kscarbel2

Mainz, Germany-based BioNTech and US pharmaceutical Pfizer have begun human trials of a potential Covid-19 vaccine that could supply millions by the end of the year. Pfizer says it will begin testing the experimental vaccine in the United States next week, and says a vaccine could be ready for emergency use in the fall.

Ford expects $5 billion operating loss in Q2 Michael Martinez, Automotive News / April 28, 2020 DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co. expects an operating loss of more than $5 billion in the second quarter as the financial toll of the coronavirus crisis continues to worsen. The automaker said Tuesday that it lost $632 million before interest and taxes in the first quarter, although it made $346 million before interest and taxes in North America. That came despite shuttering U.S. assembly plants for the final two weeks of the quarter. CFO Tim Stone said if the coronavirus crisis had not occurred Ford was tracking to post $1.4 billion or more in adjusted earnings before interest and taxes. Ford in the first quarter lost money in every region outside of North America, including a $241 million loss in China, which was the first region impacted by the virus. Ford Credit made $30 million in the quarter, down $771 million from the same period a year ago. Ford’s mobility unit lost $300 million in the quarter as the automaker announced it would postpone the launch of its autonomous vehicle commercial services until 2022. Stone said Ford had $35 billion in cash as of April 24 and that he believed it had sufficient cash to get it through the end of the year “with no additional vehicle wholesales or financing actions.” "Our objective is not just to withstand the crisis, we’re ensuring the flexibility to continue to invest in our future,” Stone said on a conference call with journalists. Ford CEO Jim Hackett and other executives noted Ford remained on track with its global redesign plans despite the coronavirus and that the team would continue putting money into “growth opportunities.” The operating loss and $2 billion net loss Ford posted Tuesday were in line with the preliminary results it reported in a regulatory filing April 17. The company said Tuesday that it still can't provide full-year guidance because "today's economic environment remains too ambiguous." Ford's U.S. vehicle sales fell 12 percent in the first quarter, with most of the damage coming in late March as the pandemic swept across the country. The automaker on March 18 agreed to close all of its U.S. factories to protect workers and help stop the spread of the virus. Stone refused Tuesday to offer a timeframe on reopening Ford’s U.S. assembly plants, although it plans a phased reopening of European facilities beginning May 4. The Wall Street Journal on Monday reported the Detroit 3 automakers are targeting May 18 to reopen plants in the U.S., although all three automakers said no decision has been made.

Reuters / April 28, 2020 A senior White House adviser warned on Tuesday that near-term unemployment and GDP data will be a “very grave” negative shock. Kevin Hassett, senior economic adviser to President Trump says unemployment could reach 16-20%, and GDP output could fall as much as 30-40% on annualized basis in the second quarter, a prediction in line with Wall Street and Congressional Budget Office forecasts. “We’re going to have the biggest shock since the Great Depression,” Hassett said. “It’s a very grave shock and something we need to take seriously.” He said first quarter GDP growth number being released on Wednesday would likely be negative. This “will be just the very tip of the iceberg of a few months of negative news that’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen.”

MarketWatch / April 28, 2020 President Trump on Tuesday said he would sign an executive order to keep meat processing plants open. The order is meant to stave off a shortage of chicken, pork and other meat on U.S. supermarket shelves because of the coronavirus. The order will use the Defense Production Act to classify meat processing as critical infrastructure to keep production plants open. Trump said the order would address what he called “liability problems” in the food supply chain. Meat-processing plants have weighed the risks of prosecution if they are blamed for spreading infection during the pandemic. Tyson, for example, suspended production at an Iowa pork processing plant due to a coronavirus outbreak among employees. “We’re working with Tyson, which is one of the big companies in that world,” Trump said.

Wow. Just.....wow.

Go Oxford ! Thank you Bill and Melinda Gates ! Let's make the world healthy and normal again !

