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Dollar heads towards 2-year high after Fed aids greenback bulls

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Dollar heads towards 2-year high after Fed aids greenback bulls

The dollar was heading towards a two-year high against a basket of major currencies on Thursday after meeting minutes showed the Federal Reserve preparing to move aggressively to fight inflation, while commodity-linked currencies fell further.

According to Reuters, the euro remained near a one-month low below $1.09 as investors await European Central Bank minutes due later.

The Japanese yen was pinned near a one-week low and last traded at 123.80 to the dollar.

“Inflation differentials and the resulting monetary policy divergence dynamics can underpin DXY [U.S. dollar] resilience near term,” Citi foreign exchange strategists said.

“High inflation is here to stay and the hawks are in the driving seat. This matters for DXY given the strength of relative rates in driving EURUSD and USDJPY recently.”

Sterling recovered a small part of recent losses to trade up 0.1% at $1.3075.

Broad selling of equities and other risk assets this week has also hurt cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin edged back from Wednesday’s 5% drop with a 0.5% rise to $43,402.

Minutes from the March Fed meeting published on Wednesday showed “many” participants were prepared to raise interest rates in 50-basis-point increments in coming months.

They also prepared markets for a reduction in the Fed’s balance sheet after the May meeting at a rate of $95 billion per month, the beginning of the reversal of the massive stimulus it pumped into the economy after the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

“That’s nearly twice as quick as was seen during the last balance sheet run-down during the 2017-19 cycle,” ING analysts said.

“All of the above points to the Fed applying a heavy foot to the brakes, which should be positive for the dollar.”

By 1045 GMT, the U.S. dollar index traded at 99.676 after earlier reaching 99.823, its strongest since May 2020 .

The Australian and New Zealand dollars fell 0.5% and 0.2% respectively as the Fed’s tone offset a hawkish shift from Australia’s central bank, and a pullback in commodity prices also reversed some of their recent strength.

Minutes from the ECB’s March meeting, due later in the day, will be watched for insight into policymakers’ delicate balancing act to manage soaring inflation and slowing growth.

An increasingly close-looking presidential election in France is another wildcard, and the prospect of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen beating incumbent Emmanuel Macron has dragged on the euro and French debt ahead of Sunday’s first-round vote.

The euro hit a one-month trough of $1.0865 and was last down 0.1% at $1.0887.

Shell will write down up to $5 billion hit from Russia exit

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Shell will write down up to $5 billion hit from Russia exit

Shell will write down up to $5 billion following its decision to exit Russia, more than previously disclosed, while soaring oil and gas prices boosted trading activities in the first quarter, the company said on Thursday.

The post-tax impairments of between $4 billion and $5 billion in the first quarter will not impact the company’s earnings, Shell said in an update ahead of its earnings announcement on May 5.

Shell, the world’s largest liquefied natural gas trader, said earnings from LNG trading were expected to be higher in the quarter compared with the previous three months. Earnings from oil trading are set to be “significantly higher” in the quarter.

Cashflow in the quarter would be negatively impacted by “very significant” outflows of around $7 billion as a result of changes in the value of oil and gas inventories.

Shell’s fuel sales averaged 4.3 million barrels per day in the quarter, down from 4.45 million bpd in the previous quarter, Shell said. LNG liquefaction volumes were slightly higher on the quarter, averaging 8 million tonnes.

According to CNN, Shell, whose market capitalization is around $210 billion, had previously said the Russia writedowns would reach around $3.4 billion. The increase was due to additional potential impacts around contracts, writedowns of receivables, and credit losses in Russia, a Shell spokesperson said.

Shell (RDSA) shares were down 1.2% at the start of London trading.

The start of 2022 marked one of the most turbulent periods in decades for the oil and gas industry as Western companies including Shell rapidly pulled out of Russia, severing trading ties and winding down joint ventures following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Shell said it will exit all its Russian operations, including a major liquefied natural gas plant in the Sakhalin peninsula in the eastern flank of the country.

Shell did not provide any guidance on the future of its stakes in Russian projects.

Benchmark oil prices soared to an average of more than $100 a barrel in the quarter, their highest since 2014, while European gas prices hit a record high.

The unprecedented volatility in commodity prices in recent months has pushed several traders to the brink as they scrambled to sharply increase down payments for oil and LNG cargoes.

Another 166,000 Americans filed new unemployment claims last week

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Another 166,000 Americans filed new unemployment claims last week

U.S. first-time unemployment claims fell much more than expected last week to reach the lowest level since 1968, with the rate of new layoffs and firings staying low compared to pre-pandemic averages.

