Coronavirus: Walmart reinstates mask mandate for workers in high Covid-risk counties - as it happened

Officials in Chicago have recommended the use of masks in indoor public places after the city’s daily rate of new Covid-19 crossed a threshold level that indicated a “high” level of infection.

The city’s health department revealed on Friday that Chicago has surpassed 200 new Covid-19 cases a day, pushing it into a category that the top US public health agency defines as “substantial” transmission and should warrant tighter mask rules.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week issued guidance that people in areas with “substantial and high transmission” of coronavirus should wear a mask in indoor public places, regardless of vaccination status.

Chicago’s health department said that, based on the city’s population, a rate of more than 200 daily cases would move it into the CDC’s “substantial” category, and a rate of more than 400 would push it into the “high” category.

Washington DC, Atlanta, Miami-Dade county, St Louis, Savannah and most counties in Nevada are among places that went a step further than Chicago and reinstated mask mandates this week. Los Angeles county led the pack and took this course of action in mid-July.

“This isn’t forever, but it is necessary to help decrease the risk for all Chicagoans right now,” Allison Arwady, the Chicago Department of Public Health’s commissioner, said in a statement on Friday.

Chicago public schools has already announced universal indoor masking for all students, staff and visitors, regardless of vaccination status, when the academic year begins on August 30 and which is in line with CDC guidance.

This post has been updated to reflect officials recommended the use of masks

Every state in the US has now managed to give at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine to at least half of its adult population, with Mississippi the last to reach the milestone.

The southern state has now given at least one dose to 50 per cent of its adult residents, according to figures on Friday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mississippi has fully vaccinated 34.5 per cent of its population, the second-lowest level of coverage in the US after Alabama (34.3 per cent) and compared to the national average of 49.5 per cent.

President Joe Biden had hoped that 70 per cent of US adults would have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by July 4, but the country still sits 0.4 percentage points shy of that target as of July 30. Twenty states have reached the 70 per cent milestone.

Vermont has the best-progressed vaccination rollout of all states, with 86.7 per cent of adults having received at least one dose and 67.5 per cent of all residents fully vaccinated.

The US’s top public health agency has suggested that local leaders might consider boosting prevention strategies, like universal indoor masking, following research showing about three-quarters of Covid-19 cases associated with large gatherings in the Cape Cod area had been fully vaccinated.

During July, there were 469 cases of Covid-19 associated with multiple summer events and large public gatherings in a town in Barnstable county, Massachusetts, according to a report released on Friday from scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Of those, 346 cases, or 74 per cent, occurred in individuals who had completed their vaccine regimen, and of these, 87 per cent were male with a median age of 42.

The more transmissible Delta variant accounted for 89 per cent of 133 patients whose specimens were analysed using genomic sequencing.

In updating the CDC’s guidance on mask-wearing this week, Rochelle Walensky, the agency’s director, said the Delta variant was “showing every day its willingness to outsmart us.”

Information from “several states” and other countries, received by health officials, showed that some vaccinated people, if infected with the Delta variant, may be contagious and spread the virus to others, Walensky said.

The viral load in so-called “breakthrough cases” was “pretty similar to the amount of virus in unvaccinated people”, she continued, but added that these breakthroughs represented a “very small” proportion of infections around the US.

In Friday’s report, the CDC researchers said that from July 3 — the day before the Independence Day holiday — to July 17, multiple events and large public gatherings “that attracted thousands of tourists” from across the country were held in a town in the county, which is a popular summer destination. 

From July 10, Massachusetts’ health department received reports of an increase in coronavirus cases among individuals who lived in or recently visited Barnstable county, including in fully vaccinated persons. Some of those affected individuals reported attending “densely packed indoor and outdoor events at venues that included bars, restaurants, guest houses, and rental homes”, the researchers wrote.

“Findings from this investigation suggest that even jurisdictions without substantial or high Covid-19 transmission might consider expanding prevention strategies, including masking in indoor public settings regardless of vaccination status, given the potential risk of infection during attendance at large public gatherings that include travellers from many areas with differing levels of transmission,” the report said.

Newell Brands is bracing for headwinds related to inflation and supply chain pressure but expects its US-based factories to give it a leg up over competitors in certain areas.

The firm updated its inflation cost estimates on Friday to $560m in 2021, about $200m more than the firm’s forecast three months ago, and $350m more than the firm’s projection at the beginning of the year.

“We face a tough macro-operating environment with unprecedented inflation pressures that we expect will top half a billion dollars, as well as extraordinary, externally driven supply chain challenges,” Ravi Saligram, Newell’s chief executive, said on an earnings call.

The inflationary pressure is linked to a spike in resin prices, ocean freight costs, a strengthening Chinese yuan and labour wage pressure, Chris Peterson, the firm’s chief financial officer, said on the call.

The consumer goods company has escaped some of the inflation related to freight because the vast majority of its writing products, which include brands like Sharpie, Elmer’s and Krazy Glue, are manufactured in the US, unlike some competitors, Peterson said.

The lion’s share of Newell’s inflation forecast is linked to resin, which is used in making adhesives or coatings. Resin prices are expected to come down over the next six to 12 months, he said citing data from IHS Markit, although hurricane-related disruptions could affect the forecast.

Newell has taken steps to address inflation, supply chain and labour shortages, including building inventory on top-selling items, building longer in-transit times into the firm’s planning process, automating more processes where possible, and boosting wages and incentives to attract and retain employees, Peterson said.

The company, whose portfolio includes Rubbermaid containers and Graco baby products, is facing supply and inflation challenges at a time when demand for consumer goods is still strong. As a result, Newell unveiled a rosier outlook and projected core sales growth of between 7 to 10 per cent in 2021, from the 5 to 7 per cent forecast it announced in April.

“The consumer is still flush with cash as a result of the stimulus benefits, as well as the enhanced child tax credit more recently,” Peterson said.

Ron DeSantis signed an executive order aimed at protecting the rights of parents in Florida to make the decision on whether their child will wear a mask in school.

