Coronavirus: Toronto extends cancellation of in-person events to July — as it happened

Nvidia forecast a much bigger growth surge in the coming months than Wall Street had been expecting, as the US chipmaker reported quarterly numbers that showed it has continued to ride strong demand for gaming and data centre chips during the pandemic.

The forecast, which lifted the company’s shares 3 per cent in after-market trading came despite supply shortages that have caused convulsions in some parts of the semiconductor supply chain. Stronger demand had “limited the availability of capacity and components” throughout the supply chain, with gaming particularly affected, Nvidia said

Despite that, strong sales of a new generation of gaming cards lifted revenue from this part of the business by 67 per cent in the latest period, to just under $2.5bn. With data centre sales up 97 per cent — thanks partly to last year’s acquisition of Mellanox — Nvidia reported overall revenue of $5bn in the three months to the end of January. That was 61 per cent higher than the year before, and some 4 per cent ahead of most analysts’ forecasts.

Wall Street had been expecting sales to slow after the recent strong run. Instead, Nvidia forecast an acceleration in growth in the current quarter, with revenue rising 71 per cent to $5.3bn, or around 18 per cent above analysts’ expectations.

Jensen Huang, chief executive, said the latest quarter had capped “a breakout year for Nvidia’s computing platforms”. Besides their use in high-end gaming PCs and machine learning systems — both markets that have been lifted by the pandemic — Nvidia’s chips are also widely used in cryptocurrency “mining”, a market that has boomed on the back of the soaring bitcoin price.

Despite a fall of nearly two percentage points in its gross profit margin, caused partly by Mellanox, Nvidia’s net income jumped 53 per cent, to $1.46bn. At $3.10, pro forma earnings per share were up 64 per cent, and 29 cents ahead of expectations. Based on formal accounting principles, earnings per share rose 51 per cent, to $2.31.

Booking Holdings’ revenues fell by nearly two-thirds in the fourth quarter as the coronavirus pandemic continued to wreak havoc on the travel industry, though the company reported improvements in booking trends in recent weeks.

Total revenues at the company behind travel web sites including Booking.com and Kayak, fell 63 per cent from a year ago to $1.2bn in the fourth quarter. That compared with estimates for $1.18bn, according to a Refinitiv survey of Wall Street analysts.

Gross bookings — the dollar value of all travel services net cancellations — fell 65 per cent to $7.3bn.

“The travel environment continued to be challenging through the fourth quarter of 2020 and into January 2021 as Covid-19 case counts remained very high and travel restrictions were reimposed in many parts of the world,” said chief executive Glenn Fogel.

In “recent weeks” the company, which derives the bulk of its revenues from overseas, has started to “see some improvements in booking trends that we will continue to monitor”, Fogel said.

The Connecticut-based company reported a loss of $165m, or $4.02 a share, compared with net income of $1.2bn, or $27.75 a share, in the year-ago quarter. Adjusting for one-time items, Booking Holdings reported a loss of 57 cents a share, that was better than expectations for a loss of $4.28.

Moderna has become the first vaccine maker to produce a shot targeted at the virus variant discovered in South Africa and is shipping the doses to the US National Institutes of Health to prepare for a clinical trial. 

The Boston-based biotech is taking a three-pronged strategy to try to address concerns that its vaccine, along with several others, is less effective against the 501.V2 strain. 

The company has already begun giving previous trial participants a half-dose booster of of the existing shot to top up their immune response. It has now created a new vaccine booster targeted to the variant, also at half a dose. Anthony Fauci’s team at the NIH will begin testing it in phase 1 trial participants within weeks. 

Moderna is also creating the first multivalent vaccine, which includes the genetic code for the spike protein of both the original strain of the virus and the 501.V2 variant, in hopes of making it effective against both variants. The company’s technology has previously been used to combine up to six genetic sequences in a shot.

Read more here.

Toronto has extended its cancellation of in-person major outdoor events to July 1, affecting plans for the city’s festivals, fireworks and national day parades.

Canada’s most populous city said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon its decision, made in consultation with top medical, emergency and police officials, “supports the directive that physical distancing is critical to stopping the spread of Covid-19”. Previously, major outdoor events were cancelled up to March 31.

The decision will affect events including Canadian music week, the international dragon boat race festival, Pride Toronto’s dyke march and Canada Day celebrations at certain locations, among others. Many events will shift to virtual options.

Organisers for the Toronto Marathon had previously explained their decision to cancel this year’s event was because “it does not appear likely that there will be widespread vaccinations by early May”. The races, traditionally held on the first Sunday in May, are postponed until 2022, although there will be a virtual running event this year.

The Toronto Blue Jays had already made plans to begin their baseball season in Florida because of pandemic restrictions in Canada.

Officials in Ontario, the province Toronto is the capital of, earlier today said a website for booking coronavirus vaccine appointments is set to launch in mid-March. People aged 80 years and over are the first group to become eligible, with a proposed schedule resulting in those aged 60 and over becoming eligible for doses in July. The general population will be eligible for vaccines in August.

Additional reporting by Matthew Rocco in New York

Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz has called on the European Union to urgently co-ordinate a special “green passport” to certify citizens as vaccinated or having tested negative for coronavirus.

“We want to get back to normal as quickly as possible, to have our old life back and a maximum of freedom,” the chancellor tweeted on Wednesday evening.

“We therefore want an EU-wide Green Passport, with which people can travel freely, get about for business without restriction and go on vacation, as well as finally enjoy gastronomy, culture, events and other things again,” he continued.

So far, Austria has delivered just six doses of vaccine per 100 citizens, but it is in the process of rolling out a huge mass-testing programme that will offer free Covid-19 tests to about one in three Austrians each week.

Kurz suggested proof of a recent negative coronavirus test could also be a feature of any EU-wide passporting or certification scheme.