Oxford University-developed Coronavirus vaccine could be ready by September The New York Times / April 27, 2020 In the worldwide race for a vaccine to stop the coronavirus, the laboratory sprinting fastest is at Oxford University. Most other teams have had to start with small clinical trials of a few hundred participants to demonstrate safety. But scientists at Oxford University’s Jenner Institute had a head start on a vaccine, having proved in previous trials that similar inoculations — including one last year against an earlier coronavirus — were harmless to humans. That has enabled them to leap ahead and schedule tests of their new coronavirus vaccine involving more than 6,000 people by the end of next month, hoping to show not only that it is safe, but also that it works. The Oxford scientists now say that with an emergency approval from regulators, the first few million doses of their vaccine could be available by September — at least several months ahead of any of the other announced efforts — if it proves to be effective. Now, they have received promising news suggesting that it might. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana last month inoculated six rhesus macaque monkeys with single doses of the Oxford vaccine. The animals were then exposed to heavy quantities of the coronavirus that is causing the pandemic — exposure that had consistently sickened other monkeys in the lab. But more than 28 days later all six were healthy, said Vincent Munster, the researcher who conducted the test. “The rhesus macaque is pretty much the closest thing we have to humans,” Dr. Munster said, noting that scientists were still analyzing the result. He said he expected to share it with other scientists next week and then submit it to a peer-reviewed journal. Immunity in monkeys is no guarantee that a vaccine will provide the same degree of protection for humans. A Chinese company that recently started a clinical trial with 144 participants, SinoVac, has also said that its vaccine was effective in rhesus macaques. But with dozens of efforts now underway to find a vaccine, the monkey results are the latest indication that Oxford’s accelerated venture is emerging as a bellwether. “It is a very, very fast clinical program,” said Emilio Emini, a director of the vaccine program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is providing financial support to many competing efforts. Which potential vaccine will emerge from the scramble as the most successful is impossible to know until clinical trial data becomes available. More than one vaccine would be needed in any case, Dr. Emini argued. Some may work more effectively than others in groups like children or older people, or at different costs and dosages. Having more than one variety of vaccine in production will also help avoid bottlenecks in manufacturing, he said. But as the first to reach such a relatively large scale, the Oxford trial, even if it fails, will provide lessons about the nature of the coronavirus and about the immune system’s responses that can inform governments, donors, drug companies and other scientists hunting for a vaccine. “This big U.K. study,” Dr. Emini said, “is actually going to translate to learning a lot about some of the others as well.” All of the others will face the same challenges, including obtaining millions of dollars in funding, persuading regulators to approve human tests, demonstrating a vaccine’s safety and — after all of that — proving its effectiveness in protecting people from the coronavirus. Paradoxically, the growing success of efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, may present yet another hurdle. “We’re the only people in the country who want the number of new infections to stay up for another few weeks, so we can test our vaccine,” Prof. Adrian Hill, the Jenner Institute’s director and one of five researchers involved in the effort, said in an interview in a laboratory building emptied by Britain’s monthlong lockdown. Ethics rules, as a general principle, forbid seeking to infect human test participants with a serious disease. That means the only way to prove that a vaccine works is to inoculate people in a place where the virus is spreading naturally around them. If social distancing measures or other factors continue to slow the rate of new infections in Britain, he said, the trial might not be able to show that the vaccine makes a difference: Participants who received a placebo might not be infected any more frequently than those who have been given the vaccine. The scientists would have to try again elsewhere, a dilemma that every other vaccine effort will face as well. The Jenner Institute’s coronavirus efforts grew out of Professor Hill’s so-far unsuccessful pursuit of a vaccine against a different scourge, malaria. He developed a fascination with malaria and other tropical diseases as a medical student in Dublin in the early 1980s, when he visited an uncle who was a priest working in a hospital during the civil war in what is now Zimbabwe. “I came back wondering, ‘What do you see in these hospitals in England and Ireland?’” Professor Hill said. “They don’t have any of these diseases.” The major drug companies typically see little profit in epidemics that afflict mainly developing countries or run their course before a vaccine can