The governor doubled-down on his insistence that there will be no lockdowns, restrictions or mandates in Florida, even though the state is now reporting one of the highest rates of new Covid-19 infection in the US.

“Very soon I’ll be signing an executive order which directs the Florida Department of Education and Department of Health to issue emergency rules protecting the rights of parents to make this decision about wearing masks for their children,” the Republican governor announced a press conference ahead of the signing on Friday. “We think that that’s the most fair way to do it.”

The order is aimed at preventing local school districts from setting mask mandates for students and staff.

The school board of Broward county, which includes the city of Fort Lauderdale and is part of the Miami metropolitan area, voted this week to require masks in its schools. Miami-Dade county decided to reinstate an indoor mask mandate following updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

DeSantis said, though, that “as of today, very few school districts” across the state have set requirements for all students and staff to wear masks in school buildings come the start of the academic year in autumn. He said “a majority of school districts required masks” last year, even though the state itself did not have an over-arching mandate.

Florida has reported 103,299 new Covid-19 cases over the past week, more than any other state, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is more than double the number in second-ranked Texas and accounts for about 22 per cent of all new cases across the US over the past seven days.

Adjusted for population, Florida is averaging almost 69 new infections per 100,000 people a day, second only to Louisiana and more than triple the national average. The state has fully vaccinated 48.8 per cent of its population, which is less than one percentage point below the national average.

Texas’s Republican governor on Thursday signed an executive order that made it harder for local officials to set requirements such as mask-wearing. Greg Abbott has also insisted that parents should be the ones to decide whether their children wear masks at school.

This post has been updated to reflect the executive order had since been issued by the governor

It was two weeks into this summer’s session when Camp Caribou, a camp for boys in Winslow, Maine, received a worrying message from its longtime food supplier: The camp’s $10,000 order would not be fulfilled because of labour shortages at their warehouse.

Bill Lerman, the second of three Lerman generations to run Caribou, offered to collect the food himself. “They said, ‘No,’” he recalled. “‘We don’t even have enough staff to pick the order.’”

With a change of suppliers, a U-Haul truck and repeat runs to the local Sam’s Club and Walmart, the Lermans have managed to keep Caribou’s 260-odd campers fed. It is but one of the many challenges they and other children’s summer camps have encountered in a season like no other.

A summer camp horror story emerged earlier this month in New Hampshire when Camp Quinebarge was forced to close down just a few days into its session after food and staff shortages prompted a Lord of the Flies-style descent into chaos, with vomiting and brawling.

Read more here

“Dangerous”, “coercive” and “unacceptable” are some of the words used by human rights groups in the UK to describe government ministers’ stamp of approval for companies that decide to bar staff from the office until they have been fully vaccinated.  

Foreign secretary Dominic Raab and transport secretary Grant Shapps on Friday both came out in favour of mandatory vaccinations in the workplace, although no law will be proposed.

Their comments drew immediate condemnation from campaign group Big Brother Watch. Director Silkie Carlo said the government was “shirking responsibility” by merely backing the two-jab policy, adding that the decision to vaccinate “must be a personal and health based one, not one made under threat of economic sanction”.

Companies that did demand access to private medical information would open themselves to potential litigation and discrimination claims, she said. “It’s a terrible, invasive and coercive way to treat staff.”

Grey Collier, advocacy director at human rights group Liberty, said forcing employees to choose between their work life and their “bodily autonomy” was “unacceptable” and set a “dangerous precedent.”

“There are many reasons people may be wary of accessing certain public services, and that includes vaccination, and letting employers set these rules and restrictions could lead to discrimination,” he said.

Raab has suggested that university students may also need two doses of vaccine to return to campus.

Michael Chandler was just six months into his role as chief executive of the renowned London music venue Union Chapel when the pandemic forced it to close its doors.

The venue has hosted global stars such as Adele and Elton John, and used the profits from these gigs to fund charitable work, particularly with the homeless.

“We faced a loss of income of over £1.5m — this placed the organisation in serious jeopardy and its future existence was undoubtedly at risk,” he said. “We had to radically and quickly change our model and consider how else to raise income to survive.”

But he was just as concerned about what the closure would do to the charitable work: “I was deeply worried about the impact on the homeless, the most vulnerable and isolated in our communities of this pandemic,” he said.

Four-fifths of Union Chapel’s charitable work is funded by the income from the venue. “Despite this, we escalated our charitable work, turning one of our spaces into a food bank, and working with partners across North London to support the most vulnerable,” said Chandler.

The support was desperately needed. In the first year of the pandemic, Union Chapel handed out over 3,000 meals and 1,600 support packs, helping over 1,000 people.

Homelessness is a growing problem in the UK capital. “We used to see 30-40 people a day, now we’re seeing between 50 and 60, regularly. We are concerned this will continue to rise, as people face more challenges ahead,” adds Chandler.

Chandler and his team reshaped the business for a Covid environment by introducing livestream and pre-recorded events. In June 2020, British folk singer-songwriter Laura Marling chose the venue to perform a live streamed gig. Since then, it has hosted a number of live streamed performances, interviews and TV productions, with stars such as Michaela Coel, Stephen Fry and RagNBone Man reaching a total audience of more than 1m.

The business launched a crowdfunding project that raised £90,000 between May and June 2020 — double its initial goal. It was also quick to access government aid, including receiving more than £130,000 from the Culture Recovery Fund. In total, the team raised about £730,000, which has helped stabilise the venue’s finances.

But Covid continues to present problems, with staffing shortages due to isolation rules. The venue is now hosting live gigs again but there is a skeleton team, including office staff stepping in to help manage the bar.

Chandler is not taking anything for granted as business support schemes come to an end. “We are not out of the woods yet, and financially in many ways, this year may be more challenging than 2020.”

This is the latest article in a series for the blog that explores the impact of the pandemic on people and businesses around the world.

Walmart is immediately reinstating a mask mandate for employees in US counties with high rates of Covid-19 transmission and said it was considering implementing a process to verify the vaccination status of its workers.