The governments of Denmark and Greece have said they are looking into establishing a coronavirus passporting regime for vaccinated citizens. Poland announced earlier on Wednesday it would impose a range of restrictive quarantine measures on visitors unless they could prove they had been vaccinated.

Carnival has extended the suspension of its US cruises to the end of May.

The company, which previously cancelled bookings through April, said it has not determined when cruise ships will set sail again. The scheduling update means that cruises departing US ports will not resume until at least June.

Customers who purchases tickets for one of the newly cancelled cruises can opt for a credit or full refund.

“We continue to work on plans to resume operations and are encouraged by the focus to expedite vaccine production and distribution which are having a demonstrated impact on improving public health,” said Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line.

Other Carnival-owned cruise lines including Holland America also updated their schedules. Holland America extended cancellations to include all sailings in 2021 that start or finish in Canada.

Shares in Carnival pared their gains on Wednesday afternoon to close up 3 per cent.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lifted its “no sail” order in October but laid out rules requiring that cruise operators implement safety protocols and run simulated voyages before welcoming back passengers.

Yusuf White is in full flow when Lisa Fitzpatrick decides to approach him.

A slight young man buzzing with nervous energy, White has a message for the handful of people who happen to drift by this Washington DC street corner close to where Martin Luther King Jr Avenue meets Malcolm X Avenue. Covid-19 is a man-made disease, he announces, invented by white people to subjugate African-Americans like him. “There are a lot of pandemics in this world!” he shouts. “Why are we focusing so much on this one? It’s because they want to control us. Covid plants fear in your mind — social distancing is how they control you.”

Standing nearby, wearing a lab coat and a sceptical frown, Fitzpatrick looks unimpressed. An infectious diseases doctor and academic, she has heard this kind of rhetoric before. Three years ago Fitzpatrick moved from her city-centre apartment in the US capital to this rundown area in an effort to improve the flow of health information to underprivileged communities. In 2019, she set up Grapevine Health, a health education business designed to combat some of the misinformation that she says is rife among poor and black communities like hers.

The idea, she tells the Financial Times later in the relative warmth of her nearby townhouse, occurred to her nearly 15 years ago, when she spoke on a health education panel aimed at black men and realised they were paying more attention to her blunt advice than the academic content being offered by her fellow panellists. “One of the men came up to me afterwards and asked, ‘How does someone like me access someone like you on a regular basis?’ And I never forgot that.”

For the past few months, Fitzpatrick’s mission has been a singular one: to persuade — one by one if necessary — as many black people as possible to get vaccinated against Covid-19. Her task is hugely important. For America, whose disastrous handling of the disease has incurred a higher national death toll from the virus than in the second world war, vaccines provide the best hope for overcoming the pandemic. But the unprecedented success and speed of bringing them to market has brought powerful challenges, such as vaccine hesitancy.

Read more here

Portugal reported 50 Covid-19 deaths over the past day, the lowest daily total in almost four months and a sharp drop since fatalities peaked at 303 at the end of January.

The number of new coronavirus cases recorded in the same period — the 24 hours to midnight on Tuesday — totaled 1,480, down from a peak of more than 16,400 daily cases at the end of January.

Almost 2,800 people are receiving hospital treatment for Covid-19, down from a peak of more than 6,800 less than two months ago. The number of coronavirus patients in intensive care units has fallen from almost 900 to 567 over the same period.

Portugal has been under a strict lockdown since January 15, but epidemiologists have warned against any easing of restrictions until the number of Covid-19 patients in hospital falls much further.

The country has reported a total of 16,136 deaths from coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic and more than 800,000 cases.

Augusto Santos Silva, foreign minister, on Wednesday said Portugal would send 5 per cent of the Covid-19 vaccines it receives to its former colonies, including Angola and Mozambique in Africa and East Timor off the north coast of Australia.

Portugal, a country of 10.2m people, is entitled to receive 35m vaccine doses through the EU’s co-ordinated purchasing scheme, 5 per cent of which would total 1.75m doses.

About 17 per cent of French adults have been infected with Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic more than a year ago, with the proportion reaching 30 per cent in the Ile-de-France region around Paris, the Institut Pasteur said on Wednesday.

The rate of infection was lowest in Brittany in the north-west at about 5 per cent of adults over 20, according to the institute’s modelling of infections in France using hospitalisation and infection data and serological studies from France and abroad.

By age groups, the youngest groups up to the age of 50 were most heavily infected because of greater social mixing, but their risk of severe illness and death was much lower.

In a separate paper, not yet peer-reviewed, researchers from the Institut Pasteur predicted that the more infectious Covid variant B.1.1.7 would make up about 91 per cent of new French infections by April 1. This would require stricter control measures than those currently in place to limit a new spike in hospitalisations more severe than those seen in France last year in the spring and autumn.

Switzerland is considering bringing forward the date to allow restaurants, cafes and bars to reopen to late March as coronavirus case numbers in the country continue to fall.

The Federal Council announced on Wednesday that plans to reopen non-essential shops and museums would go ahead as anticipated on Monday.

The government warned that the situation was still uncertain, but said improving data meant it would now also look at allowing restaurants, bars and shops to reopen as early as March 22.

The previous lockdown-exit timetable scheduled the reopening of the hospitality sector for April 1.

A review of the epidemiological situation will be carried out on March 12, health minister Alain Berset said. The country has currently administered about eight doses of vaccine per 100 citizens.

Bern has come under intense pressure from business leaders and the hospitality sector to relax the current lockdown as soon as possible. Restrictions on public life remain deeply unpopular in the country.

Switzerland currently has a rolling 7-day average of 11.8 cases per 100,000 residents, compared to 16.3 in the UK and an EU average of 21.4.

A large group of senior Wall Street executives, including David Solomon of Goldman Sachs and Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone, have backed Joe Biden’s $1.9tn stimulus plan ahead of crucial votes on the package in Congress.

In a letter to congressional leaders from both parties on Wednesday, more than 150 business leaders based in New York City called for “immediate and large-scale federal legislation” to tackle the fallout from the pandemic.

