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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Harlem section of Manhattan in New York City, April 23, 2021.

Mike Segar | Pool | Reuters

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday he is asking private businesses such as bars and restaurants to require proof of vaccination against Covid-19 as a condition for admission.

The number of daily Covid cases in New York has increased “four-fold” to more than 2,000 cases over the past month as the highly contagious delta variant spreads, Cuomo said during a news conference. Data shows fully vaccinated individuals are less likely to catch, get infected with the virus or suffer from severe disease, he said.

“I am asking them, and suggesting to them, go to vaccine-only admission,” he told reporters, referring to private businesses. “I believe it is in your best interest.”

Infectious disease experts and public health officials fear Covid cases — fueled by the delta variant — could continue to surge into the fall season, when Americans head back indoors and employers begin to bring workers back to the office.

In an attempt to slow the spread of the virus, some businesses are asking customers and their employees to show proof of vaccination. On Friday, Disney said it is requiring all salaried and non-union hourly employees in the U.S. to be fully vaccinated against Covid by the end of September.

Radio City Music Hall “did this months ago,” Cuomo said Monday. “Reopened. Vaccine only. Sold out all of the shows.”

Cuomo’s comments came the same day he announced a vaccine mandate for employees of the state’s MTA and Port Authority, giving transportation workers the option to get vaccinated by Labor Day or face weekly coronavirus testing. The mandate is similar to an order Cuomo issued for state hospital employees last week in response to the surging delta variant.

Trevor Milton, founder and former CEO of Nikola Corp., leaves the Manhattan Federal Courthouse after performing in New York City, the United States, on July 29, 2021.

Eduardo Munoz | Reuters

Federal officials used the indictment against Nikola founder Trevor Milton to send a warning to Wall Street about two of its hottest areas of growth: special purpose vehicles and retail investors.

When announcing the charges, officials warned private investors not to allow “a friend or a quick-talking salesman” to persuade them to invest in a company. They also made it clear that SPACs are in their crosshairs. Milton became a billionaire overnight when he took his company public through a SPAC deal in June 2020. He pleaded not guilty Thursday in a Manhattan courtroom for allegedly defrauding investors by lying about “almost one aspect of the business.”

“This case concerns the obligation of corporate executives like Milton to provide complete, truthful, and accurate information at all times when discussing their company’s affairs,” Gurbir Grewal, director of the Securities and Exchange Commission, told reporters. “This obligation has no end or an exception. It applies to all listed companies, including those that have only recently entered the public market, including through SPAC transactions.”

Nikola is one of at least three electric vehicle start-ups that the federal prosecutor is investigating for potentially misleading investors. The others are Lordstown Motors and Canoo.

Officials involved in the investigation allege Milton abused the SPAC process by using social media and other media to constantly spread lies and misleading information about the company directly to retail investors.

They said Milton was obsessed with retail investors and their role in keeping Nikola’s stock price high. This included tracking the number of users of Robinhood, a popular social stock app, who held Nikola stocks.

“In executing his fraudulent plan, Milton took advantage of features of the SPAC structure that differ from a traditional initial public offering or initial public offering,” said US Attorney Audrey Strauss.

Defense attorney Brad Bondi said in an email Thursday that Milton was “wrongly charged following a flawed and incompetent investigation” and that justice will not be served until exonerated.

SEC and SPACs

The warnings to SPACs follow an intensified SEC scrutiny of such companies, which has proven to be an increasingly popular way for companies to go public over the past year.

Strauss said SPACs differ from traditional IPOs in that they do not have a dormant period before public trading begins. This allowed Milton to speak freely about the company on social media throughout the process of going public through a reverse merger with VectoIQ in June 2020, she said.

“During this time, Milton has brazenly and repeatedly made false and misleading claims about the status of Nikola’s technology,” Strauss said. “Milton told lies to drive demand for Nikola’s stock.”

SPACs are publicly traded companies that have no real assets other than cash. They are created as an investment vehicle with the sole purpose of raising funds and then finding and merging with a privately held company.

Grewal, who joined the SEC last month after serving as New Jersey attorney general, said the case shows corporate executives “can’t say what they want on social media regardless of federal securities laws “.

According to an internal investigation, Nikola said in February that Milton made several inaccurate statements from the company’s initial public offering in 2016 that misled investors.

Warning to retail investors

Federal agencies have warned investors about overvalued stocks.

“Use your gut instincts and double-check the details before making any type of investment,” said Philip Bartlett, chief inspector for the New York Division of the United States Postal Inspection Service. “If it doesn’t feel right, it’s likely a scam.”