The decision on Friday by the world’s largest retailer could set the pace for peers in the industry. Walmart was one of the first companies in May to drop its mask mandate for fully vaccinated customers and employees in line with updated guidance at the time from the top US public health agency. It was soon followed by the likes of Target and Starbucks.

Workers at Walmart’s stores, distribution centers and fulfilment centres in counties with “substantial or high transmission” will be required to wear masks indoors, even if they are fully vaccinated, in keeping with recently updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the company said in a memo dated July 30 and emailed to the Financial Times.

Customers will be encouraged, but not required, to wear masks in its stores.

Walmart’s home state of Arkansas has had the third-highest per capita rate of daily infections in the US over the past week, according to CDC data, and the percentage of its population that is fully vaccinated (36.2 per cent) is the third-lowest among all states.

Donna Morris, chief people officer, wrote in the memo that the company said it continues to “watch with deep concern” the developments of the Covid-19 pandemic, including the spread of the more transmissible Delta variant, and again urged its employees to get vaccinated.

Walmart said it “will implement a new process for verification of vaccine status for US associates (subject to local legal requirements)”, according to the memo. Specific details about the process would be provided in the “near future”.

In a further effort to boost vaccination, Walmart said it would now pay workers at its stores, distribution centres, fulfilment centers and transportation offices $150 if they get vaccinated. 

Workers who had already been vaccinated and received the $75 cash bonus Walmart announced in May, when it dropped its mask mandate for fully vaccinated employees and customers, will receive $75 more on their mid-August paycheques.

Walmart’s decision to boost its vaccination bonus for workers and the announcement of a plan for verifying vaccination status come a day after President Joe Biden called for states to offer $100 incentives for jabs and instructions for federal workers to show proof of vaccination or to wear masks.

Broadway is demanding its audiences, cast and crew be vaccinated in time for its theatres to return in September, more than a year after the pandemic forced them to close.

Guests will need to show proof at the door that they have received both doses of an approved double-shot vaccine or a single shot, such as the Johnson & Johnson jab, at least 14 days earlier, the Broadway League said on Friday. Cast and crew will also be required to be vaccinated.

Masks inside will be mandatory, except at designated eating or drinking locations.

Children under the age of 12 and those who are exempt from being vaccinated for medical or religious reasons must test negative at least six hours before the production starts with an antigen test or 72 hours with a PCR one.

Theatre owners will review these policies in September for performances from November.

A separate agreement between the Actors’ Equity Association and Broadway League updated safety rules with improved ventilation demands and weekly testing.

“This is an important milestone on the path to getting all our members safely back to work,” said Mary McColl, executive director for Actors’ Equity Association. “Vaccines work, and those who are vaccinated will protect both themselves and those who can’t be at this time,” she said.

New York state and the city have demanded public workers be vaccinated while many states, cities and businesses have stepped up efforts to protect their employees against Covid-19 and the more transmissible Delta variant.

The European Medicines Agency has approved an increase in manufacturing capacity for Moderna’s Spikevax vaccine. The move will help to enable the delivery of 40m doses of vaccine for the European market in the third quarter of the year.

Newell Brands, the maker of Rubbermaid plastic containers and Sharpie markers, reported solid sales during the second quarter as appetite for consumer goods persisted through the reopening of the US economy.

The uptick was linked to improved sales from the company’s brick-and-mortar locations as online shopping slowed, said Ravi Saligram, chief executive, said on the earnings call Friday. But Newell isn’t counting digital sales growth out as consumers spend more time at home than they did pre-pandemic.

“Recent consumer behaviour reinforces our belief that [the] home-as-the-hub theme will persist well after the pandemic,” Saligram said. “The home has become central to people’s lives and is truly a sanctuary, a part-time office, a part-time learning centre, a kid’s activity zone, and the kitchen, a family hub.”

Home fragrances, particularly Yankee Candles, were top sellers in the second quarter, though the consumer goods company expects moderate gains from this category going forward. Newell’s home appliances segment benefited from strong online sales in Latin America. Meanwhile, US home appliance sales slowed but remained ‘significantly ahead’ of 2019 levels, Saligram said.  

The company’s writing business got a boost from kids returning to in-person learning, but office supply sales growth has not fully come back to pre-pandemic levels due to the prevalence of flexible work arrangements, he added.

However, flexible work may bode well for Newell’s baby business, Saligram said, citing reports that suggest remote working along with income from stimulus checks could potentially lift US births. The company is also seeing a “grandparent effect,” as extended families quarantined together and bought baby supplies such as car seats, he added.  

The Atlanta-based company reported net sales of $2.7bn, up 28.3 per cent over the second quarter a year ago, ahead of analyst expectations for $2.6bn. Adjusted net income of $239m, or 56 cents a share adjusted earnings per share, compared with $127m, or 30 cents a share in the second quarter a year ago, and exceeded expectations of 45 cents per share.

Newell Brands also delivered a rosier outlook and projects core sales growth of between 7 to 10 per cent in 2021, from the 5 to 7 per cent outlook it announced in April. The updated guidance reflects stronger than expected demand, higher productivity savings, as well as “an unprecedented escalation in inflation,” Chris Peterson, the firm’s chief financial officer and president of business operations, said in a statement.

The firm’s forecast for adjusted earnings per share remains unchanged at $1.63 to $1.73, Peterson said.

US consumer spending rose more than expected last month as the economy further reopened and a key gauge of inflation advanced.

Consumer spending rose 1 per cent in June from the previous month, following a 0.1 per cent drop in May, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said on Friday. That exceeded economists’ estimates for a 0.7 per cent rise.

Americans loosened their purse strings as lockdown restrictions eased last month. However, the recent surge in coronavirus cases attributed to the highly transmissible Delta variant has raised fears about fresh restrictions.

The rise in spending came as personal incomes edged up 0.1 per cent following a 2.2 per cent drop in May. This largely reflected “an increase in compensation of employees” even as government social benefits decreased.

A separate report from the labour department showed the employment cost index rose by a less than expected 0.7 per cent in the second quarter, driven by private sector employers and “led by the strongest quarterly increase in leisure and hospitality wages on record”, said Oren Klachkin, economist at Oxford Economics.