“Previous federal relief measures have been essential, but more must be done to put the country on a trajectory for a strong, durable recovery,” they wrote.

“Congress should act swiftly and on a bipartisan basis to authorize a stimulus and relief package along the lines of the Biden-Harris administration’s proposed American Rescue Plan,” they added.

The support for Biden’s plan from some of the top names in the US financial sector comes despite strong opposition from Republicans on Capitol Hill who believe the level of new spending is excessive.

Read more here

Sales of new homes in the US rose more than 4 per cent last month, as builders ramped up construction at the end of 2020 and Americans continued to seek out more space in the suburbs.

New-home sales hit a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 923,000 in January, the quickest pace since October and up from a December pace of 885,000 units, according to the US Census Bureau. Economists were expecting a softer sales pace of 855,000 homes.

The report published on Wednesday also showed that new-home sales were up 19 per cent compared with January 2020.

“With expectations that the economy will improve in 2021, the market has seen a refreshed boom in new construction, helping alleviate the acute shortage of houses on the market and whipping the already frothy demand,” said John Pataky, executive vice president of TIAA Bank’s consumer lending division.

The housing market has been a bright spot for the US economy as it rebounds from the worst of the coronavirus crisis. With people spending more time at home during the pandemic, many Americans have jumped into the market in search of roomier houses. Record-low mortgage rates have also boosted sales.

However, a dearth of available homes for sale has helped drive up prices, potentially keeping budget-conscious buyers on the sidelines, according to economists.

Sales of previously owned homes, which account for most real estate transactions, were up 0.6 per cent last month but were constrained by limited inventories, the National Association of Realtors said last week.

“Home sales continue to ascend in the first month of the year, as buyers quickly snatched up virtually every new listing coming on the market,” said Lawrence Yun, the NAR’s chief economist.

The median price of new homes sold in January rose 5.3 per cent year on year to $346,000. There were 307,000 new homes for sale at the end of the month, an increase from 299,000 in December.

Germany has administered only 15 per cent of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus shots it has received, its health ministry said on Wednesday, amid widespread public scepticism about the vaccine’s effectiveness.

“It is indeed the case that only 15 per cent of the AstraZeneca vaccine that has been delivered so far has been administered,” Hanno Kautz, spokesman for the German health ministry, said on Wednesday.

He said 1.54m doses had been delivered by February 23, but only about 240,000 of them had actually been used. “None of it should remain unused,” he said, adding it would now be offered to people in other priority groups. Steffen Seibert, Angela Merkel’s spokesman, insisted the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab was “effective” and “safe”.

Earlier on Wednesday, the health ministry said it expected to receive 16m doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in the second quarter. Under official guidance, the jab is not to be used for people aged 65 or over.

Reading and Leeds music festivals are pressing ahead with plans to go ahead in late summer, becoming the most high profile events to publicise plans to restart.

The events, which share line-ups, are scheduled to take place at two sites between August 27 to 29, with capacity for 200,000 festival goers. Stormzy, Post Malone and Liam Gallagher are due to headline.

It is one of the clearest signs yet that the hard-hit events industry is preparing for a late summer reopening after prime minister Boris Johnson this week unveiled his roadmap to take England out of lockdown. Social distancing restrictions across the country could be removed as soon as June 21.

The organisers are publicising the event even though ministers’ timeline remains uncertain and is subject to various conditions, including the effectiveness of the vaccine roll out.

“Following the government’s recent announcement, we can’t wait to get back to the fields this summer,” the Reading and Leeds organisers said on Twitter.

The plans are in contrast to Glastonbury, the UK’s largest music festival. It takes place in late June and has been called off for a second year in a row.

Poland’s health minister said on Wednesday that the country would tighten border controls with Slovakia and the Czech Republic, which have both been hit by a sharp rise in coronavirus cases in recent weeks.

Adam Niedzielski said that from Saturday, anyone entering Poland via its southern border would have to present a negative coronavirus test that was not more than 48 hours old, or go into quarantine.

The move comes as cases surge in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Czech prime minister Andrej Babis warned on Wednesday that the country, which has the highest infection rate within the EU, was facing “hellish days”.

Niedzielski warned that Poland was now also facing a “third wave” of the pandemic, and said that it would tighten restrictions in in Warmisko-Mazurskie, a region in the north east of the country which borders the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, and which has witnessed a flare-up in cases. Shopping centres, museums, cinemas will all have to close from Saturday.

Poland will also tighten its rules on what type of face coverings count as masks. Scarves and visors will no longer be allowed.

At least 150,000 people with a learning disability are to be given earlier access to a Covid-19 vaccine, after UK government advisers issued guidance that expands eligibility for a group that has been hard hit by the disease.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said it had advised the government and the NHS to invite all people on the GP Learning Disability Register for vaccination.

Campaigners said that, although the change was not all encompassing, it meant some with a mild or moderate condition would now be included because everyone with a learning disability is eligible to be on the register.

The toll coronavirus has taken on this group is underlined by ONS data that showed women with a learning disability normally die at three times the rate of other women — but they have died from Covid at four times the rate. For men, rates are generally 2.8 times higher, but in the pandemic they have been 3.5 times higher.

Read more here.

US Food and Drug Administration staff have confirmed data showing Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot Covid-19 vaccine is safe and effective, and found it was nearly as effective at preventing severe disease caused by the variant first discovered in South Africa.

Scientists at the US regulator found in a report on Wednesday that the J&J jab was 82 per cent effective at preventing severe or critical disease at its trial site in South Africa, where the 501.V2 variant was prevalent. This compares to 86 per cent efficacy in participants in the US and 88 per cent in Brazil, from 28 days after vaccination.  

The vaccine was less effective at preventing moderate to severe illness in the South African group, at 64 per cent, compared to 72 and 78 per cent at the sites in the US and in Brazil. 