The strong labor market has also emboldened the Federal Reserve to press ahead with more monetary policy tightening, including more aggressive interest rate hikes and balance sheet reduction process starting in the near-term. Earlier this week, Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard said it was “of paramount importance” to get inflation down, further reinforcing the central bank was committed to focusing monetary policy efforts on bringing down prices rather than optimizing for further employment growth in an already tight labor market.

“The labor market appears to be moving past the pandemic, rapidly closing in on a complete recovery,” Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a note. “Even as the labor market is tight, suggesting optimism about economic conditions, a four-decade high in prices is tempering expectations.”

“Even as consumer balance sheets are healthy and virus concerns are facing, there are downside risks that could weigh on household and economic activity more broadly going forward,” she added.

The Labor Department released its latest weekly jobless claims report Thursday at 8:30 a.m. ET. Here were the main metrics from the print, compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:

  • Initial jobless claims, week ended April 2: 166,000 vs. 200,000 expected and a revised 171,0000 during prior week
  • Continuing claims, week ended March 26: 1.523 million vs. 1.302 million expected and a revised 1.506 million during prior week

The number of new claims filed last week marked the least in more than five decades and represented a third consecutive week that new claims were below 200,000. The prior week’s new claims were also markedly downwardly revised to 171,000, from the 202,000 previously reported for the end of March. Prior to the pandemic, new claims were averaging around 218,000 per week throughout 2019.

Some of the volatility in the most recent weekly jobless claims data likely reflects a change in the way the Labor Department adjusted the figures to account for seasonal factors. Starting in Thursday’s report, the Labor Department returned to using “multiplicative” seasonal adjustment factors for the data. Over the course of the pandemic, the Labor Department had been using “additive” seasonal adjustment factors, which help smooth out large shifts in the data — as had been the case with the anomalous spikes in jobless claims that took place during the early wave of lockdowns in 2020.

“In times of relative economic stability, the multiplicative option is generally preferred over the additive option,” the Labor Department said Thursday. “However, in the presence of a large level shift in a time series, multiplicative seasonal adjustment factors can result in systematic over- or under-adjustment of the series; in such cases, additive seasonal adjustment factors are preferred since they tend to track seasonal fluctuations more accurately in the series and have smaller revisions.”

Even with the revisions, however, the underlying trend in the data still reflects an incredibly tight labor market, according to many economists.

“The trend is flattening, at an extraordinarily low level,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in an email Thursday morning.

“The new data show that the downward trend has been steadier since the fading of the Covid Delta wave, but it is now slowing. Claims cannot fall to zero; some firms struggle even at the peak of booms,” he added. “Still, the clear message here is that the bar for layoffs is very high, given the extreme tightness of the labor market.”

Continuing claims, which track the total number of individuals claiming unemployment benefits across regular state programs, also unexpectedly rose in the latest report following a marked upward revision to the prior week’s data. These came in at 1.523 million, rising from the upwardly revised 1.506 million continuing claims from the prior week, which were upwardly revised from the 1.307 million previously reported.

The latest weekly jobless claims data comes on the heels of another solid monthly jobs report from the Labor Department, which showed a significant rise in hirings and a drop in the jobless rate to a near 50-year low. Non-farm payrolls grew by 431,000 in March, while the unemployment rate improved by a greater-than-expected margin to 3.6%. And as of last month, the U.S. labor market was just about 1.6 million payrolls short of its pre-pandemic levels.

“No wonder inflation is out of control, the labor market is at full employment where the costs go up astronomically for companies to bring new workers in to run the factories and work the cash registers across the country,” Chris Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS, wrote in a note earlier this week. “The cost of living crisis is aided and abetted by the worst labor shortage that America has ever faced. Waiting for more workers to join the labor force and ‘participate’ in order to bring down wages and inflation is a pipe dream.”

Sacramento Shooting: At least 5 people fired guns during gang-related shooting downtown

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Sacramento Shooting: At least 5 people fired guns during gang-related shooting downtown

At least five shooters fired guns during a gang-related gunbattle in downtown Sacramento Sunday that killed six people and injured 12 others, police said on Wednesday.

“As detectives learn more about the shootings, it is increasingly clear that gang violence is at the center of this tragedy,” Sacramento police said in a release. “While we cannot at this time elaborate on the precise gang affiliation of individuals involved, gangs and gang violence are inseparable from the events that drove these shootings.”