Companies have been offering better wages and compensation in their efforts to attract workers as childcare responsibilities and fears of catching Covid fuel labour shortages in the US.

This came in the backdrop of mounting prices pressures as core personal consumption expenditures, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, rose 3.5 per cent year on year, the BEA showed. That was up from the 3.4 per cent increase reported in May, but was softer than economists’ expectations for a 3.7 per cent rise.

This week the Fed said strength in the US economy and progress towards its labour market and inflation goals have brought it one step closer to withdrawing support for the recovery.

Covid-19 infections in England are increasing by up to 5 per cent a day, suggesting that the pace of growth has continued to slow, according to the latest estimates from the UK Health Security Agency.

The daily growth rate, of between 2 and 5 per cent, is an improvement on the 4 to 6 per cent range reported last Friday.

Cases are rising quickest in the east and south east of England, where infections are rising between 4 and 7 per cent each day.

The slowest rate of growth is in the north west, where daily infections are increasing by between 0 and 3 per cent.

The health agency said on Friday that England’s R value has fallen to between 1.1 and 1.4, which means that, on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 11 and 14 others. The value is a slight improvement on last week’s range of 1.2 to 1.4.

UK ministers have given their approval to companies barring staff from returning to the office until they have had two Covid-19 jabs, but stressed the government will not make it the law.

Grant Shapps, transport secretary, said on Friday it was a “good idea” for some companies to insist on double vaccination for staff returning to the workplace.

Leading companies in the US including Google, Facebook and Netflix are rolling out policies requiring all staff to be fully vaccinated to enter their workplaces — albeit with some medical exemptions.

In Britain, some companies, including Pimlico Plumbers, are also pursuing a “no jab, no job” policy.

Asked whether he would back similar proposals from more UK-based companies, Shapps said: “We are not going to make that legislation that every adult has to be double vaccinated before they go back to the office, but yes it is a good idea and yes some companies will require it,” he told Sky News.

Read more here

Coronavirus case numbers have fallen in Scotland but have continued to rise in other parts of the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The ONS infection survey released on Friday covers the week to July 24, so does not include the recent dip in infection numbers in England revealed by the daily testing statistics.

According to the ONS, 49,500 individuals in Scotland tested positive for Covid-19 in the week to July 24, down from 65,100 the previous week.

However, the survey showed infections continuing to rise in England, Northern Ireland and Wales.

In Northern Ireland, one in 65 tested positive for Covid-19, up from one in 170 in the week to July 17.

Around one in 160 contracted coronavirus in Wales, the latest figures showed, up from one in 210 the previous week.

And in England, one in 65 people tested positive for coronavirus, up from one in 75 a week earlier. The ONS said there were signs that the rate of increase was slowing.

“These new official statistics do not reflect the recent dip in the daily testing figures in England, so it’s important to understand the differences between the two sources,” said Duncan Cook, deputy director for the Covid-19 Infection Survey.   

“It’s notable that around 40 per cent of positive tests in the ONS study are from people who show no symptoms of infection. This group is therefore less likely to show up in the daily figures,” he added.

Procter & Gamble has forecast sales growth will slow in the year ahead as the consumer group warned of higher costs, after price increases and resurgent demand for toothpaste and razors lifted quarterly revenues.

The company expects net sales to grow 2-4 per cent in fiscal 2022, slower than the 7 per cent jump in 2021. It forecast a 3-6 per cent increase in adjusted earnings per share over the $5.66 per share it earned the year before.

Consumers stocked their pantries with P&G’s Charmin toilet paper, Tide laundry detergent and other household goods during the pandemic. Covid-19 vaccinations and the elimination of most pandemic-related restrictions have since given a boost to shaving and skincare brands that took a hit during last year’s lockdowns.

P&G booked $18.9bn in net sales during the three months to the end of June, up 7 per cent year on year. Organic sales were up 4 per cent, fuelled by a 14 per cent gain in healthcare and 6 per cent growth for the beauty and grooming categories.

An increase in prices bolstered sales during the fourth fiscal quarter, when rising commodity and freight costs dragged on profit margins.

Inflation has weighed on companies across the consumer sector. P&G, Colgate-Palmolive, General Mills and Conagra have announced price increases on a range of goods in response to an accelerated rise in inflation.

P&G’s outlook includes estimated headwinds of $1.9bn after tax related to commodity and freight costs. That equals a 12 percentage-point hit to earnings, including foreign exchange benefits.

Fourth-quarter net income climbed 4 per cent to $2.91bn. P&G earned $1.13 per share on an adjusted basis, topping analysts’ prediction by 5 cents.

The earnings report comes a day after P&G said Jon Moeller, its chief operating officer, will succeed chief executive David Taylor in November.

Shares in P&G rose 1.5 per cent in pre-market trading.

ExxonMobil and Chevron, America’s two oil supermajors, saw profits surge in the second quarter as the economic reopening drove energy prices higher, marking a dramatic turnaround from a crash last year that inflicted huge financial losses on the industry.

Exxon’s $4.7bn quarterly net profit - the most in more than two years - easily beat Wall Street expectations and was up from a $1bn loss in the same quarter last year. Chevron reported quarterly net earnings of $3.1bn, also beating analyst expectations, and marking a sharp reversal of fortunes from a year before, when it lost $8.3bn.

“Positive momentum continued during the second quarter across all of our businesses as the global economic recovery increased demand for our products,” said Darren Woods, Exxon’s chief executive.

Exxon said it was the best-ever quarter for its chemical and lubricants business amid booming demand and high prices for things like plastic as the economy gathered momentum.

Chevron said the $5.2bn in free cash flow it generated in the quarter would allow it to start buying back $2bn to $3bn in shares a year, a move that came earlier than expected and is seen as crucial to winning back investors after last year’s collapse. The company held its dividend steady at $1.34 a share.

“Our free cash flow was the highest in two years due to solid operational and financial performance and lower capital spending,” said Mike Wirth, Chevron’s chief executive. “We will resume share repurchases in the third quarter.”

Exxon did not reinstate a share buyback scheme but instead focused on paying down debt, which ballooned during last year’s crisis.