The FDA’s vaccine advisory group will meet on Friday to discuss the shot, which could receive its first emergency approval as early as the weekend. J&J said on Tuesday that it would have 4m shots to ship in the US immediately after approval.

The scientists also suggested in their report that the vaccine may have an impact on transmissibility of the virus, even by asymptomatic carriers. But they cautioned there is not yet enough evidence to be statistically significant.

Stocks across Asia-Pacific dropped on Wednesday as a recent climb in US bond yields put high valuations of growth stocks under pressure.

Japan’s Topix index closed 1.8 per cent lower, dragged down by tech stocks, while China’s CSI 300 fell 2.6 per cent.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index sank 3 per cent, its worst daily performance in nine months, with losses in tech, consumer cyclical and energy shares exacerbated by the city’s government announcing it would raise the stamp duty charged on equity trades from 0.1 per cent to 0.13 per cent.

Chinese investors using market link-ups with bourses in Shanghai and Shenzhen dumped Hong Kong-listed shares at a record pace, selling a net HK$20bn ($2.6bn) on Wednesday.

The yield on the benchmark US Treasury bond was steady overnight at just under 1.37 per cent, trading around its highest since the market tumult in March last year.

Read the full story here

Israel will wield some of its excess supply of coronavirus vaccines as international humanitarian aid, using its glut of jabs to pursue diplomatic goals while Palestinians wait for aid shipments for their own supplies.

The first three countries to receive thousands of doses will be Honduras, the Czech Republic and Guatemala, all of whom recently agreed to strengthen their diplomatic presence in Jerusalem, bolstering Israel’s claim to the contested city.

Read the full story here

The Financial Times has been your guide to the pandemic since the first outbreak was detected over a year ago. Here are some of the developments we were reporting on a year ago today:

• US stocks fell by the most in two years while Treasury yields sank towards historic lows, after a jump in the number of coronavirus cases outside China triggered volatility in global markets. The S&P 500 tumbled 3.4 per cent while other global indices also declined at the start of what was to be a month-long fall in share prices.

• Donald Trump tweeted that the coronavirus outbreak was “very much under control” in the US.

• Moderna became the first company to release a potential coronavirus vaccine, with the Boston-based biotech start-up announcing that it had sent the vials to the US National Institutes of Health to be tested in humans.

• China reported 150 new deaths from coronavirus, with just one of those cases from outside Hubei, the centre of the outbreak. That figure was up from 97 deaths for the previous day. It took the total number of deaths to 2,592 in the mainland.

• The first cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in Afghanistan, Kuwait and Bahrain, while the outbreak in Iran spread.

• The number of cases in Italy rose to 219. The WHO and EU sent an emergency mission to Italy to assess the outbreak.

• Downing Street insisted Britain was “well prepared” to deal with the possible spread of coronavirus to the UK, adding that the risk to individuals remained low.

• United Airlines withdrew its annual guidance because of uncertainty related to the impact of coronavirus.

For all the latest on the pandemic, visit the FT’s coronavirus home page.

India plans to expand its coronavirus vaccination drive to include the private sector as it works to accelerate its campaign to inoculate its citizens.

From March 1, people over 60, as well as those aged 45 years of age or more with underlying conditions, will be eligible for the vaccine, minister Prakash Javadekar said.

The shots will be given free at 10,000 government centres but the around 20,000 private health clinics will charge, said Mr Javadekar.

“The amount they would need to pay will be decided by the health ministry within three to four days as they are in discussion with manufacturers and hospitals,” he said.

New Delhi has been facing intense pressure from India’s private sector to let business bolster its faltering vaccination campaign, which has been hampered by technical glitches and vaccine scepticism.

India has vaccinated a total of 10.4m people with their first dose, while 1.4m have had their first dose. The majority have been vaccinated with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has set a target of inoculating 300m people by August.

The speed of the UK Covid-19 vaccination rollout has pulled back significantly in recent days, which the health minister signalled would continue this week before “bumper weeks ahead” in March.

Fewer than 200,000 first doses were given out on both Sunday and Monday, which while typically the quietest days for vaccinations was the lowest two-day figure since daily reporting began in early January.

The easing off comes after the UK hit its target to offer first doses to all of the most vulnerable groups. It aims to do the same for all over-50s by the end of April and all adults by the end of July in one of the world’s most ambitious inoculation timelines.

The UK had been anticipating a dip in its coronavirus vaccine supply in the latter half of February. 

Vaccine supplies will be lower this week, Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said on Tuesday, but he added that there would be “bumper weeks ahead” next month. Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, told LBC Radio on Tuesday that there is “no problem in the supply chain” for vaccines.

The Hennes & Mauritz flagship store on Stockholm’s main square is trying to break the mould. A woman sewing a patch on to trousers, party dresses for hire and a beauty salon are not standard fare for most fast-fashion outlets.

But the services could be a taste of things to come as H&M, the world’s second-largest clothes retailer, works out what to do with its vast network of 5,000 stores following a pandemic that has pushed more shoppers online. The Swedish chain’s ideas extend as far as examining whether its shops can play a role in the logistics of online selling.

For Helena Helmersson, appointed last year as the first H&M chief executive outside the company’s founding Persson family, it is all about boosting relationships and engagement with customers.

“The physical store network that we have is one of our strengths. It’s the different roles the stores can play, the different formats. What kind of experiences are there in a store? Could they be part of an online supply chain? There are so many things to explore . . . it’s almost thrilling,” she told the Financial Times.

Read more here.

Iberdrola, the world’s third largest utility, has raised its dividend and increased its investment plans after profit rose in 2020, despite a fall in electricity demand in Europe and the US owing to coronavirus restrictions.

The Spanish group has continued to spend during the crisis, securing a string of international acquisitions last year.

On Wednesday the company posted a 4.2 per cent rise in net profit to €3.61bn, in line with analysts’ expectations, despite a drop in electricity demand of more than 5 per cent in some key markets including Spain and the UK.

