Stay-at-Home Orders Expand; J&J in Vaccine Deal: Virus Update

(Bloomberg) --

Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., issued stay-at-home orders, with Virginia’s stretching to June 10. The San Francisco Bay Area will extend its mandate to May.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy followed through on a threat to go after anyone who disobeys orders to stay home, and a Florida pastor was arrested for holding services. New York said new infections are slowing.

Italy reported the slowest rate of new Covid-19 cases in almost two weeks and extended containment measures to at least Easter. Spain had fewer deaths after three days of record fatalities. Moscow’s 12.7 million residents were ordered to stay home.

Key Developments:

• Cases top 775,000; 37,000 dead, 164,000 recovered: Johns Hopkins
• Sick crew keeps ship running, risking spread of virus
• New York City marshals all hospitals; Navy sails in to help
• Ex-FDA commissioner says distancing must go on until spread slows
• U.S. allows emergency use of drug Trump backed against virus
• Century-old vaccine investigated as a weapon against coronavirus

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Click VRUS on the terminal for news and data on the coronavirus and here for maps and charts. For analysis of the impact from Bloomberg Economics, click here. For BNEF’s view of the impact on energy, click here.

Gap Joins Macy’s in Furloughing Workers (5:20 p.m. NY)

Large retailers are letting workers go as shoppers stay home. Gap Inc. said it would furlough most of its U.S. and Canada store employees as it anticipates closures to extend past a previously announced April 1 date. Ascena Retail Group, the owner of chains including Ann Taylor, announced a similar move. Macy’s Inc. said earlier Monday that it would furlough most of its roughly 130,000 workers this week.

Consumer spending has “sharply declined” amid the pandemic, according to Visa Inc., which lowered its outlook for revenue growth in the fiscal second quarter.

J&J Surges After Vaccine Deal With U.S. Government (4:25 p.m. NY)

Johnson & Johnson jumped 8% after the company said it would begin a $1 billion-plus effort with the U.S. government to make a vaccine against the virus. It will work with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, an arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to further develop a vaccine the company said it’s been working on since January.

J&J said it plans to begin building manufacturing capacity for a billion doses of the vaccine. Early doses may be ready for emergency use as soon as January.

Read the full story here

California Calls for Non-Practicing Health-Care Workers (4:13 p.m. NY)

California Governor Gavin Newsom made a call to non-practicing health-care workers, asking them to help with the anticipated surge in hospitalizations. “We need you,” he said of nurses, doctors, pharmacists and emergency medical technicians. Facebook Inc. has committed $25 million to provide stipends for additional costs health-care workers might face from childcare to hotel rooms, Newsom said in a press briefing.

In the past four days, California’s number of hospitalizations related to the virus have roughly doubled to more than 1,400. The progression matches the state’s modeling, Newsom said, meaning California is on track to needing an additional 50,000 hospital beds and people to staff them.

Charges Filed Against Florida Pastor Who Held Services (3:15 p.m. NY)

Charges were filed against a Florida pastor who held in-person services at his megachurch on Sunday, Hillsborough Country Sheriff Chad Chronister said during a press conference on Monday. An arrest warrant was issued for Rodney Howard-Browne, who yesterday compared the pandemic to a flu and dismissed the advice of public health experts.

Howard-Browne’s behavior was described as “reckless disregard for public safety” by Chronister. The local county is under a stay-at-home order as the state of Florida deals with skyrocketing coronavirus cases and deaths.

N.Y. Cases Slowing Though Fatalities Still on Rise (2:17 p.m. NY)

New York state reported 253 new coronavirus fatalities on Monday, a 26% increase, but Governor Andrew Cuomo also offered some positive news: The rise in confirmed cases is slowing, and the hospital-discharge rate is rising.

While the doubling of infections has slowed from every two days to every six, the number of people who had to be moved into intensive care with intubation surged in one day, the governor said at a briefing in Manhattan.

New York added almost 7,000 confirmed infections overnight, for a total of more than 66,000, Cuomo said. Of those, roughly 9,500 are hospitalized, an increase of more than 1,000, and about 2,350 were in intensive care, up 315.

France Hospital Deaths Rise by Most to Date (1:56 p.m. NY)

France reported 418 deaths in hospitals, the most in a day for the country. The number doesn’t include deaths in other locations, and will add those figures later in the week, according to the health ministry’s press office. The jump brings the total number of hospital deaths to 3,024.