hit the market. So after training in tropical medicine and a doctorate in molecular genetics, Professor Hill, 61, helped build Oxford’s institute into one of the largest academic centers dedicated to nonprofit vaccine research, with its own pilot manufacturing facility capable of producing a batch of up to 1,000 doses. The institute’s effort against the coronavirus uses a technology that centers on altering the genetic code of a familiar virus. A classic vaccine uses a weakened version of a virus to trigger an immune response. But in the technology that the institute is using, a different virus is modified first to neutralize its effects and then to make it mimic the one scientists seek to stop — in this case, the virus that causes Covid-19. Injected into the body, the harmless impostor can induce the immune system to fight and kill the targeted virus, providing protection. Professor Hill has worked with that technology for decades to try to tweak a respiratory virus found in chimpanzees in order to elicit a human immune response against malaria and other diseases. Over the last 20 years, the institute has conducted more than 70 clinical trials of potential vaccines against the parasite that causes malaria. None have yet yielded a successful inoculation. In 2014, however, a vaccine based on the chimp virus that Professor Hill had tested was manufactured in a large enough scale to provide a million doses. That created a template for mass production of the coronavirus vaccine, should it prove effective. A longtime colleague, Prof. Sarah Gilbert, 58, modified the same chimpanzee virus to make a vaccine against an earlier coronavirus, MERS. After a clinical trial in Britain demonstrated its safety, another test began in December in Saudi Arabia, where outbreaks of the deadly disease are still common. When she heard in January that Chinese scientists had identified the genetic code of a mysterious virus in Wuhan, she thought she might have a chance to prove the speed and versatility of their approach. “We thought, ‘Well, should we have a go?’” she recalled. “‘It’ll be a little lab project and we’ll publish a paper.’” It did not stay a “little lab project” for long. As the pandemic exploded, grant money poured in. All other vaccines were soon put into the freezer so that the institute’s laboratory could focus full-time on Covid-19. Then the lockdown forced everyone not working on Covid-19 to stay home altogether. “The whole world doesn’t usually stand up and say, ‘How can we help? Do you want some money?’” Professor Hill said. “Vaccines are good for pandemics,” he added, “and pandemics are good for vaccines.” Other scientists involved in the project are working with a half dozen drug manufacturing companies across Europe and Asia to prepare to churn out billions of doses as quickly as possible if the vaccine is approved. None have been granted exclusive marketing rights, and one is the giant Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest supplier of vaccines. Donors are currently spending tens of millions of dollars to start the manufacturing process at facilities in Britain and the Netherlands even before the vaccine is proven to work, said Sandy Douglas, 37, a doctor at Oxford overseeing vaccine production. “There is no alternative,” he said. But the team has not yet reached an agreement with a North American manufacturer, in part because the major pharmaceutical companies there typically demand exclusive worldwide rights before investing in a potential medicine. “I personally don’t believe that in a time of pandemic there should be exclusive licenses,” Professor Hill said. “So we are asking a lot of them. Nobody is going to make a lot of money off this.” The Jenner Institute’s vaccine effort is not the only one showing promise. Two American companies, Moderna and Inovio, have started small clinical trials with technologies involving modified or otherwise manipulated genetic material. They are seeking both to demonstrate their safety and to learn more about dosing and other variables. Neither technology has ever produced a licensed drug or been manufactured at scale. Armed with safety data from their human trials of similar vaccines for Ebola, MERS and malaria, though, the scientists at Oxford’s institute persuaded British regulators to allow unusually accelerated trials while the epidemic is still hot around them. The institute last week began a Phase I clinical trial involving 1,100 people. Crucially, next month it will begin a combined Phase II and Phase III trial involving another 5,000. Unlike any other vaccine project now underway, that trial is designed to prove effectiveness as well as safety. The scientists would declare victory if as many as a dozen participants who are given a placebo become sick with Covid-19 compared with only one or two who receive the inoculation. “Then we have a party and tell the world,” Professor Hill said. Everyone who had received only the placebo would also be vaccinated immediately. If too few participants are infected in Britain, the institute is planning other trials where the coronavirus may still be spreading, possibly in Africa or India. “We’ll have to chase the epidemic,” Professor Hill said. “If it is still raging in certain states, it is not inconceivable we end up testing in the United States in November.”