Profits were helped by a gain on the disposal last year of its 8 per cent stake in wind turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa for more than €1bn.

Iberdrola estimates the pandemic had an €238m impact on its results during the year, saying profit growth would have been 10 per cent higher had it not been for the crisis.

The company, which is now referred to by some analysts as a “new energy major” owing to its heavy investments in renewables such as wind and solar, raised it dividend 5 per cent to €0.42 a share and expects to increase it further in 2021 to €0.44 per share as it forecast net profit this year of €3.7bn-€3.8bn.

Iberdrola is expected to be among the major corporate beneficiaries in Spain of EU coronavirus recovery funds, and said on Wednesday that it would invest €150bn by 2030, building on an existing pledge to spend €75bn by 2025.

Ignacio Galán, Iberdrola’s chairman, said the investments would “triple our renewable capacity and double our network assets”.

The German economy proved more resilient than expected to coronavirus restrictions imposed at the end of last year, according to figures published on Wednesday that revised up fourth-quarter growth from 0.1 to 0.3 per cent.

The figures are a further sign that Europe’s largest economy has been more resilient during the country’s second coronavirus lockdown than it was during the first, thanks to a revival in global trade that has boosted its large manufacturing sector.

A rise in net exports and the positive impact of rebuilding inventories, combined with increased capital investment in the construction industry, helped to offset the impact of lower consumer and government spending, according to the Federal Statistical Office.

“The construction sector, industrial activity and foreign demand helped to stop the German economy from falling into contraction during the second lockdown,” said Carsten Brzeski, head of global macro at ING.

The German economy has been weighed down by coronavirus restrictions since November. While the government recently extended its lockdown until at least March 7 because of worries about the spread of a more infectious strain of Covid-19, pressure is mounting for restrictions to be lifted and primary schools reopened this week in many regions.

The country suffered a record postwar recession when the pandemic hit, with gross domestic product declining 9.7 per cent in the second quarter of last year. But it rebounded with third-quarter growth of 8.5 per cent after many initial coronavirus restrictions were lifted.

Europe’s largest hotel chain Accor slumped to a €2bn net loss in 2020, underlining the devastation the pandemic has wrought on the travel industry.

The loss for the French group, which operates more than 5,100 hotels including the Fairmont, Novotel and ibis chains, was a sharp reversal from the €464m net profit in 2019.

Sebastien Bazin, chief executive, said the hotel industry had “navigated an unprecedented crisis” as travel restrictions sent the company’s revenues tumbling 60 per cent to €1.6bn.

However, he said that Accor was “ideally positioned to benefit from the recovery” this year, citing the global vaccine roll out and a gradual recovery in tourism.

Asia, the Middle East and Africa were notable for “tangible signs of improvement” during the final three months of 2020.

Europe, in contrast, grappled with a winter wave of the deadly virus that set back the nascent recovery in travel. About 18 per cent of Accor hotels globally remained shut at the end of last year.

Accor burned through an average €61m per month last year. During the course of the year, it launched a €200m cost cutting programme and ended the year with a cash position of €3.9bn.

Reckitt Benckiser on Wednesday reported the highest full-year sales growth in its history as the Covid-19 hygiene boom led to surging sales for its Dettol and Lysol disinfectants.

The company, which makes Nurofen painkillers and Durex condoms, said sales last year rose 11.8 per cent on a like-for-like net basis to £14bn, the strongest figure since it was formed through a merger in 1999.

Hygiene sales grew by a fifth as the company introduced Dettol and Lysol to 41 new markets to capitalise on pandemic demand for branded cleaning products. Immunity supplement brand Airborne more than doubled sales.

Growth is not expected to continue at the same levels, however. Reckitt said it expected growth of 0 to 2 per cent in 2021 as it strains to bring in sales figures ahead of the bumper numbers reported for last year and achieve a lasting increase in sales growth towards its target of a mid single-digit figure.

Last year was a “turning point” for the company, said chief executive Laxman Narasimhan. “We expect 2021 to be a year of further strategic progress and we remain confident that we will meet our medium-term targets.”

Heathrow airport capped a disastrous year for aviation with a loss of £2bn after the pandemic pushed passenger numbers down to levels not seen since the 1970s.

In the wake of the loss, the chief executive of the UK’s busiest airport called on government ministers to help the industry through the first part of this year in next week’s budget by extending furlough and providing full business rates relief.

Even so, he said prospects for the sector were beginning to brighten after Boris Johnson this week said non-essential international travel might be able to resume from May 17. Several travel companies have reported a rise in bookings since the prime minister’s statement, even though the easing of restrictions is subject to a review.

“We can be hopeful for 2021, with Britain on the cusp of becoming the first country in the world to safely resume international travel and trade at scale,” said Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye.

The company lost £2bn last year compared with a profit of £546m the year before.

Revenues dropped 62 per cent to £1.2bn as the number of passengers using the airport collapsed from 80.9m to 22.1m, the lowest number since the 1970s.

More than half of them travelled in January and February, before the pandemic grounded many of the world’s aircraft.

Net debt rose nearly 6 per cent to £13.1bn, although Heathrow said it ended the year with £3.9bn of liquidity, enough to last it until 2023.

Lloyds Banking Group said it would aim to more than double its profitability this year as the UK economy recovers from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, after it became the latest major lender to report more resilient fourth-quarter results than expected.

The UK’s largest retail bank on Wednesday set a target return on tangible equity of between 5 and 7 per cent for 2021 — comparable to its level in 2019 and far higher than the 2.3 per cent achieved in 2020.

The improved outlook came as Lloyds reported a pre-tax profit of £792m for the final three months of 2020, compared with an average analyst forecast of £471m.

All four of Britain’s largest retail banks — Lloyds, HSBC, Barclays and NatWest — beat analyst expectations in the fourth quarter thanks to a sharp drop in provisions for future loan defaults.