Comments followed those of SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, who said in May the agency is investing significant resources in addressing emerging issues with SPACs, new ideas and recommendations related to SPACs, and how to adequately protect retail investors.

The explosive popularity of SPACs over the past year also attracted a number of celebrities who were new to Wall Street to hop on the bandwagon. The SEC previously cautioned against such deals being endorsed by public figures and urged investors to think twice before jumping in.

– CNBC’s Yun Li contributed to this story.

People love to drink Guinness outside a pub in Dublin city center. On Monday 5th July 2021 in Dublin, Ireland.

NurPhoto | NurPhoto | Getty Images

DUBLIN – Despite the spread of the highly contagious Delta Coronavirus variant, Ireland is relying on “vaccine passports” to fully reopen its bars and restaurants.

Ireland’s tourism and hospitality industry has grappled with stop-and-start reopening during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Office work resumed on July 26th in a kind of photo finish, with the government and hospitality industry setting the guidelines for the reopening that morning. This included final adjustments to the restaurant’s contact tracking requirements.

The main differentiator this time around is that restaurants and bars are only allowed to open their doors to fully vaccinated people or people who have recovered from Covid-19 in the last six months. Outdoor seating remains available to all visitors.

The big test for businesses will be doing these customer vaccination checks.

The main means of proof of vaccination will be the EU’s digital Covid certificate, the same document on which Europe is pinning its hopes for revitalizing tourism on the continent.

Restaurants and bars are expected to scan the QR code on the certificate and check a customer’s ID to make sure they are fully vaccinated.

Noel Anderson is the managing director of Dublin restaurants Lemon & Duke and The Bridge 1859 and chairman of the trading association of the Licensed Vintners Association.

He told CNBC that in the first few days of reopening, customers are still opting for outdoor seating, but his staff have been trained on the new protocols, especially as the summer weather wears off.

“I firmly believe that this will be over in two or three weeks and that this will just be the norm. Hopefully it won’t be the norm for too long, ”he said.

He and many other hospitality businesses declined to request vaccination controls on the door.

“Ultimately, this was a government initiative. This was not being pushed by the pubs, but by the LVA, of which I am chairman, we didn’t want that,” he said.

“Either you want to stay closed until September and beyond, or that’s how you open it. When you have members who are closed [for over a year], you have no choice but to take it. “

data protection

The requirement of a vaccination certificate for entering a company premises has generated some criticism, as it is claimed that it is discriminatory for unvaccinated people, while so-called vaccination cards or passports can also be difficult initiatives for data protection and security reasons.

A spokesman for the Irish Data Protection Commission said hospitality companies need to be careful about the amount of data they collect and process and delete unneeded information.

“Owners / operators should not keep records that identify named people and details of their vaccinations or copies of certificates or identification documents as this is not required to meet their compliance obligations,” the DPC said.

The processing of personal data must be “justified on the basis of necessity and proportionality,” it said.

“The DPC has also made it clear that Covid-related laws must be time-bound and limited by sunset clauses to the duration of the pandemic in order to prevent excessive and disproportionate processing of personal data.”

Ireland won’t be an outlier in Europe for long when it comes to vaccine passports in the hospitality industry, as France and Italy are introducing similar requirements for entering bars, restaurants and cafes.

Careful approach

Not every bar and every restaurant wants to reopen its office staff. Pantibar, a popular Dublin gay bar, has chosen to keep its office doors closed as most of its young employees are not yet fully vaccinated.

Another restaurateur, Barry McNerney, told CNBC that his Juniors and Paulie’s Pizza restaurants are not yet struggling to reopen indoors.

“I don’t know if the demand for indoor dining is very high. A lot of places have a young clientele, many of them wouldn’t be vaccinated so they couldn’t really eat inside.”

McNerney decided to wait and see how other companies deal with the new protocols and vaccine controls before diving in.

“We see how other operators are coping and then learn from them what the logistical challenges are.”

Despite the gradual reopening of the economy, many companies in Ireland are still threatened with rising numbers of Covid cases. The number of cases has risen steadily in the last few weeks, driven by the delta variant, with average daily numbers over 1,000.

The continued reopening of the hospitality industry has been criticized compared to the staggering spike in cases where Christmas restrictions were eased in late December, ultimately leading to lockdowns well into spring.

One key difference with the Christmas push is that vaccine rollout in Ireland is moving fast after a stuttering start earlier in the year. As of Friday, 3.2 million people had received at least one dose of the vaccine, 2.4 million of whom had received a double dose. The vaccination program has recently been expanded to include those under the age of 18.