This post was amended to reflect Exxon reported its best profit in two years

Caterpillar became the latest US industrial company to ride the economic recovery as construction equipment demand jumped, helping it to better than expected quarterly results.

The Illinois-based company said second-quarter sales and revenues of $12.9bn were up 29 per cent from a year ago when demand for its heavy machinery was hit by pandemic-driven lockdowns. That beat expectations for $12.6bn, according to a Refinitiv survey of Wall Street analysts.

“The increase was primarily due to higher sales volume driven by higher end-user demand for equipment and services and the impact from changes in dealer inventories,” the company said on Friday.

The US industrial bellwether reported a 40 per cent increase in construction sales and revenues, its biggest business, from a year ago to $5.7bn. In North America sales were boosted by demand in residential construction, as housing demand surged during the pandemic, as well as higher prices.

Sales and revenues in its resource and energy units rose 41 per cent and 20 per cent respectively.

The manufacturer, known for its bulldozers and building site machinery, stands to benefit from a $1tn bipartisan infrastructure spending bill in the US that includes $550bn in investments in infrastructure.

Caterpillar’s profit rose to $1.4bn or $2.56 a share in the three months to end of June, from $458m or 84 cents a share in the year-ago quarter. Adjusting for one-time items, earnings rose to $2.60 a share, topping estimates of $2.40.

Japan is to expand a state of emergency to four more areas outside Tokyo as Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga warned that Covid-19 cases were spreading “at an unprecedented speed”.

The coronavirus restrictions, which are already in place in Tokyo and the southern island of Okinawa, will be put in place in Saitama, Kanagawa and Chiba, and in the western city of Osaka, from Monday until the end of August.

Suga reiterated that he did not believe the Olympics was behind the surge in Covid-19 infections, as the daily tally of Covid-19 cases in Tokyo surpassed 3,000 for three days in a row.

“The number of new cases is increasing nationwide. The infections are expanding at an unprecedented speed,” Suga said at a news conference late on Friday, blaming the spread of the Delta variant.

Australia will start easing coronavirus-induced restrictions only once 70 per cent of adults were vaccinated against Covid-19, its prime minister has said.

The country will enter a further phase of reopening once an 80 per cent threshold is met, Scott Morrison said on Friday in a news briefing, as he urged the country to “work together” to meet vaccination targets. He gave no timeframe for the country to hit that level.

“This plan is subject to the rules Covid-19 writes itself,” he said. “New variants can emerge. If this were to occur we would look at this very carefully.”

His comments on Friday come about a week after he apologised for his government’s slow Covid-19 vaccine rollout. About 14 per cent of adult Australians are fully vaccinated and a worsening outbreak has forced authorities to place 14m people in lockdown.

The prime minister stressed that if the country achieved its targets, restrictions on vaccinated residents would be eased, and there would be a gradual reopening of inbound and outbound travel with safe countries. He did not rule out the return of localised lockdowns.

“If you get vaccinated there will be special rules that apply to you. Why? Because if you’re vaccinated you present less of a public health risk,” he said. 

The UK’s Office for National Statistics said on Friday that 6 per cent of adults have reported self-isolating at some point in the past week.

The figures come after data released yesterday showed that the UK’s NHS Covid-19 app sent a record number of alerts last week advising people to self-isolate after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for the virus.

Moscow has ended a little-observed, much-mocked requirement to wear gloves in public places, a move mayor Sergei Sobyanin said was a sign of the city’s success in fighting the pandemic.

The Russian capital was one of the few cities worldwide to mandate glove-wearing alongside masks last year, even as epidemiologists concluded that the virus was not spread through surface transmission. The demand was widely ignored, though some Muscovites kept a spare pair in their back pocket to avoid being fined by police or to wear when required at some cash registers.

Sobyanin said on Friday that the relaxation was down to falling infection rates and hospitalisations, after the city made vaccinations compulsory for most working-age adults earlier this summer.

Muscovites have largely ignored masking and social distancing requirements after the city rapidly rolled back restrictions last year ahead of a vote on constitutional amendments that could extend president Vladimir Putin’s rule until 2036.

Some epidemiologists have blamed the capital’s more esoteric measures — such as recent short-lived bans on visiting restaurants without special QR codes or sitting on park benches — for discouraging Russians from wearing masks.

The eurozone economy has bounced back from its pandemic-driven downturn at the start of the year with faster than expected growth of 2 per cent in the three months to June, data released on Friday showed.

The quarter-on-quarter rise in eurozone gross domestic product was higher than the 1.5 per cent expected by economists polled by Reuters. It is the first time the bloc has outpaced growth in the US, up 1.6 per cent, and China, which grew 1.3 per cent, since the pandemic started. It also marked a strong rebound from the bloc’s 0.3 per cent contraction in the first quarter.

The growth figures will be read as the latest signal that the eurozone is firmly on the road to recovery. Boosted by the lifting of lockdowns in May, business and consumer confidence has returned, while retail sales have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels.

The European Central Bank has forecast the 19-country single currency bloc will achieve GDP growth of 4.6 per cent this year and 4.7 per cent next year, as it recovers from a record postwar contraction of 6.8 per cent last year.

Germany, France, Italy and Spain logged quarter-on-quarter expansions in output, with all but Germany outperforming expectations.

Taiwan’s first significant domestic outbreak of Covid-19 has slowed the pace of growth while electronics exports helped buoy the economy.

Second-quarter gross domestic product rose 7.5 per cent compared with the same three-month period a year earlier. However that’s slower than the record 8.9 per cent increase clocked in the first quarter. Exports in US dollar terms jumped 37.4 per cent, driven mainly by electronics.

Domestic consumption declined 0.55 per cent in the three months to June 30, the first contraction since the start of the pandemic, and overall private consumption rose 0.41 per cent.

The weak showing mainly reflects a decline in domestic travel and leisure spending after community-transmitted Covid-19 cases appeared from May. The outbreak has been brought under control, and some of the soft lockdown measures imposed were lifted this week.