Ghana has become the first country in the world to receive coronavirus vaccines under the World Health Organization-backed Covax facility for low- and middle-income countries, marking the beginning of what has been called the largest vaccine procurement programme in history.

“With the first shipment of doses, we can make good on the promise of the Covax Facility to ensure people from less wealthy countries are not left behind in the race for life-saving vaccines,” Unicef executive director Henrietta Fore said in a statement.

Ghana will receive 600,000 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab from the Serum Institute of India in the first shipment.

Covax, which is also backed by global vaccine alliances Gavi and Cepi, is designed to cover 20 per cent of citizens in participating countries by the end of the year, particularly in poorer nations around the world that have been left behind in the global scramble for vaccines, as richer western countries gobble up most for themselves.

The African Union has also secured hundreds of millions of doses to bolster member states’ supplies, and individual countries are brokering their own deals, including for vaccines from Russia and China, which are ramping up their vaccine diplomacy.

Like much of sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana has had a milder experience of the pandemic, with just 580 deaths and 80,700 confirmed cases for a population of 30m.

China’s provinces and cities on Wednesday reported 12 newly confirmed Covid-19 cases, all of which were imported, according to health officials.

Three of the cases occurred in Shanghai, while two were identified in each of Sichuan and Sha’anxi provinces, a National Health Commission statement said. 

There was one case each in the city of Tianjin, and in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong and Guangdong provinces, the NHC said.

What started out as “temporary” lay-offs earlier this month at the General Motors plant in Kansas City soon became “indefinite”. Across town, Ford slowed down production of its F150 pick-up truck, the company’s cash cow, and did the same at another facility in Michigan.

The carmakers were responding to a crippling shortage of the indispensable chips that are used to build modern vehicles, for everything from automatic braking systems to airbags and electronically adjusted seats. 

The shortages have shone a light on a cyclical corner of the electronics industry where there is often too much or too little supply, a problem that has been exacerbated by unpredictable demand for semiconductors during the coronavirus pandemic.

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Hong Kong’s financial chief forecast a recovery from recession in 2021 supported by the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines and a strong economic rebound in mainland China.

Paul Chan, financial secretary, forecast in his annual budget that the Asian financial centre’s economy would grow by 3.5-5.5 per cent in 2021. He also envisioned 3.3 per cent growth per year from 2022 to 2025.

“In the medium term, Hong Kong will continue to benefit from the ongoing development of the Mainland and the shift in global economic gravity from West to East,” he said. “The economic outlook is positive.”

The city’s economy contracted by 6.1 per cent year-on-year in 2020, as unemployment climbed to a near 17-year high.

Hong Kong’s economy was already weak before the pandemic began, due to the effects of the US-China trade war and months-long anti-government protests. 

The city’s benchmark Hang Seng index tumbled 3.1 per cent after Chan revealed a stamp duty increase on stock transfers to 0.13 per cent from 0.1 per cent to increase government revenue.

Relief measures announced in the budget include HK$5,000 (US$645) spending vouchers for all adult residents, falling short of the HK$10,000 cash handout given last year.

Chan promised further support through tax reductions and low-interest loans for those who lost their jobs during the health crisis. 

He said the government plans to vaccinate the whole population within the year.

Chan said he expects a fiscal deficit of HK$101.6 billion for 2021/2022, accounting for 3.6 per cent of gross domestic product. 

He said Hong Kong would post a deficit for the next four years.

The UK labour market had begun to stabilise by the end of 2020, but unemployment edged up and a previous pick-up in hiring slowed as the surge in Covid-19 infections put reopening on hold.

The jobless rate rose to 5.1 per cent in the three months to December, a rise of 0.4 percentage points from the previous quarter and in line with expectations, official statistics showed on Tuesday. The employment rate of 75 per cent was 1.5 percentage points lower than a year earlier. 

However, the number of payroll employees increased in January for a second consecutive month, the rate of redundancies has slowed, the number of vacancies continued to increase, albeit more slowly, and the Office for National Statistics said pay was growing in real terms in all sectors at the end of the year.

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Thailand on Tuesday received its first shipment of imported Covid-19 vaccines, which arrived as the kingdom’s government comes under growing criticism for its delays in rolling out a national vaccination programme. 

Prayuth Chan-ocha, prime minister, and several members of his cabinet were at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport on Wednesday morning to greet a flight from China containing the first 200,000 doses of the Sinovac-made vaccine. 

Later on Wednesday, another flight carrying 117,000 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was due to arrive, according to a Facebook post by Anutin Charnvirakul, health minister and deputy prime minister. 

Thailand, which has a population of 69m, plans to vaccinate medical and front-line workers with the imported vaccines first.

The general public will mostly receive Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines produced by Siam Bioscience, a company owned by King Maha Vajiralongkorn, which health officials say will be available from June.

Malaysia is set to roll out its Covid-19 vaccination programme on Wednesday as its prime minister faces accusations of using the pandemic to seek a state of emergency and cling onto power.

Last month, King Abdullah declared the country’s first state of emergency since deadly race riots in 1969 at the behest of Muhyiddin Yassin, prime minister. The monarch said the order was necessary to fight the pandemic but it followed Muhyiddin’s loss of his thin parliamentary majority after two members of his coalition defected. 

Emergency rule and the vaccine drive has given Muhyiddin a chance to try to rebuild his majority, analysts said, with the first phase expected to run until April and to involve 500,000 frontline workers. The full scheme is expected to be rolled out by February 2022.

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CapitaLand, Singapore’s largest developer, on Wednesday posted a full-year loss of $1.2bn after the pandemic forced it to write down the value of several properties.

The S$1.57bn loss was mainly attributed to revaluation and impairment costs of S$2.5bn, the company said in a statement.

Revenue rose 4.8 per cent to S$6.5bn, mainly due to higher receipts from residential projects in China and Vietnam.

Operating profit after tax fell 27 per cent to S$770m.