I feel Jay's "restoration blog" videos are some of his best.

June contract US oil (WTI*) plunged 30 percent to just $11.88 this morning. * West Texas Intermediate

GM Suspends Dividend and Buybacks in Pivot to Cash-Piling Mode David Welch, Bloomberg / April 27, 2020 GM suspended its dividend and the share-buyback program that activist investors fought for in the last half decade as the largest U.S. automaker seeks to preserve cash in the midst of the pandemic shutting down much of the global car industry. GM also said it’s extending its credit line by $3.6 billion to boost liquidity. Monday’s moves follow other cash-preservation measures announced last month, with the company deferring 20% of salaried workers’ pay and cutting top executives’ compensation. Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra first announced a major buyback in 2015 after fending off an activist campaign by a former Treasury Department official who was representing several hedge funds. She expanded the program to as much as $14 billion two years later in the midst of another battle with billionaire hedge fund manager David Einhorn. Barra, 58, has had to shift focus from pleasing investors to preserving cash after closing down most of GM’s plants last month. Ford Motor Co. has already suspended its dividend. GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV have all been working toward restarting production in early May, but it’s unclear whether state and local governments will lift their stay-home orders to allow them to do so. The United Auto Workers union also has said it opposes the companies reopening so soon.

When you called Baltimore Mack (aka. Baltimore Potomac Truck Centers), what did they say?

Bob, you're not going anywhere soon. You're just getting broken in.

McConnell says he favors state bankruptcy over more federal aid Reuters / April 22, 2020 WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday opened the door to allowing U.S. states to file for bankruptcy to deal with economic losses stemming from the coronavirus outbreak. McConnell said Republicans would not support giving state and local governments more money in future coronavirus aid legislation, saying those funds could end up being used to bail out state pensions. McConnell said he instead “would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route.” Currently, states cannot file for bankruptcy, while cities and other local governments can use Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy to restructure their debt if allowed by their states. In a letter to Congressional leaders, the National Governors Association on Tuesday reiterated its call for an additional $500 billion to replace revenue lost by the states. The $2.3 trillion federal CARES Act allocated $150 billion to states and local governments exclusively to cover virus-related expenses. Social distancing and stay-at-home orders in place are leading to skyrocketing unemployment and lower consumer spending. As a result, cities and states are starting to project deep revenue losses, particularly for big money generators like income and sales taxes.

(Oversight anyone?...........anyone?) BBC / April 22, 2020 Harvard University is refusing President Trump’s demand that the school return nearly $8.6 million in coronavirus relief aid. The president said he was unhappy that the ultra-wealthy Ivy League college had received stimulus money. But the university said the funds would help students facing "urgent financial needs" because of the pandemic. Harvard is rated the world's wealthiest university with an endowment fund valued at $40 billion. At Tuesday's coronavirus briefing, Mr Trump told a journalist: "I want Harvard to pay that money back, OK? If they won't do that, we won't do something else. "They have to pay it back, I don't like it. This is meant for workers, this isn't meant for one of the richest institutions, not only, far beyond schools in the world. They got to pay it back." Harvard acknowledged receiving its $8.6 million through the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The college says: "Harvard has committed that 100% of these emergency higher education funds will be used to provide direct assistance to students facing urgent financial needs due to the Covid-19 pandemic." The university said it had already provided financial assistance to students with travel, living expenses and online education amid the pandemic. Harvard was not the only elite university to receive a windfall under the stimulus. Princeton, which has a $26 billion endowment, is getting $2.4 million. Yale, with a $30 billion endowment $30 billion, is receiving $6.9 million. The US Senate on Tuesday approved another $330 billion of emergency relief funds to help small businesses stay afloat during the pandemic after the original aid package of $350 billion ran out of money last week. The PPP was designed to help so-called mom-and-pop stores keep staff on the payroll during the coronavirus emergency that has left 22 million American workers claiming unemployment benefits. But instead of going towards such small businesses, nearly $250 billion of the initial stimulus went to publicly traded companies with market values topping $100 million, according to investment bank Morgan Stanley.

Bob, if you ever sell it..........please put me at the top of your short list !

Autocar is proud to serve the US Military! Supporting the U.S. military in WW2, Autocar manufactured 2,711 model U8144T trucks to be used toward their efforts. A partnership that has stood the test of time. Past, present, and future! Always Up for America's Armed Forces - Autocar Trucks (The aircraft behind the U8144T is a DC2-derived Douglas B-18 "Bolo"...........https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_B-18_Bolo) .

