Biden advisor says Christmas is a reasonable timeline for getting back to normal
Window shoppers view holiday decorations at the Williams & Sons Country Store in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, on Dec. 13, 2020.
Joseph Prezioso | AFP | Getty Images
President Joe Biden‘s prediction that the United States could return to some semblance of normalcy by Christmas is “a reasonable answer,” a senior advisor on the president’s Covid-19 response team told the Washington Post.
But White House Covid advisor Andy Slavitt said he’s reluctant to give a timeline for when things could return to normal, warning there are still plenty of unknowns. The biggest issues that could undermine teh forecast are new, emerging variants as well as vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. and elsewhere.
“There’s a lot we don’t know about the future,” he said. “We are trying not to give a false sense of security or a false sense of precision when none exists. And I know that makes people less comfortable, but I also know people want to be leveled with and they want to be told the truth.”
—Berkeley Lovelace Jr.
Black small-business owners are being left behind in the pandemic, survey shows
Nearly a year into the pandemic, many small businesses are struggling to survive — especially those that are Black owned.
More than one-third, or 37% of Black small-business owners, say they can survive more than a year under current conditions. In comparison, 55% of Hispanic small-business owners and 59% of White small-business owners reported the same, the latest quarterly CNBC|SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey found.
In addition, 15% of Black-owned businesses temporarily shut down due to the pandemic and have not yet reopened, compared to 8% of White owners.
Yet, they are more optimistic than any other race, with their Small Business Confidence Index coming in at 61. Hispanics’ index is 59 and Whites’ index is 41.
—Michelle Fox
U.S. initial jobless claims jump to highest level in a month
First-time filings for unemployment insurance jumped last week to 861,000 — the highest level in a month — signaling recovery of the U.S. labor market continues to struggle, reports CNBC’s Jeff Cox.
The total for the week ended Feb. 13 was above the Dow Jones estimate of 773,000, and only a slight uptick from the 848,000 a week ago. That number was revised up from the initially reported 793,000.
—Melodie Warner
Bill Gates says J&J, Novavax vaccines retain ‘a lot of capability’ against variants
Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates told CNBC that Covid-19 vaccines developed by Johnson & Johnson and Novavax will still be essential tools against new, emerging variants of the virus — even though the companies have said their shots may be less potent against a strain found in South Africa.
People understand that “there is reduced efficacy, although Novavax and Johnson & Johnson still retain a lot of capability against those variants,” he told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in an interview that aired Thursday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Gates questioned whether a third dose of a vaccine would be enough of a boost to protect against new variants.
“There’s a rich dialogue between our foundation, Dr. [Anthony] Fauci and the other government people right now about this variant strategy,” said Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and co-founder of Microsoft.
–Berkeley Lovelace Jr.
Pandemic pushes U.S. life expectancy lower by one year
Sammie Michael Dent, Jr., the grandson of Florence Bolton, a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) positive patient that died on November 2nd at Roseland Community Hospital, carries her casket into Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, U.S., December 9, 2020.
Shannan Stapleton | Reuters
The Covid pandemic has pushed the life expectancy in the U.S. lower by a full year, according to a report from the Associated Press, the largest single-year change since World War II.
Life expectancy measures the average anticipated lifespan of a baby…
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