In 2020, the city-state’s prime central business district rents fell 5.6 per cent year-on-year, a reversal from the 2.9 per cent increase posted in 2019, according to Savills data.

Anti-vaccination campaigners are targeting African Americans with misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines, one of Joe Biden’s top health advisers has warned.

Dr Marcella Nunez-Smith, the head of the US president’s task force on Covid-19 health equity, told the Financial Times she was increasingly worried about the way in which misinformation about coronavirus vaccines is being tailored to appeal to black communities in particular.

Nunez-Smith told the FT: “If you think about what it is to have 400 years in this country [since slaves first arrived in the US] being marginalised and minoritised, you can imagine the distrust you would have in the system.”

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Global coronavirus cases fell for a sixth week and the number of fatalities declined by a fifth, according to the World Health Organization.

There were almost 2.5m new coronavirus cases reported around the world in the seven days to 21 February, down 11 per cent on the previous period, the health body said.

Countries and territories recorded 66,000 new fatalities linked to Covid-19, a fall of 20 per cent.

The Americas saw the biggest drop for both cases and deaths, which fell 19 per cent and 23 per cent respectively.

Four out of six regions tracked by the WHO saw new infection tallies fall. Southeast Asia and the eastern Mediterranean reported a 2 per cent and 7 per cent increase respectively.

The US, Brazil, France, Russia and India held their positions as the countries reporting the highest number of cases, even as US cases fell by 29 per cent.

Asia-Pacific stocks mostly edged down after a day of wild swings on Wall Street, where equities pulled back from heavy losses after Federal Reserve chairman Jay Powell signalled no immediate plans to alter the central banks’ ultra-loose monetary policy.

Tokyo’s benchmark Topix index fell 0.5 per cent as trading resumed following Tuesday’s holiday in Japan, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dipped 0.5 per cent. China’s CSI 300 rose 0.2 per cent, While Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was flat.

The tepid showing in Asia came after a volatile day in the US, where the S&P 500 dropped as much as 1.8 per cent and the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite fell as much as 3.9 per cent before the Fed chair’s comments.

Powell told a Senate banking committee on Tuesday that the Fed intended to maintain heavy support for the country’s pandemic-battered economy.

“In recent weeks, the number of new cases and hospitalisations has been falling, and ongoing vaccinations offer hope for a return to more normal conditions later this year”, he said. “However, the economic recovery remains uneven and far from complete, and the path ahead is highly uncertain.”

That was enough to send the S&P 500 up 0.1 per cent by the closing bell, while the Nasdaq finished the day down just 0.5 per cent. On Wednesday, futures tipped the S&P and the FTSE 100 to rise 0.1 per cent.

US coronavirus cases and deaths on Tuesday recorded their biggest daily increases in several days due in part to higher tallies from Texas.

States reported an additional 67,879 infections, according to Covid Tracking Project data, the biggest one-day increase since Saturday.

The latest figure was up from 52,530 on Monday, which was the smallest daily increase since mid-October.

Texas reported 11,809 new and historical cases, the first time in 10 days the state has revealed more than 10,000 infections. New York (6,654) and Florida (5,483) had the next-biggest one-day increases.

CTP said in a Twitter message the “relatively high” high numbers for new cases and deaths in Texas today were “likely due in part to backlog clearing following the recent winter storms”.

Authorities attributed a further 2,196 fatalities to coronavirus, up from a one-week low on Monday of 1,235. It was the biggest one-day increase since Friday last week.

Texas reported 234 deaths, according to CTP, up from 64 on Monday. It was the highest daily tally in 10 days.

California (225) and Virginia (172) had the next-biggest one-day increases.

In Virginia, CTP said the “processing of death certificates related to surges in post-holiday cases is resulting in high reported deaths over the past four days”.

The number of people in US hospitals with coronavirus eased to 55,058 from 55,403 on Monday.

Schools in England will be allocated a further £400m to help pupils catch up on lost learning, as the UK government announces plans for a long-term programme of recovery when children return on March 8. 

Pupils will attend summer schools, new clubs or activities, and more tutoring sessions as part of a number of measures targeting the most disadvantaged, announced on Wednesday as a “next step” in tackling education recovery.

Of the further £400m allocated to learning recovery, about £100m will come from existing budgets, the Department for Education said.

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Australian authorities said on Wednesday they would investigate the accidental overdose of two elderly patients with the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine.

A doctor administered as much as four times the recommended doses to an 88-year-old man and 94-year-old woman in an elderly care facility in suburban Brisbane.

The doctor responsible for administering the vaccines has been stood down from the national jab programme, said health minister Greg Hunt.

“A doctor gave an incorrect dose to two patients,” he said, adding that a nurse on the scene “identified the fact that a higher than prescribed amount of the dose was given”.

Hunt said neither patients showed signs of an adverse reaction but they would be monitored.

He said Michael Kidd, a deputy chief medical officer, would head an inquiry into the incidents.

US Fed chair Jay Powell’s soothing comments on inflation failed to give Asia-Pacific equities much traction on Wednesday after Wall Street shares steadied.

In Japan, the Topix dipped 0.2 per cent, the Kospi in South Korea added 0.4 per cent and the S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.3 per cent. 

On Wall Street on Tuesday, the S&P 500 closed up 0.1 per cent, reversing losses after Powell signalled that the central bank intended to maintain its support for the economy.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite shed 0.5 per cent.

Powell pointed to falling new Covid-19 cases and hospital admissions and said there was “hope for a return to more normal conditions”. 

New Zealand authorities on Tuesday reported three new Covid-19 cases linked to an Auckland high school.

The Ministry of Health said two siblings of an earlier case from Papatoetoe High School have also tested positive.

The siblings are a teenager and an infant. The teenager also attends the school and works at a Kmart store in the nearby eastern Auckland suburb of Botany.

The school was closed last week.

“We have asked the school to re-close until further notice as a precaution and asked every student and staff member to be retested,” the health ministry said in a statement.