Israel PM Netanyahu Tests Negative for Virus (1:45 p.m.)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his family and close aides tested negative for Covid-19, his office said in a statement. One of his aides who he was in contact with has the virus, prompting them to go into isolation and be tested. He will remain in isolation until receiving further instructions from the health ministry.

N.J. Files Charges for Violating Social-Distancing Orders (1:25 p.m. NY)

In New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy made good on a promise to name and shame people accused of violating social-distancing orders. His attorney general, Gurbir Grewal, sent out a news release detailing cases against a score of people, an unusual move for low-level offenses like disorderly conduct.

Among the residents facing charges are four buddies who met to drag race in a school parking lot, men who held weddings, a woman who left her home to toss a Molotov cocktail at her boyfriend’s residence -- unsuccessfully -- and a billiards hall owner who reopened after he was ordered to close. At least a dozen people have been charged with threatening to transmit the virus.

Italy Reports Fewest New Cases in Two Weeks (12:30 p.m. NY)

Italy reported the smallest number of new coronavirus cases in almost two weeks as the epicenter of Europe’s contagion enters its fourth week of lockdown.

New infections in the past 24 hours totaled 4,050, compared with 5,217 the previous day, civil protection authorities said Monday at their daily news conference in Rome. This is the lowest increase since March 17.

Fatalities rose by 812 on Monday compared with 756 on Sunday, bringing the total to 11,591. Italy now has 101,739 total cases, the most after the U.S.

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Europe Expected to Start Stabilizing Soon, WHO Says (12:18 p.m. NY)

European countries that took measures two to three weeks ago will probably begin to show some signs of stabilization soon, according to Mike Ryan, head of health emergencies at the World Health Organization. The WHO hopes Italy and Spain are nearly at the peak, though reducing the number of new cases requires proactive measures, Ryan said at a press briefing Monday.

To know if they are testing enough, countries should be getting roughly 10 negative results for every confirmed infection, Ryan said. “If 80 or 90% of the people you test are positive, you are probably missing a lot of cases.”

All Covid-19 patients should be taken to health facilities rather than staying at home, and their close contacts also ideally should be isolated outside the home, he said. Singapore’s success in containing the virus came by sending community workers door-to-door, checking people for symptoms such as fever, and immediately taking anyone suspected to be infected to a testing center, he said.

EU Finance Ministers to Meet April 7 on Response (12:01 p.m. NY)

Euro-area finance ministers will meet on April 7 to deliver proposals to reinforce the EU’s policy response to the coronavirus, Eurogroup President Mario Centeno said on Twitter.

Their meeting comes after EU leaders last week struggled to find common ground on how best to cushion to the impact of the pandemic. Instead, they gave their finance chiefs two weeks to produce new proposals amid disagreements over whether they should deploy the bloc’s bailout fund or push with more ambitious plans such as joint debt in the form of so-called coronabonds.

French Fashion Brands Ramp Up Mask Production (12:01 p.m. NY)

The French fashion sector’s push to supply protective masks is on track to produce 480,000 units per day with 45 companies participating, Deputy Economy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said. Those masks, often reusable, will be intended as an additional protection measure for people working outside the medical sector.

France’s makers of surgical masks are also ramping up production, targeting 40 million masks in April, Pannier-Runacher said Monday in a briefing to press.

Lacoste, Yves Saint-Laurent and Chanel are among the French fashion makers that have said they’ll participate in the effort.

CureVac to Start Trials This Summer, Focus Says (10:30 a.m. NY)

The German biotech CureVac AG will start a trial of a potential coronavirus vaccine in early summer, the magazine Focus reported, citing an interview with CureVac supervisory board member Friedrich von Bohlen. The vaccine could be ready be year-end.

Earlier this month, CureVac denied speculation that the U.S. government tried to buy the business or its technology amid the intensifying race to produce a vaccine for the novel coronavirus.

Abbott Surges on Five-Minute Test (9:45 a.m. NY)

Abbott Laboratories shares surged after the company unveiled a coronavirus test that can tell if someone is infected in as little as five minutes, and is so small and portable it can be used in almost any health-care setting.