Cummins, Tula to test cylinder deactivation on diesels Richard Truett, Automotive News / April 22, 2020 A cylinder-deactivation system now used in many General Motors gasoline-powered light trucks could be applied to commercial diesel trucks. Tula Technology Inc. and diesel engine manufacturer Cummins plan to begin testing a six-cylinder semitruck diesel engine outfitted with a version of the technology, called Dynamic Skip Fire. The system is being tested first on Cummins 6.7-liter inline turbo six X15 semi-truck engine. If testing yields positive results and it moves into production, the technology likely will appear on semitrucks. There is also a path for commercializing the technology for diesel engines that are used in consumer pickup trucks. The development is notable because it points in a different direction from most of the auto industry at the moment. Powertrain programs around the world are currently focused on electrification strategies. The idea of applying Dynamic Skip Fire to commercial trucks suggests that automakers and truckmakers see future potential in working with internal combustion engines — diesel engines at that — to stake out fuel efficiency gains in the future. "When you look at commercial applications, electrification isn't practical for most long-haul trucks," said Tula CEO Scott Bailey. "From an environmental standpoint, you have to do everything possible to clean up the current engine. "Every major country and region around the globe has NOx and C02 reduction on the books or legislation pending. This is the segment that needs attention first," Bailey said. Engine changes to allow the cylinder deactivation would center around modifying the valvetrain to allow the valves to stay closed when a cylinder is shut down. "It's applicable to any diesel engine, and we intend to apply to it any size engine in any application," Bailey told Automotive News. Tula, a Silicon Valley software controls company, is backed by Delphi Technologies, General Motors and several venture capital firms. Bailey estimates that, if development of Dynamic Skip Fire continues with no snags, the system could be ready for production as early as 2024. He believes the rollout will be driven by tightening by global emissions standards. In the GM vehicles where it is now used, cylinder deactivation is intended to improve fuel economy. For diesel engines, the fuel gains are expected to be more modest — around 1.5 percent to 3 percent. Early testing has shown that a semi-truck such as a Freightliner could save around $1,800 a year in fuel costs. But the reduction in tailpipe emissions is significant. Bailey said that precise management of exhaust gas temperatures allows an engine's aftertreatment systems to operate more efficiently more of the time. "At low loads, we can increase the exhaust temperature by anywhere from 58 to 90 degrees Celsius, which keeps the aftertreatment systems exactly where it wants to be from a peak emissions standpoint. "What we end up is huge reductions on C02 and NOx reductions," he said. In computer testing that simulates EPA drive cycles, a Cummins X15 engine running with Dynamic Skip Fire showed reductions in NOx emissions ranging from 45 percent to 66 percent and C02 reductions of 1.5 percent to 3.7 percent, the company said.

