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National

Vitals

Axios Vitals

Between 8,000 and 12,000 shipping containers carrying medical supplies to various parts of the U.S. are on a delay of up to 37 days due to ongoing transportation congestion, according to new data from the Health Industry Distributors' Association.

Why it matters: Per their projections, medical supplies arriving at a U.S. port on Christmas Day won't be delivered to hospitals and other care settings until February 2022. That could delay critical supplies at a time when health care is already expected to most need them due to surges from Delta and Omicron.

Details: The supply chain problems can compound, starting with medical supplies languishing in U.S. ports for an average of 17 days, officials said.

HIDA research also shows containers with medical supplies are delayed an average of 11 days by rail, and nine days by truck.

The top five ports with congestion issues are Los Angeles/Long Beach; Savannah, Georgia; New York/New Jersey; Charleston, South Carolina and Seattle.

Editor's note: This story was originally published on Dec. 20.

New supply chain crisis: medical supplies

It could delay critical supplies at a time when health care is already expected to most need them.

Animation of a shipping container with a loading screen on it

Medical supplies

Coronavirus

The U.S. health system faces critical questions about cost, access and equity. Technological advances and new discoveries about diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s are transforming patient care and reshaping public health.

Health

Wall Street strategists see the shape of 2022 pegged to three main hooks: inflation, corporate spending and the pandemic's path. 

Why it matters: The unusual conditions of the past two years will likely lead to more mixed signals next year.

“Cutting through confusion is really key [to] navigating markets in 2022,” Wei Li, global chief investment strategist at BlackRock Investment Institute, said on a call earlier this month. 

A review of 2022 outlook commentary from JPMorgan, Bank of America, BlackRock and Morgan Stanley reveals consensus on three key themes.

1. Inflation is here to stay until supply pressures ease.

“CPI inflation ... should ease on average in 2022 as oil prices recede, supply chain difficulties diminish and government aid to low- and middle-income households dries up,” the J.P. Morgan Asset Management team writes.

Central banks will have to react to fighting higher inflation without "destroying [consumer] demand," says Jean Boivin, head of BlackRock Investment Institute. 

2. Companies' capital expenditures are set for a further comeback.

As more consumer spending shifts to services, businesses will get a breather and restock inventories, says J.P. Morgan. 

Fueled by strong profits and low-interest rates, capital spending and inventory rebuilding should contribute to growth, J.P. Morgan adds.

3. Global cases of COVID-19 will continue to dictate uneven and unequal recovery patterns.

Emerging markets remain more vulnerable to economic shocks, Bank of America’s chief investment office team writes.

The big picture: A best-case scenario is one where "monetary policy tightens less than investors fear," while strong capital expenditure and improving supply chains and global health continue to push growth, according to Morgan Stanley, which has an above-consensus outlook of 4.7% global GDP growth for next year.

A worst-case scenario: New variants could become a force that slows growth down as supply chains remain locked up — driving inflation even higher, says Bank of America.

What to watch: One known unknown — the political climate.

Attention to geopolitical developments (measured by frequency of financial media and brokerage reports) is near a four-year low, according to BlackRock.

“If something were to flare up, it could really take markets by surprise," says Li.

Wall Street predicts expensive, bumpy 2022

The unusual conditions of the past two years will likely lead to more mixed signals next year.

Illustration of globe with a large asterisk

Wall Street

Top stories & latest news on the Federal Reserve, real-time data, plus the biggest shifts happening in the U.S. and global economy.

Economy

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

America's third year of dealing with the pandemic is likely to start as bleak as ever, with a devastating Omicron surge for the first couple of months. 

Yes, but: Experts are hopeful that once the wave of cases, hospitalizations and deaths caused by the Omicron variant ebbs, life will finally be able to more closely resemble normal.

Between the lines: The silver lining of a tough January and February is that most of the country could have some degree of immunity afterward — either through vaccination, infection or both — that helps protect them against severe COVID infections in the future.

“It's conceivable that, sooner or later, that everybody will have been infected and/or vaccinated or boosted," NIAID director Anthony Fauci told Axios.  

"When you get to that point, unless you have a very bizarre variant come in that evades all protection — which would be unusual — then I think you could get to that point where you have this at a steady level.”

And a fourth shot isn't off the table, Fauci said: "It is entirely conceivable that that may be the case." 

State of play: The new year "will start with an almighty surge of Omicron. This will play out differently in various places, but it is hard to imagine anywhere will be spared," emailed Bill Hanage, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard.

"By the time the spring rolls around, a lot of people are going to have had the experience of having had COVID," he added.

It's still unclear whether Omicron causes milder disease than other variants, although initial data indicates that's the case, if only because of how many people have some level of immunity. But its rapid rate of spread could still lead to overwhelmed health systems even if it is milder.

What they're saying: "The best possible scenario is Omicron tears through the population, it causes a month or a month and a half of economic disruption and illness, and then we’re through it," said Megan Ranney, an emergency physician and academic dean for Brown's School of Public Health.

“The worst-case scenario is Omicron ends up being much more severe, overwhelms and crushes our hospital systems, and then gets followed by a worse variant," she added.

And then, of course, there's the spectrum of scenarios in between the two.

The big picture: Experts say we're never going to be 100% done with the coronavirus. The hope is that it becomes more like background noise.

“I don’t think we’re ever returning to a normal that’s pre-2019. For one thing, COVID is going to be circulating, and it’s going to be part of our ongoing lives," said Zeke Emanuel, vice provost for global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania.

