While it remains to be seen how omicron responds to current vaccines or whether new formulations are required, Moderna’s Chief Medical Officer Paul Burton said Sunday the vaccine maker could roll out a reformulated vaccine against the omicron variant early next year.
On top of Covid developments, investors are also anticipating key economic data released this week.
The November jobs report on Friday is expected to show solid jobs growth. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expect 581,000 jobs added in November.
The Institute of Supply Management manufacturing survey is released Wednesday and economists also expect strong results.
U.S. to restrict travel from South Africa, 7 other nations
A traveler wears a face mask while checking their phone on the arrivals level outside the Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT) at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) amid increased Covid-19 travel restrictions on January 25, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images
WASHINGTON – The United States will restrict travel for non-U.S. citizens from South Africa and seven other countries starting Monday, part of a global effort to stem the spread of the heavily mutated omicron variant of Covid-19, according to senior Biden administration officials.
In addition to South Africa, other countries included in the new restrictions are Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi.
There was no indication Friday of how long the bans will remain in place. President Joe Biden said in a statement that moving forward he will be “guided by what the science and my medical team advises.”
The decision came less than three weeks after the administration lifted pandemic travel restrictions on visitors from more than 30 countries, including South Africa.
Biden was briefed on the variant Friday by White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, as a growing list of countries issued their own travel bans.
Canada, the European Union and the U.K. all announced restrictions on travelers from southern Africa Friday, even as Belgian officials announced that several cases of omicron variant Covid had already been identified there.
Also on Friday, the World Health Organization assigned the newly identified variant the Greek letter omicron and formally recognized the strain, previously referred to as lineage B.1.1.529, as a “variant of concern.”
Health experts are deeply concerned about the transmissibility of the omicron variant given that it has an unusual constellation of mutations and a profile that is different from other variants of concern. It is not clear how severe infections would be for vaccinated patients.
It is feared a sharp upswing of Covid cases in South Africa’s Gauteng province — where the heavily mutated strain of the virus was first identified — could mean it has greater potential to escape prior immunity than other variants.
In a statement announcing the travel ban, Biden urged already immunized Americans to get their booster shots, and parents to take advantage of the new vaccine doses approved for children aged 5 to 11.
The emergence of this new strain in South Africa, Biden said, also serves to underscore the importance of making vaccines accessible to people all over the world. To that end, he urged members of the World Trade Organization to waive intellectual property protections for Covid vaccines.
The designation of a new variant of concern coupled with mounting alarm from health officials sent global markets into a tailspin on Friday. Oil prices took heavy losses on the news.
Airline and other travel stocks plunged Friday. The fresh travel restrictions followed reports of the new variant in places as distant as Botswana, Belgium, Israel and Hong Kong.
The new restrictions come just as carriers and aerospace manufacturers like Boeing have been upbeat about a resurgence in travel demand, particularly international routes next year.
Flights between the U.S. and South Africa are limited compared with other international destinations, but the sudden changes in travel rules make it difficult for customers to book and could further delay the return of lucrative international business travel.
There are 122 flights between the U.S. and South Africa scheduled for December, according to aviation consulting firm Cirium.
United, which has the most scheduled service with 87 flights, is set to resume nonstop flights between its Newark, New Jersey, hub and Cape Town next month. A spokeswoman said no changes are currently planned.
Delta has 35 scheduled flights between the U.S. and South Africa in December.
— CNBC’s Sam Meredith and Robert Towey contributed reporting.
Zimbabwe Joins Growing Number of African Countries Rejecting Vaccines
Zimbabwe’s government on Sunday rejected an African Union donation of three million doses of the Chinese coronavirus vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson “citing lack of storage facilities” for the shots, the online newspaper New Zimbabwe reported on Monday.
The secretary of Zimbabwe’s finance ministry, George Guvamatanga, turned down the donation in a letter addressed to the African Export-Import Bank seen by New Zimbabwe on July 4. Guvamatanga’s letter to the pan-African finance institution, created with assistance from the African Development Bank Group, reads:
The government of Zimbabwe notes that there is an allocation of the Johnson and Johnson vaccines for August 2021. However, I wish to advise that the government of Zimbabwe is not yet ready to participate in the August allocation as measures are still being put in place to establish the cold chain management framework for the vaccines, as well as on management of the anticipated adverse effects of the vaccines following inoculation.
Therefore, we will advise of our readiness to receive the vaccines once our internal processes have been conducted, hopefully in time for next allocation. I wish to restate the government of Zimbabwe’s commitment to participate in Africa Union Covid-19 [Chinese coronavirus] vaccination programme which the bank is supporting.
The African Union (A.U.) organized the now-scrapped vaccine deal with Zimbabwe. The transaction was part of a greater African Export-Import Bank agreement to pay for the distribution of 220 million doses of Chinese coronavirus vaccines among A.U. member states.
Zimbabwe’s government “is currently using China’s Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccine [candidate]s both from China, as well as Sputnik V from Russia and India’s AstraZeneca,” for its Chinese coronavirus inoculation drive, New Zimbabwe reported on July 5.
Zimbabwe joins a number of other African nations that have either rejected or failed to use donated Chinese coronavirus vaccines in recent months. Malawi’s government burned nearly 20,000 expired doses of the Chinese coronavirus vaccine developed by the British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca in May.
The A.U. donated 102,000 doses of AstraZeneca to Malawi on March 26 through a program led by the World Health Organization (W.H.O.). Malawi’s government had little time to distribute the shots, however, as the batch expired less than three weeks after its arrival in Malawi on April 13. Malawi’s health ministry managed to administer 80 percent of the 102,000-dose vaccine batch before it expired. The East African country’s government burned the leftover doses from the batch to prove to the Malawian public that it was not using expired vaccines moving forward.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)’s government announced in late April plans to return 1.3 million doses of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine to the United Nations (U.N.) after failing to finalize a formal plan to distribute the inoculations.