There is no sign of yet of a reciprocal travel arrangement for UK citizens hoping to travel to the US, said UK transport secretary Grant Shapps on Friday, despite the UK’s decision to soften the rules for US travellers.

The government announced on Wednesday that double-vaccinated tourists from the EU and the US would be allowed to enter England, Scotland and Wales without having to quarantine.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday, the transport secretary said he had spoken to his US counterpart Pete Buttigieg, who was reviewing the possibility of a travel corridor between the two countries.

“We look forward to hearing news once they have,” said Shapps.

The Biden administration announced on Monday that it would maintain travel bans for the foreseeable future due to the spread of the Delta variant.

“I should point out to everybody who said we should have closed our borders as well that it didn’t help the United States in their battle with coronavirus. They’ve had a pretty torrid time”, said Shapps.

On the government’s decision to allow entry to US citizens, Shapps said: “If someone’s been double-vaccinated here and can travel abroad without self-isolating, the logic is that if we trust [the US] vaccination programme, there is no real scientific reason you wouldn’t accept it the other way.”

Cineworld has secured $200m in additional loans to see it through the post-Covid recovery period after the pandemic brought the cinema group to the brink of bankruptcy at the end of last year.

The world’s second largest cinema chain said on Friday that it had secured $200m of “incremental loans” maturing in May 2024 and had also amended covenants on some of its existing debt that would relax restrictions on its use of cash.

It said that, along with a $203m tax rebate in the US, a $213m convertible bond raised in March and tight cash control, the funds would give the group “the financial and operational flexibility and resilience to execute on its business strategy as it resumes its operations”.

Cinemas have begun trading again in most countries as restrictions have eased with the majority in Cineworld’s two main markets of the US and UK able to reopen. Rival cinema chain Vue said it had hit 1m visitors in a week earlier in July, a benchmark that it had only reached occasionally before the Covid-19 crisis, even without many of the delayed blockbusters released.

Cineworld said that, since starting to reopen its 778 screens in April, “trading has continued to improve”.

“We are monitoring the evolution of the virus and its potential impact on our business, but we are very excited about the potential of the unprecedented slate of films in the second half of 2021,” said chief executive Mooky Greidinger.

The group came close to administration in November before securing $750m emergency funding from lenders. Net debt in December came to $8.3bn.

The human cost of the pandemic has dragged on performance at Swiss Re as it reported more mortality losses than expected in the first half.

The reinsurer, one of the world’s biggest, booked $810m of mortality losses — claims the company expects life insurers to pass on to it — in the first six months of the year, topping the $690m predicted by analysts. Its shares fell almost 1 per cent in early trading.

The Zurich-based group said these losses “markedly lessened over the course of the second quarter”, and expects them to extend that decline as more people receive their Covid-19 vaccine.

The pandemic left a smaller dent on its property and casualty division, which took a major hit last year from cancelled events and closed businesses, sending it to its first annual loss since the financial crisis that began in 2008.

Swiss Re posted $50m worth of losses in that unit in the first half, and now expects less than $200m for the rest of 2021, meaning its full-year losses from Covid in this division are expected to be around half what it said a few months ago.

On top of a strong showing for Swiss Re’s division serving large companies, group net income came in at $1bn for the first half, a third ahead of analyst expectations.

The German economy grew more slowly than expected in the three months to June, according to data released on Friday, as Europe’s largest economy rebounded from a sharp downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The 1.5 per cent growth in German second-quarter gross domestic product, compared to the previous quarter, was lower than the 2 per cent expected by economists polled by Reuters. It marked a rebound from the 2.1 per cent contraction in the first quarter.

The growth “was mainly due to higher household and government final consumption expenditure,” said the Federal Statistical Office, which added that German GDP remained 3.4 per cent below its level before the pandemic hit in early 2020.

Meanwhile, Italian GDP growth also rebounded to 2.7 per cent in the second quarter, its statistics office said on Friday, outstripping economists’ expectations for growth of 1.3 per cent in the period.

The figures will be read as the latest signal that the eurozone is firmly on the road to recovery. Boosted by the lifting of lockdowns in May, business and consumer confidence have recovered strongly, while retail sales have returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Qantas Airways’ efforts to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic have been thrown into disarray following a court ruling that the Australian airline broke the law when it outsourced 2,000 workers.

Australia’s Federal Court said on Friday that one of the reasons the carrier outsourced ground crew staff earlier this year was to prevent them from collectively bargaining for better working terms, and the move was not simply a response to financial pressures from Covid-19.

The decision marks the latest blow to Qantas, which continues to be pummelled by the closure of Australia’s international and state borders. The airline has received almost A$2bn ($1.5bn) in taxpayer funds through government wage subsidies and support schemes.

Australia’s Transport Workers’ Union, which filed the case, said Qantas used the pandemic as a “transformational opportunity” to deny workers from exercising their legal rights to collectively bargain. It has demanded Qantas reinstate and compensate the affected workers.

“Senior Qantas management have serious questions to answer after the judgment. The judgment made clear that Qantas targeted its ground workers for outsourcing because they were united to fight for decent standards at the airline,” said Michael Kaine, TWU national secretary.

Justice Lee said the union’s demand that the workers be rehired and compensated would be considered at a later hearing.

Qantas said it would appeal the judgment and oppose any future court order to reinstate the workers. Many have not been rehired by the airline’s outsourcing partners.

Read more here.

Online property portfolio Rightmove’s first-half revenue has shot past its pre-pandemic level as a lockdown-fuelled urge to move house pushed advertising to record levels.

The six-month revenue rose 58 per cent to £149.9m from a year ago, an improvement of 4 per cent from 2019. That helped to lift the average revenue per advertiser 63 per cent to a monthly £1,163.

Rightmove expects the second half to follow a “broadly similar pattern”, with growth in spending by advertisers and increased demand for properties, the UK online site said in a six-month earnings report on Friday.

The UK housing market has benefited from a rush for homes with more space and gardens during the pandemic as many workers were stuck at home for long periods. A rise in prices was driven mostly by a stamp duty holiday introduced a year ago as part of a government stimulus package during the pandemic. However annual house price growth cooled this month as the end of the tax break loomed.