There were two groups involved in an exchange of gunfire, Sacramento Police Department spokesman Sgt. Zach Eaton said.

“The identities of the shooters are still being worked through but based off of witness information, written information, as well as are the numerous videos that we have received, we believe at this point there are five shooters,” he said.

Eaton said that nearly 200 videos have been submitted through the QR code that the police department has created.

“This tragedy downtown is a very public example of what families in many of our neighborhoods know too well,” Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester said in a statement. “The suffering inflicted by gang violence does not limit itself to gang members. It spills over to claim and shatter innocent lives and harm our entire community.”

Two brothers have been arrested so far in connection with the shooting.

The first suspect arrested was 26-year-old Dandrae Martin, who was taken into custody on Monday. Dandrae Martin is being held in the Sacramento County Jail without bail and made a brief initial court appearance on Tuesday. He was arrested on assault with a firearm and being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm charges, but the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office only read the firearm charge at Dandrae’s court appearance. Even though the district attorney only presented the one charge, police said Dandrae was arrested for the shooting, believing he fired a gun during the shooting.

The second suspect was identified as 27-year-old Smiley Martin, who was taken into custody Tuesday on charges that include possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of a machine gun. He had posted a live Facebook video of himself brandishing a handgun hours before gunfire erupted, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.

Smiley Martin sustained serious injuries from the shooting and is currently in a nearby hospital for treatment. He will be booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail once he is released from the hospital.

Investigators believe the brothers possessed stolen guns and are working to review financial documents, call records and social media messages to determine how and when they procured weapons, the official said.

Incheon airport to adopt new security screening system in Septermber

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Incheon airport to adopt new security screening system in Septermber

Starting in September, passengers departing from Incheon International Airport won’t need to take out their laptops or liquid items from their carry-on bags. 

According to Incheon International Airport on Wednesday, it will adopt a smart security screening system to shorten the entire departure process by applying advanced technology which will automatically detect prohibited liquids and hazardous items including weapons, radioactive materials and certain types of lithium batteries. 

The test trial of the smart security screening system will begin in September at departure gate 3 at Terminal 1 of Incheon International Airport. By 2025, all departure areas and transfer areas will be equipped with the smart screening devices in a gradual move, the airport said. 

“We plan to use smart security screening devices to effectively prepare for the rebounding travel volume which is expected to return to previous levels with outbound flight expansion,” said Incheon International Airport CEO Kim Kyung-wook.

On Wednesday, the country’s Transport Ministry said it would allow local air carriers to expand their international routes and increase the number of international flights to the 50 percent-level compared to the pre-pandemic situation by the year-end.

The advanced CT X-ray system can conduct a detailed 3D scanning of passengers’ items. It can also automatically detect explosive items inside a bag without needing to open it.

Used in conjunction with full-body scanners, which have been used at the airport’s Terminal 2 since 2018, the airport operator said the smart screening devices will more efficiently shorten the duration it takes for passengers’ overall departure process and strengthen the level of security check. 

The airport’s Automatic Tray Return System (ATRS) has been also upgraded with an automatic sterilization process. This will allow the workforce at the airport to efficiently handle more loads of passengers’ items for screening simultaneously.

Ukrainian soldiers’ Facebook accounts targeted by hackers

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Ukrainian soldiers’ Facebook accounts targeted by hackers

Facebook parent company Meta (FB) detailed Thursday an array of shady cyber tactics that it says groups linked to Russia and Belarus are using to target Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.

The tactics the groups are using, according to Meta, include posing as journalists and independent news outlets online to push Russian talking points, attempting to hack dozens of Ukrainian soldiers’ Facebook accounts, and running coordinated campaigns to try to get posts by critics of Russia removed from social media, reported by CNN.

Meta said a hacking group known as “Ghostwriter,” which cyber experts believe is linked to Belarus, attempted to hack into the Facebook accounts of dozens of Ukrainian military personnel.

In a previous announcement in February, Meta said it had had discovered and shut down a covert Russian influence operation that ran accounts posing as people in Kyiv, including news editors, and targeting Ukrainians. 

“They claimed to be based in Kyiv and posed as news editors, a former aviation engineer, and an author of a scientific publication on hydrography — the science of mapping water,” Meta said in a blog post.

Meta tied the fake accounts to people previously sanctioned by the US government. The accounts and websites run by this influence operation do not appear to have been very successful in reaching a lot of people, according to data reviewed by CNN.