Tom Quimby, Commercial Carrier Journal (CCJ) / April 22, 2020 The prospect of cylinder deactivation in diesel engines got a lot more interesting today as Cummins and propulsion software company Tula announced a successful demonstration of diesel Dynamic Skip Fire (dDSF) in a Cummins Efficiency Series X15 engine. Silicon Valley-based Tula has seen its Dynamic Skip Fire software controls go to work in gasoline engines including the 2019 Chevy Silverado and 2019 GMC Sierra which GM reported can improve fuel efficiency by as much as 15 percent. But diesel has been a more challenging space for cylinder deactivation technology where fleets are interested in more than just fuel savings. That’s where Dynamic Skip Fire can really shine through its ability to increase fuel savings and lower emissions in larger diesel engines which are up against a growing tide of regulations, particularly in California. “The primary objective has been to evaluate what we will be able to bring to future emissions legislation,” said Lisa Farrell, Cummins’ director of advanced system integration. “The key advantage that this technology brings is to improve after-treatment temperature at low loads which is one of the areas that diesel engines—because they are so efficient—they have very low exhaust temperatures and so they’re very challenged to maintain NOx conversion efficiency at low load and under low load operation. “And so that’s where this technology really shines because it improves the temperature, improves the aftertreatment NOx conversion and also simultaneously gives you a fuel economy benefit,” Farrell continued. Cummins and Tula began working on diesel cylinder deactivation in early 2019. Tula’s proprietary software control algorithms play the role of all-important conductor by managing carefully measured and timed doses of fuel and air mixtures along with controlling precise intake and exhaust valve closings that can shut down unneeded cylinders to save fuel and increase exhaust temperatures in low-load conditions which in turn burns off more NOx. The technology also achieves CO2 reductions through improvements in combustion and reductions in pumping work. “Demonstrating the capability to improve fuel efficiency while also achieving very effective emissions control is extremely important for all diesel engine applications in the future,” said R. Scott Bailey, president and CEO of Tula Technology. “Our partnership with Cummins has given us the opportunity to expand our DSF technology beyond its success in gasoline engines.” But software would be nothing if not for the hardware that it relentlessly seeks to optimize. “We have actually been working with both Eaton and Jacobs Vehicle Systems as suppliers of the hardware that would allow you to deactivate the cylinders on an event by event basis which is one of the requirements to fully optimize with the Tula algorithm,” Farrell explained. So far, testing on Cummins dDSF X15 has been relegated mostly to the lab but plans are in the works to put it to work on the road. “We have a vehicle that has the technology. As soon as we can get into the vehicle to actually test it we’ll be putting miles on it,” Farrell said. As testing continues, performance figures relative to fuel efficiency and emissions will be released. In the meantime, Farrell is feeling confident about Skip Fire technology. “I think it’s a very promising technology and obviously Cummins and Tula are investing a lot in this development program and we wouldn’t be doing that unless we saw a future for it,” she said. That future might also include predictive mapping. “We have done some studies and some DOE projects that focused on autonomous drive, predictive routes and the influence and impact it can have on Dynamic Skip Fire techniques,” said John Fuerst, Tula’s senior vice president of engineering. “It was a gasoline-focused study but your hunch is right on. There really are significant benefits if you can think about it just in engine parameters in advance and not just reacting instantaneously but having a broader strategy to take advantage of the various parameters that you can adjust. So I think it’s an area for future study in the diesel arena much as we’ve done so far on the gasoline side. But it’s work to be done in the future.”

"There's a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through. And when I've said this to others, they kind of put their head back, they don't understand what I mean. We're going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time." CDC Director Robert Redfield

Reuters / April 21, 2020 Lawmakers and former officials are making a last ditch push to persuade the Trump administration to halt plans to invest billions of federal employee retirement dollars in Chinese companies. At issue is whether administrators of the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), a retirement savings fund similar to a 401(k) for federal employees and members of the military, should allow its $50 billion international fund to track an index that includes China-based stocks of companies under scrutiny in Washington. Among the Chinese companies in the index that have drawn the ire of some in Washington who see China as America’s biggest economic and geopolitical threat is surveillance firm Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology which was placed on a trade blacklist last year. The fund would also invest in telecoms equipment company ZTE , which was penalized by the U.S. government for violating U.S. sanctions. “Are we very soon going to witness ... federal employees ... being, in effect, unwittingly compelled to fund with their retirement dollars a number of Beijing’s most egregious corporate national security and human rights abusers?” asked Roger Robinson, a former White House official in the Ronald Reagan administration. The White House and the Department of Labor refused requests for comment. A memo dated March 7 argued that if Trump did not act, by replacing FRTIB board members or through an executive order, his critics would claim Trump took no action to avoid “federal employees being compelled to invest in Chinese and Russian companies that have undisclosed material risks due to their roles in threatening our national security.” Meadows, who had sponsored companion legislation to Rubio’s bill in the House of Representatives, did not respond to a request for comment through the White House. Top lawmakers have raised the issue directly with the administration, according to people familiar with the matter. Rubio discussed the issue with Trump in the last few months, a congressional aide said. In a letter dated April 6, Republican congressmen Jim Banks called on Department of Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia to explain how the agency plans to inform investors of the risks of owning shares in companies that don’t comply with U.S. financial disclosure requirements and the implications of investing in firms that are under U.S. sanctions.