The student lives in a household bubble of six, the ministry said. Other family members have been tested.

Pfizer said it is discussing a clinical trial for a booster for new Covid-19 variants with the Food and Drug Administration, after the US regulator urged vaccine makers to prepare to adapt their shots.

The BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine still works just as well against the B.1.1.7 variant from the UK but is less effective against the 501.V2 that was first discovered in South Africa.

In testimony to a US congressional committee, John Young, chief business officer, said Pfizer was “laser focused” on the potential impact the emergent variants could have on its vaccine’s ability to protect against Covid-19.

“We’re preparing to respond quickly and hope to initiate a study to investigate the effectiveness of a third booster of our vaccine and trial participants who have already received two doses,” he added.

Many other vaccine makers including Moderna, AstraZeneca and Novavax have already started preparing for clinical studies on vaccines targeted to the new variants, or boosters.

Authorities in China reported another 10 Covid-19 infections on Tuesday.

Nine were identified in the bustling southern province of Guangdong and one in Shanxi province. 

All the cases were imported, the National Health Commission said.

Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection said on Tuesday it was investigating 12 additional confirmed cases.

US stocks clawed back losses to end a wild trading day higher after Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell signalled he had no immediate plans to change monetary policy.

The benchmark S&P 500 gained 0.1 per cent, reversing losses that had pushed the index 1.8 per cent lower earlier on Tuesday.

The technology-focused Nasdaq Composite went on an even wilder ride, sliding as much as 3.9 per cent in early trading before recovering to end down just 0.5 per cent.

The sell-off early on Tuesday had accelerated declines that began accumulating last week, as investors tried to price in the risk faster inflation and a rise in interest rates could pose to record-high equity market valuations.

The market turnround came as Jay Powell, Federal Reserve chairman, told the US Senate there was “hope for a return to more normal conditions” as the pandemic eases, while also signalling no change to the central bank’s easy monetary policies.

“He’s very dovish, and he does not see inflation or employment near target,” said Saira Malik, head of global equities at Nuveen.

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The coronavirus pandemic has brought Singapore closer to the Middle East, a top minister in the city-state said on Tuesday.

The pandemic disrupted supply chains with neighbours such as Indonesia and Malaysia last year, forcing Singapore to import goods and services elsewhere.

“Singapore looked to the Middle East to diversify our supply chains and safeguard our food supply, such as by importing prawns from Saudi Arabia,” Teo Chee Hean, senior minister, told the Middle East Institute’s annual conference.

The Saudi crustaceans were “something not so traditional, but a useful source for us nevertheless”, he added.

Teo said the pandemic underscored how closely intertwined our countries and people have become. “This makes it even more imperative that we rethink, refresh and revitalise our traditional relationships.”

He said Singapore had since gone on to broaden technology and sustainability partnerships with Middle East countries.

US President Joe Biden will visit a vaccine distribution centre on his visit to Texas on Friday.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden would meet with local leaders to discuss the recent winter storm, relief efforts and “progress toward recovery”.

Last week’s storms cut power to millions and delayed the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.

However, federal and state officials said the inoculation programme has bounced back, with 1.5m doses arriving this week, including the undelivered doses.

Three new federally supported vaccination hubs are expected to open this week.

Psaki said the president would visit a “Covid health centre”, where vaccines are being distributed. 

A US man pleaded guilty on Tuesday over fraudulently obtaining $1.2m in coronavirus relief payments, the justice department said.

Thomas Smith, 46, of Pewaukee, Wisconsin, admitted one count of bank fraud.

Smith filed for Paycheck Protection Program loans on behalf of eight different companies and took a cut when the loans arrived, prosecutors said. 

He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 2.

InterContinental Hotels Group, owner of the Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza brands, has warned that the difficulties of the “most challenging year” in its history have stretched into 2021 as new strains of coronavirus force countries to close borders and limit travel. Keith Barr, chief executive, said recovery was “totally related to vaccines”.

A senior Mexican legislator has floated the idea of making the mega rich pay a one-off Covid-19 contribution as “an act of social justice and solidarity” that could raise nearly $5bn. Only those with fortunes of more than $1m would have to pay, Alfonso Ramírez Cuéllar, a deputy for the ruling Morena party and its one-time chief, said in a statement. 

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, on Tuesday set out a framework for easing coronavirus restrictions that was markedly more cautious than the UK government’s route map for England. The plan makes clear that there is unlikely to be any easing of restrictions on the retail sector before the second week of April.

Rafael Ojeda, Mexico’s navy minister, has contracted Covid-19 for a second time, four months after his first infection. He announced the news on Twitter, saying he would isolate and continue working. Reinfection has proved relatively rare worldwide. Mexico has confirmed 2.04m coronavirus cases and 180,536 related fatalities.

Frasers Group has put investors on notice over a potential impairment charge of more than £100m as lockdown restrictions on high streets drag on. The group behind Sports Direct and Evans Cycles, as well as the eponymous department stores, said it would take a “material” non-cash accounting hit on the value of freehold properties and other assets.

Home Depot sold an additional $22bn worth of goods last year as housebound Americans bought patio furniture, ride-on lawnmowers and living room decorations in their droves. The Atlanta-based company, which has more than 2,200 stores across North America, produced $132.1bn in revenues in 2020, the most in its history. 

Macau gaming stocks gained the day after the former Portuguese colony lifted all quarantine restrictions for mainland Chinese visitors. Galaxy Entertainment shares closed 8.9 per cent higher while SJM Holdings climbed 7.9 per cent. Sands China gained 7.5 per cent, Melco International rose 6.3 per cent, while MGM China and Wynn Macau rose 5 per cent.

Budget airline easyJet has reported a surge in bookings since the UK revealed a “roadmap” out of lockdown that included rebooting international travel later this year. Bookings for flights from the UK have more than quadrupled week on week, the carrier said, while its package holiday unit has experienced a more than seven-fold jump in bookings.