The hackers were successful in “a handful of cases,” Meta said, and “they posted videos calling on the Army to surrender as if these posts were coming from the legitimate account owners. We blocked these videos from being shared.”

Meta also noted that actions by groups linked to the Russian and Belarusian government appeared to intensify shortly before the invasion. The company said it had observed that accounts linked to the Belarusian KGB “suddenly began posting in Polish and English about Ukrainian troops surrendering without a fight and the nation’s leaders fleeing the country on February 24, the day Russia began the war.”

Meta also said it had removed a network of about 200 accounts operated from Russia that repeatedly filed false reports about people in Ukraine and Russia in an attempt to get them and their posts removed from the platform. The accounts regularly falsely reported to Meta that people in Ukraine and Russia had broken the company’s rules on hate speech as well as other policies. This tactic, known as “mass-reporting,” is commonly used by people trying to have an opponent’s social media accounts shut down.

Vadym Hudyma, co-founder at Digital Security Lab Ukraine, an organization that helps secure the online accounts of journalists and activists, said Russia’s invasion brought a “huge surge in attacks against social media accounts via mass reporting.”

Many of the targeted Twitter and Facebook accounts were not verified, which made it harder to recover the accounts of organizations that were, for example, raising money and coordinating medical supplies in response to the Russian invasion, Hudyma told CNN.

“Many social media pages were temporarily shut down. We’ve probably recovered most of them quite quickly. But that was a mess.”

Meta also said it continues to see the use of fake profile photos in disinformation campaigns.

Why the U.S. is targeting Putin’s daughters

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Why the U.S. is targeting Putin’s daughters

The United States’ latest round of sanctions on Russia includes two new targets: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s two adult daughters, Katerina and Maria, who U.S. officials believe are hiding Putin’s wealth.

According to Reuters, Putin’s daughter Katerina Vladimirovna Tikhonova is a tech executive whose work supports the Russian government and its defense industry, according to details in the U.S. sanctions package announced on Wednesday.

His other daughter Maria Vladimirovna Vorontsova leads government-funded programs that have received billions of dollars from the Kremlin toward genetics research, and are personally overseen by Putin, the United States said.

Putin’s daughters, who the U.S. believes help him hide his wealth, have never confirmed publicly the Russian leader is their father, and he has refused to answer questions about them.

A Reuters investigation from 2015 detailed the connections and influence Katerina, an acrobatic rock ’n’ roll dancer, holds in the next generation of Moscow’s elite.

“We have reason to believe that Putin, and many of his cronies, and the oligarchs, hide their wealth, hide their assets, with family members that place their assets and their wealth in the U.S. financial system, and also many other parts of the world,” a senior U.S. administration official told reporters.

“We believe that many of Putin’s assets are hidden with family members, and that’s why we’re targeting them,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Reuters was not immediately able to reach Putin’s daughters, their representatives or the Kremlin for comment.

Sanctions announced Wednesday also include the daughter and wife of Russian foreign affairs minister Sergei Lavrov. The U.S. also banned Americans from investing in Russia, and targeted Russian financial institutions and Kremlin officials, in response to what President Joe Biden condemned as Russian “atrocities” in Ukraine. 

Russia denies intentionally attacking civilians and says images of bodies in Bucha north of Kyiv were staged to justify more sanctions against Moscow.

Moscow says it is engaged in a “special military operation” designed to demilitarize and “denazify” Ukraine. Ukraine and Western governments reject that as a false pretext for Russia’s invasion.

The extent of Putin’s wealth is a sensitive subject in Russia. The Kremlin last year denied that he was the owner of an opulent palace on the Black Sea, as alleged by opposition politician Alexei Navalny in a video that draw a huge audience on YouTube. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in February that sanctions introduced against Putin himself were pointless.

“(Putin) is quite indifferent. The sanctions contain absurd claims about some assets,” Peskov said. “The president has no assets other than those he has declared.”

But U.S. lawmakers believe otherwise.

“Putin and his oligarchs stow their dirty money in rule-of-law nations by purchasing mansions, mega-yachts, artwork, and other high-value assets,” U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said a few weeks ago, while introducing legislation that offered cash rewards for information that leads to the seizure of assets held by sanctioned Russian oligarchs.

“Katerina, 29, described herself as the spouse of Kirill Shamalov, son of Nikolai Shamalov, a longtime friend of President Putin,” the report said. “Shamalov senior is a shareholder in Bank Rossiya, which U.S. officials have described as the personal bank of the Russian elite.”