The medical-device maker plans to supply 50,000 tests a day starting April 1, said John Frels, vice president of research and development at Abbott Diagnostics. The molecular test looks for fragments of the coronavirus genome, which can quickly be detected when present at high levels. A thorough search to definitively rule out an infection can take up to 13 minutes, he said.

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Poland Election Plan Faces Pushback (9:45 a.m. NY)

Pressure is growing on Poland’s ruling party to delay the May 10 presidential election as the authorities introduce more curbs on civil liberties to contain the coronavirus.

On Monday, a deputy science minister became the first government official to publicly call for the vote to be postponed. Meanwhile, municipalities are growing wary of having to help organize as many as 300,000 volunteers on local election committees that supervise voting and count ballots.

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China to Reveal Data on People Infected With No Symptoms (9:07 a.m. NY)

China’s government indicated it will start releasing data on how many people are infected with coronavirus but don’t have symptoms, as domestic and international criticism of the country’s portrayal of the outbreak grows.

Local governments should emphasize efforts to monitor, track and isolate these asymptomatic infections, a meeting on Covid-19 led by Premier Li Keqiang said Monday. These efforts will help close loopholes in epidemic control work, according to a statement released on the website of the State Council, the top administrative body in China.

Trump Says Hazard Pay for Hospitals Is Being Looked At (8:49 a.m. NY)

The president told Fox News that hazard pay for hospital workers dealing with the coronavirus is being looked at. He said hospitals were being asked to consider possible bonuses, among other measures.

Tokyo Governor Urges Residents to Avoid Night Clubs (8:39 a.m. NY)

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike urged residents to avoid bars and night clubs, which are seen to be behind a recent increase in virus cases in the city. Tokyo reported 13 new cases of infection on Monday, bringing the total to 443.

U.A.E. to Open Drive-Through Testing Centers (8:33 a.m. NY)

The United Arab Emirates plans to open drive-through testing centers nationwide, the official news agency WAM reported on Monday.

Netherlands Reports Its Slowest Case Growth: (8:20 a.m. NY)

New cases in the Netherlands rose by 8% to 11,750, the smallest daily gain since the country reported its first case in late February. The RIVM National Institute for Public Health and the Environment also said total deaths climbed to 864 after it recorded 93 more fatalities, an increase of 12%, below the recent average.

The growth of new cases has slowed gradually over the past week. The RIVM expects to be able to say whether there’s a real flattening over the course of this week.

The government is set to extend restrictions, such as keeping schools and restaurants closed, until after April 6, Dutch news agency ANP reported.

Portugal Cases Slow (7:54 a.m. NY)

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Portugal rose 7.5% to 6,408 as of 11 a.m. on Monday from 5,962 on Sunday morning, the government’s Directorate-General of Health said. That’s slower than a daily increase of 15% reported on Sunday and a 21% gain on Saturday. The total number of deaths increased to 140 on Monday from 119 reported through Sunday morning.

Germany Asks Companies to Suspend Dividends (7:53 a.m. NY)

German listed companies will have to suspend dividend payments to qualify for government assistance designed to ease the impact of the coronavirus crisis, according to two people familiar with the policy.

Decisions will be taken on a case by case basis, but the general rule will be that dividends should not be paid if companies want to tap into the aid program and borrow from state bank KfW, said the people, who asked not to be identified by name because the policy isn’t public. The KfW declined to comment.

Germany is in line with France in insisting firms forgo dividend payments.

The Latest on Covid-19 Tests and Vaccines (7:30 a.m. NY)

Johnson & Johnson rose in pre-market trading after saying it had selected a lead Covid-19 vaccine candidate. The company expects to initiate human clinical studies latest by September and anticipates the first batches of a vaccine could be available for emergency use authorization in early 2021.

Earlier, Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he expects data about remdesivir “in month or so” that will indicate whether the drug works for coronavirus and whether it’s safe to use.

Meanwhile, Abbott Laboratories shares rose 18% in U.S. pre-market trading after the company introduced a coronavirus test that can tell if someone is infected in as little as five minutes, and is so small and portable it can be used in almost any health-care setting.

And Israel has developed a 3D-printed sticker to attach to a standard surgical mask to increase its protective capabilities. The sticker is composed of nanoscale fibers coated with disinfectants, the Defense Ministry said.

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