Rightmove strengthened its position as the place UK “home hunters turn to first”, generating a market share of time on portals of 90 per cent, the statement said.

“The first half of 2021 brought further lockdowns, instilling in many a desire or motivation to move home,” said chief executive Peter Brooks-Johnson. 

People relied on the site to “help them to find their new life”, with a record 10.4bn minutes spent searching and researching on Rightmove, he said.

The Spanish economy grew faster than expected in the three months to June, according to data released on Friday, indicating a pick-up in business and consumer activity after the recent lifting of most coronavirus containment measures.

The 2.8 per cent growth in Spanish second-quarter gross domestic product, compared with the previous quarter, was well ahead of the 2.2 per cent growth expected by economists polled by Reuters. It marked a sharp rebound from a first-quarter decline of 0.4 per cent.

The growth figures will be read as the latest signal that Spain is firmly on the road to recovery. Boosted by the lifting of lockdowns in May, business and consumer confidence has rebounded strongly, while retail sales have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. The government has forecast the economy will grow 6.5 per cent this year.

However, the recent rapid spread of the Delta coronavirus variant in Spain has pushed up the country’s infection rate to one of the highest in Europe and dealt a blow to its tourism industry, which in 2019 generated 12 per cent of the country’s GDP and 13 per cent of jobs.

On Thursday, Spain’s seven-day rolling average of new Covid-19 cases was 528.7 per 1m people, up more than five-fold from a month earlier. But most of the people catching the virus are younger and hospitalisations and deaths from Covid-19 remain at low levels.

French carmaker Renault reported profits for the first time since the start of the pandemic, in spite of a global microchip shortage and rising raw material prices.

Luca de Meo, who took over as chief executive last year, said that the company’s restructuring plan would allow it to achieve full year profits in 2021, even though the semiconductor shortage would hamper the recovery. The scarcity of chips is likely to lead to a production loss of around 200,000 vehicles over the year, a doubling of previous forecasts, he said.

“I think the worst is behind us, but we have to remain prudent,” de Meo added.

Revenues at Renault were up 27 per cent to €23.4bn compared with the same period last year, a year of record losses for the company, but were down 17 per cent on the same period in 2019. Analysts had anticipated revenues of €21.7bn.

The carmaker swung to net income of €368m in the first half of the year, from a €7.4bn loss a year ago, although still below the €1bn profit in the first half of 2019.

Renault’s share price gained 4 per cent in early morning trading.

Prime minister Boris Johnson is under mounting pressure to copy Wales and bring forward the August 16 date on which fully vaccinated people in England can avoid self-isolation when pinged by the NHS Covid app.

Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said the existing system was causing “a summer of chaos for British businesses and British families” and should be ended more swiftly.

Mark Drakeford, first minister for Wales, said on Thursday that from August 7 double-jabbed adults can escape self-isolation. The Welsh government said this would “ease pressure on vital services”.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said two weeks ago that the Scottish rules would be changed from August 9 with those “pinged” having to take a Covid-19 test but not self-isolate.

More than half a million people were advised to self-isolate last week after being contacted by either directly by the NHS Test & Trace programme or by its app. There were 689,313 alerts sent to users of the app last week.

The owner of British Airways has outlined cautious plans to return more of its aircraft to the skies after a barren first half of the year when losses spiralled to €2bn.

International Airlines Group, which also owns Iberia, Aer Lingus and Vueling, reported an operating loss of €967m in the second quarter, bringing its losses for the first six months of the year to just over €2bn.

The group plans to fly 45 per cent of its normal flight schedule in the third quarter, up from just 20 per cent in the first six months of the year, as travel restrictions are lifted in some markets.

Its plans are considerably more cautious than short-haul rivals such as easyJet and Ryanair, and reflect IAG’s reliance on business travel and long-haul flying, two parts of the industry that are taking longer to recover.

But they are also more circumspect than Air-France KLM, another legacy carrier to report results on Friday. It plans to fly up to 70 per cent of normal capacity this summer.

IAG is desperate for transatlantic travel to resume, and welcomed the UK’s recent decision to exempt fully vaccinated passengers from the US and EU from quarantine.

“We see this as an important first step in fully reopening the transatlantic travel corridor,” said Luis Gallego, chief executive.

“We know that recovery will be uneven, but we’re ready to take advantage of a surge in air travel demand in line with increasing vaccination rates,” he added.

The loss was an improvement on the nearly €4bn lost in the first six months of 2020. Total revenue fell 60 per cent year-on-year to €2.2bn.

IAG is burning through €190m in costs a week, a figure which does not take incoming revenue into account. The company is insulated by more than €10bn in liquidity, but like many peers has a growing debt burden, with net debt of €12.1bn at the end of June.

NatWest said it would return more than £3bn to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks over the next three years, as it became the latest major UK bank to report a sharp rise in profits thanks to the improved economic outlook.

The state-backed bank swung to a pre-tax profit of £1.6bn in the three months to June, from a £1.3bn loss in the same period last year and well ahead of average analyst forecasts.

The main driver was the reversal of £600m of impairments that the bank had taken to cover potential loan defaults at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in the first half of 2020.

Banks set aside billions of pounds to cover future losses in the first half of 2020, but government support measures such as furlough and business loan schemes have kept actual rates of default lower than feared.

Air France-KLM hailed the “first signs of recovery” following the easing of coronavirus travel restrictions in Europe, as it narrowed its losses for the second quarter of the year.

The airline reported losses before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of €248m, marking a €532m improvement on the same period last year when the pandemic grounded thousands of planes. Revenues rose by 130 per cent to €2.8bn.

Passenger numbers are expected to rise to between 60 and 70 per cent of 2019 levels over the next three months, it said, boosted by the reopening of north Atlantic routes allowing US citizens to visit Europe. Third-quarter ebitda is forecast to be positive as a result.

“Reciprocity of borders reopening and the acceleration of the vaccination rollout worldwide, especially in the context of the rise of the Delta variant, will play a key role in maintaining this momentum,” said Benjamin Smith, Air France-KLM’s chief executive.