As husband and wife, Kirill and Katerina had corporate holdings worth about $2 billion, according to estimates provided to Reuters by financial analysts. This was in addition to other property and assets.

Putin’s elder daughter Maria studied biology at St. Petersburg University and medicine at Moscow State University, according to the Reuters investigation. She is also heavily involved in genetic research work, which Putin has in the past described as a field that will “determine the future of the whole world.”

According to Russian and Western media reports, Maria married Dutch businessman Jorrit Joost Faassen.

She was pursuing a biomedical career specializing in the endocrine system in 2015, as a doctoral candidate at the Endocrinology Research Centre in Moscow, and is the co-author of a book about “idiopathic stunting” in children, the Reuters report said.

Her husband used to work for Gazprombank, a large lender with strong links to the elite around Putin, the report noted. No estimates were immediately available for their assets and holdings.

South Korea’s cabinet clears way for presidential Blue House move

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South Korea’s cabinet clears way for presidential Blue House move

 South Korea’s cabinet approved nearly $30 million on Wednesday to help president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol move the presidential office and residence from the traditional Blue House, clearing the way for a plan initially criticised by the current administration as rushed and a threat to national security.

Yoon, breaking with tradition, plans to move the presidential office from the Blue House to the defence ministry compound, a step estimated to cost $40 million ultimately, reported by Reuters.

North Korea has tested a series of increasingly powerful missiles, and Seoul says the North may be preparing to resume nuclear tests for the first time since 2017. This week North Korea warned that it would strike the South with nuclear weapons if attacked.

The Blue House move has been met with mixed reactions in South Korea.

Residents and environmentalists protested Wednesday outside the current defence ministry compound, saying a rushed move could derail a project to establish a national park at a former U.S. military base in the neighbourhood, and cause traffic congestion, Yonhap news agency reported.

Yonhap also cited an unnamed official as saying the defence ministry had started preparations for its relocation to a nearby building.

Elected in a tight vote on March 9, the conservative Yoon has called the Blue House a symbol of an “imperial presidency” and said he wanted to make the move immediately after his inauguration on May 10.

The administration of incumbent President Moon Jae-in, a liberal who was barred from running again by term limits, initially raised concerns about the plan to move the presidential office, requiring the relocation of the defence ministry in a matter of weeks. It said a rushed move could “create a security vacuum and confusion” at a time of tensions with North Korea.

But Moon later called on his cabinet to approve the needed funds, and on Wednesday the panel set aside 36 billion won ($29.5 million) in reserve government funds for the initial costs. Additional funding will discussed later, the government said. 

Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum, who presided over the cabinet meeting, said the decision was made to ensure a “smooth government transition without a security vacuum”.

Forbes: Total wealth of world’s billionaires has fallen to $12.7tn

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Forbes: Total wealth of world’s billionaires has fallen to $12.7tn

According to theguardian.com, the total wealth of the world’s billionaires has dipped from a record high last year amid a drop in global stock markets since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite the planet’s richest people still holding a combined $12.7tn (£9.7tn) in assets. 

According to the annual Forbes magazine ranking of the world richest people, the number of billionaires worldwide fell by 329 to 2,668, with the total value of their combined assets falling slightly from $13.1tn on the 2021 list.

It said that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine – and the avalanche of sanctions that followed – sent the Russian stock market and the rouble plummeting, resulting in 34 fewer Russian billionaires on the list. Those from the country with billionaire status almost all saw their fortunes stagnate or decline, with their total wealth dropping by more than $260bn compared with a year earlier.

Forbes said the decline in the total number of billionaires from 2,755 to 2,668 was the largest since the 2009 financial crisis, but followed an increase of more than 600 in 2021 when global stock bounced back from pandemic lows.

Djaffar Shalchi, a Danish multimillionaire businessman and founder of the initiative, said: “The Forbes rich list is a stark reminder of the obscenely unequal world in which we live. While most people around the globe have struggled to adapt and survive to the pandemic, many having lost their jobs, plunged deeper into poverty, those on the Forbes rich list have been able to sit back and watch their wealth soar.”

“It is an affront to humanity, an insult to the claim that we are all in this together, and a slap in the face to those of us who believe that we share this planet and its resources equally.

“The time for a wealth tax on people like me is long overdue. Inequality is bad for everyone. Even in the US we are looking at the prospect of President Biden introducing a billionaire tax. This would be an important step in the right direction.”

Elon Musk, the maverick boss of Tesla and SpaceX, was named the world’s richest man for the first time with a $219bn fortune, up $68bn on the previous year because of the carmaker’s soaring share price.