“The optimistic scenario in my mind is come June, July we’re pretty close to normal.”

The bottom line: It'll soon be the two-year anniversary of March 2020's "15 Days to Slow the Spread," and between now and then we're likely to see caseloads higher than anything we've seen before. 

But there are several big differences between now and then. We have excellent vaccines, a growing arsenal of therapeutics and a much better understanding of the virus we're dealing with. But we also have a considerable amount of pandemic burnout and deep divisions over how it should be handled.

“We’re moving into the third year of something that feels frustratingly predictable and avoidable," said Saskia Popescu, an Arizona-based epidemiologist.

"Everyone is in a very exhausted frame of mind where you have a lot of false dichotomies, a lot of us versus them — which doesn’t help anybody — and we’re increasingly struggling with the basics [while] also facing nuanced challenges.”

What to expect from America's third year of COVID

After a devastating Omicron surge, life may finally be able to resemble normal.

Illustration of a spiral pattern of coronavirus cells. 

COVID-19

Space

Axios Space

Science

Axios Science

Space science next year will be rocketed forward with missions to the Moon, asteroids, Mars and the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope coming online. 

Why it matters: The data sent back to Earth from these upcoming missions will help scientists learn more than ever before about objects in the solar system and far beyond it. 

What's happening: Space agencies like NASA, the European Space Agency and Japan's space agency, JAXA, are all aiming to send probes to various targets around the solar system this year. They include: 

Mars: The European Space Agency and Russia are planning to launch their joint ExoMars lander and rover to the surface of the Red Planet in September. 

It will join NASA's Perseverance and Curiosity rovers on the Martian surface. Both are expected to continue their work next year.

Asteroids: NASA's Psyche mission is due to launch in August 2022 on a mission to explore a strange, metal-dominated asteroid that may have once been part of the core of a long-dead planet. 

NASA's DART mission is also expected to arrive at its asteroid target next year in the hopes of slamming into it and figuring out just what it would take to throw a dangerous space rock off of a collision course with Earth.

The Moon: NASA is expected to launch the first flight of its Space Launch System mega-rocket on a trip around the Moon, and the space agency plans to load it with scientific experiments.

The rocket will carry a clutch of small satellites that will investigate water in the lunar environment.

Other nations like Japan, Russia and India are also aiming to send missions to the Moon next year. Russia's mission — called Luna-25 — is designed to search for water near the south pole of the Moon.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope — the successor to the Hubble — is also expected to be up and running starting early in 2022. 

The JWST is tasked with no less than piecing together the early history of the universe using its powerful, sensitive instrumentation to see the light of some of the universe's first galaxies and cut through dust to see newborn stars.

The space telescope is also expected to parse the atmospheres of distant alien planets.

Between the lines: As all of these missions launch and arrive at their targets, astronomers and planetary scientists will also be shoring up their goals for the coming years. 

In 2021, an influential report laid out the major priorities for the next decade of astronomy and astrophysics, centering on the idea that scientists should strive to find a potential twin of Earth orbiting a star like the Sun.

2022 will be the year that researchers and agencies like NASA continue to find ways to prioritize those goals and others laid out by the scientific community this year.

What to watch: China is expected to continue collecting data from ongoing robotic missions to the Moon and Mars.

The nation is also expected to complete its space station in the next year or so, providing a new platform for possible scientific research above Earth.

Moon, Mars and asteroid missions top 2022 space goals

The new year will see more Mars rovers, plus a space probe crashing into an asteroid.

Illustration of an astronaut helmet forming the zero in 2022. 

News and analysis of the scientific advances fueling AI and quantum computing, revolutionizing biology and medicine, and tackling climate change. Science is changing the world and colliding with the global politics that shape it.

GDP stocking stuffer: The COVID-19 vaccine generated economic savings equal to 2.3% in the real gross domestic product to the U.S. this year. 

Thank a teacher: Severe burnout is raising concerns about turnover — and more broadly, the state of education.

Record low: U.S. population grew by 0.1% in the year that ended July 1, the slowest rate since the nation's founding. 

New supply chain crisis: Shipping containers carrying medical supplies are facing ongoing transportation congestion

Buckle up: Wall Street strategists see the shape of 2022 pegged to three main hooks: inflation, corporate spending and the pandemic's path.

5 stories worth your time

Illustration of a Christmas tree with the Axios "A" as the topper. 

Axios

Conflicts, policies and powers are intersecting and shaping the world. Breaking news and analysis of national security, foreign policy and global crises.

World

Pro Rata

Axios Pro Rata

New York's essential workers now can return to work just five days after receiving a positive COVID-19 test, so long as they're vaccinated and asymptomatic.

Why it matters: The revised rules cuts quarantine time in half from 10 days  and come as New York has struggled to maintain staffing levels within a variety of industries, including health care, food services, and transportation.

Between the lines: Governor Kathy Hochul said in a Friday briefing that the move was based on early indications that infections from Omicron are less severe than from the original COVID-19 strain or the Delta variant. 

State health officials reported more than 44,400 positive cases on Thursday, the most ever. The 10.2% positivity rate, on a 7-day rolling average, also was an all-time high. 

State officials said that the new rules came after the CDC released new guidance reducing the quarantine time for health care workers from 10 to seven days. 

New York cuts essential worker quarantine times in half

Essential workers now can return to work just 5 days after a positive test if they are vaccinated.