The French economy grew slightly faster than expected in the three months to June, according to data released on Friday, bolstering hopes that the eurozone is starting to put the disruption of the coronavirus pandemic behind it.

The 0.9 per cent growth in French gross domestic product in the second quarter was above the 0.8 per cent growth expected by economists polled by Reuters, and marked a solid rebound from a double-dip recession over the winter months.

French investment growth accelerated to 1.1 per cent and household spending increased 0.9 per cent after lockdowns were lifted during the second quarter. But France’s GDP remained below its pre-pandemic level in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Economists expect the French economy to keep expanding rapidly over the rest of the year, despite the spread of the Delta variant, which is on track to account for 90 per cent of all of Europe’s Covid-19 infections by August.

Coronavirus infections in France this week rose to a seven-day average of 302 per 1m people, more than 10 times higher than at the start of July and the country’s highest infection rate since the start of May.

French President Emmanuel Macron recently proposed a law to make Covid-19 vaccination compulsory for healthcare workers and to require a “health pass” to enter public places such as restaurants and bars in a bid to encourage more people to get vaccinated.

England’s top midwife has urged pregnant women to ensure they are protected against Covid-19 after a survey revealed that nearly all expectant mothers hospitalised with coronavirus have not been vaccinated.

The study, released on Friday, said no fully jabbed pregnant woman had been admitted to hospital, while three with one dose have been hospitalised since May. In contrast, 98 per cent of pregnant women taken to hospital have received no vaccine.

The findings from the UK Obstetric Surveillance System show the number is rising with many facing acute symptoms.

Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, chief midwifery officer for England, has written to fellow midwives and GP practices to stress the need to encourage expectant mothers to go for the jab to protect themselves and their baby.

“Vaccines save lives, and this is another stark reminder that the Covid-19 jab can keep you, your baby and your loved ones, safe and out of hospital,” said Dunkley-Bent.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Midwives say inoculation is one of the best defences for pregnant women against severe Covid-19 infection. The independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has confirmed that the jab has been shown to be effective and safe for pregnant women.

Scientists are warning that the world has entered a dangerous new phase of the pandemic, as the coronavirus third-wave creates fertile breeding grounds for more infectious and potentially vaccine-resistant new variants.

The surge of Covid-19 around the globe, with the World Health Organization reporting new cases up 8 per cent and deaths up 21 per cent in just a week, has parallels with the conditions at the height of the pandemic last year when four highly transmissible viral variants originated.

Virologists say the Sars-Cov-2 virus that causes Covid-19 may have already developed into more threatening forms which have so far evaded detection because they have not yet infected enough people.

“We’ve been surprised more than once by the evolution of variants, though maybe we shouldn’t have been because the virus only recently moved into humans and is still adapting to its new hosts,” said Nick Loman, professor of microbial genomics at Birmingham university in the UK. “We’ve been humbled by this virus before and no one can predict confidently what will happen in the future.”

Read more here.

Texas governor Greg Abbott has made it harder for local officials to set requirements such as mask-wearing.

A new executive order also clarified Texas’s policy on vaccines, saying that no governmental entity can compel an individual to receive a vaccine administered under an emergency use authorisation. And it said that no public or private entity receiving public funds can require a consumer to prove vaccination status as a condition of entry.

Abbott’s order also addressed masks, saying that although individuals in areas with high coronavirus transmission rates are encouraged to follow public health best practices “no person may be required to wear or mandate the wearing of a face covering.”

The order follows the revision of mask guidance by the top US public health agency, in an effort to stem the spread of the Delta variant, and amid bubbling national debate about vaccination mandates.

Abbott lifted Texas’s mask mandate in early March, and has insisted that face coverings would not be required in schools.

Abbott said in a statement that the path forward “relies on personal responsibility” rather than government mandates.

“Texans have mastered the safe practices that help to prevent and avoid the spread of Covid-19. They have the individual right and responsibility to decide for themselves and their children whether they will wear masks, open their businesses, and engage in leisure activities,” he said.

Texas on Wednesday reported more than 10,000 new Covid-19 cases in a single day for the first time since February.

US president Joe Biden announced a series of new measures to combat the spread of the Delta variant across the country, including a call for states to offer $100 incentives for jabs and instructions for federal workers to show proof of vaccination or wear masks.

Jefferies on Thursday told staff they will only be allowed to come into the investment bank’s offices if they are fully vaccinated, following a similar edict by Morgan Stanley last month.

Israel will offer a third dose of BioNTech/Pfizer’s vaccine to its elderly population, turning the nation into a test-case for the safety of the Covid booster dose.

German inflation surged to its highest level for over a decade, boosted by sharp price rises for clothing, food and package holidays, which is likely to fuel more intense debate about Europe’s ultra-loose monetary policy.

US economic growth rose slightly in the second quarter to 6.5 per cent on an annualised basis, a weaker-than-expected increase as strong consumption was offset by lagging private investment.

France’s Europe minister Clément Beaune described England’s latest travel rules, which impose tougher restrictions on people coming from France than on those coming from the rest of the EU, as “excessive and incomprehensible”.

The UK’s NHS Covid-19 app sent a record number of alerts last week advising people to self-isolate after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for the virus.

Industries from pharmaceuticals to food and drink, energy and defence signalled a rebound from the pandemic with a number of UK and European companies reporting strong earnings even as the Delta variant of Covid-19 spreads.

Quarantine measures for athletes deemed close contacts of people who have tested positive for coronavirus are annoying some competitors, who say Tokyo 2020 organisers have diminished their ability to perform well under strict containment protocols.

AstraZeneca revealed strong Covid-19 vaccine sales but warned it would take even longer to secure approval in the US, the world’s largest pharmaceutical market.

Kerala, a southern Indian state renowned for its strong health services, will impose a lockdown this weekend after its reported number of new Covid-19 infections doubled in a month.

Thailand reported a record number of new Covid-19 infections and deaths as the country — one of Asia’s hardest hit by the highly contagious Delta variant — scrambles to make up for delays in rolling out vaccines.