Musk leapfrogged Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, whose fortune dropped to $171bn after a small decline in the company’s share price and donations to charity.

Bezos’s estimated $1.5bn charitable gifts pale in comparison with his ex-wife MacKenzie Scott, who has given away $12.5bn to more than 1,250 organisations in less than two years. Scott, who collected a $38bn settlement in her divorce from Bezos in 2019, has fallen from the 22nd-richest person on the planet to the 30th with a $43.6bn fortune.

Among those falling out of the ranking are 169 “one-year wonders” – newcomers to the list in 2021 but who have already dropped off. They include the exercise bike company Peloton’s John Foley and the dating app Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd.

Some 236 people joined the billionaire club for the first time, including the pop star Rihanna, the Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson and the venture capitalist Joshua Kushner. Barbados, Bulgaria, Estonia and Uruguay gained their first billionaires.

Millionaires for Humanity, a coalition of rich people calling for a global wealth tax on the super-rich to tackle inequality, said the Forbes list was “a slap in the face of society”.

What you need to know about the second booster

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What you need to know about the second booster

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authorized a fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine for people 50 years and older, as well as some immunocompromised people.

The decision was made at a time when COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the United States have been declining. At the moment, more than 99% of U.S. counties have low or medium COVID-19 community levels, according to CDC data.

So why would someone need another booster at a time where the virus is circulating at relatively low levels? Yahoo News spoke to Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center, to break down what Americans need to know about the second booster.

There are two main reasons that U.S. federal health agencies recommend another booster for some higher-risk individuals. One reason is that there’s some evidence that vaccine protection against infection and serious outcomes from COVID-19 wanes over time, particularly for those who are older and immunocompromised.

One study conducted by the CDC found that vaccine effectiveness against Omicron, a COVID variant that is more transmissible and can evade vaccine immunity, was decreasing over time. According to the study, vaccine effectiveness against emergency and urgent care visits was 87% two months after a third dose, but it decreased to 66% by the fourth month after a third dose. Vaccine effectiveness against hospitalizations was also slightly decreasing, although the study showed it largely held up five months after the third dose.

Another reason a second booster is recommended at this time is that the United States is bracing for a new COVID-19 wave driven by a more transmissible Omicron subvariant known as BA.2. The strain, which has been driving new COVID-19 surges in China, the United Kingdom and Europe, has recently become dominant in the U.S., according to CDC data. BA.2 now accounts for about 72% of new coronavirus cases nationwide, according to the agency.

There are early signs that the BA.2 infection wave has already begun. Over the past two weeks more than a dozen states, the majority in the Northeast, have seen an uptick in cases. In New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey, cases are up by more than 30 percent, according to New York Times data.

Although the ultimate impact of BA.2 in the U.S. is yet to be seen, health experts don’t foresee the variant causing a major surge as it did in Europe. However, Jetelina says deploying an additional booster now is a “proactive move” to stay one step ahead of the virus, which “is mutating pretty quickly.”

“Too many people have waning antibodies, and there’s still a benefit to protecting against that new wave that may or may not come,” she said.

Based on the FDA and CDC recommendation, a second booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines may now be administered to certain immunocompromised individuals and people 50 and older at least 4 months after they received a first booster dose of any authorized or approved COVID-19 vaccine.

People 12 and older with certain kinds of autoimmune disorders, such as those who have undergone organ transplants, will also be eligible for a second booster dose of the Pfizer shot, the FDA said, while those 18 and older who are qualified to receive a shot can choose between Pfizer’s and Moderna’s.

The CDC is also recommending that adults who received the one-dose Johnson & Johnson primary series and received a booster at least four months ago get a second booster using one of the two mRNA COVID-19 vaccines available — Moderna or Pfizer.

Many people are asking why both the FDA and the CDC are recommending the additional dose for people ages 50 years and older when most of the research in Israel that drove the decision studied individuals who are 60 and older. On Monday, Peter Marks, who oversees the FDA’s vaccine division, explained why.

“The reason why we felt it was very reasonable to include the 50 to 65 age range is because about a third of people in the United States in that age range have medical comorbidities,” Marks said on “In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt” podcast. “The safety is excellent and the idea here is that, you know, it is sometimes easier to just say, ‘Look, we know in general with respiratory viruses people over 50 years of age tend to have more problems than people under 50 years of age. Maybe it’s a good idea just to boost everyone here in the event we have another wave,’” he added.

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