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Michael Girard will receive the Covid-19 vaccine with the first batch of the Moderna vaccine on December 21, 2020 at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut. Arrival of the vaccine.

Joseph Prezioso | AFP | Getty Images

Just over 1 million people in the U.S. received their first dose of the coronavirus vaccine Wednesday morning, a far cry from the federal government’s goal of vaccinating 20 million Americans by the end of the year.

With two emergency Covid-19 vaccines approved, the biggest hurdle to ending the pandemic in the US is getting the doses to the roughly 331 million Americans across the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 1,008,025 shots had been administered by 9:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

That’s about 19 million doses, falling short of previous December projections, and officials have less than two weeks – roughly eight days – to try to fill that void. The US would have to vaccinate more than 2.1 million people a day by December 31 to reach its goal. Two vaccines – from Pfizer and Moderna – have been approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration, and the US has shipped 9,465,725 doses nationwide, according to CDC data.

The CDC’s data on vaccine distribution comes from state, territorial, and local health agencies, as well as five federal agencies. As a result, there may be additional delays in reporting data from these locations.

The vaccines are viewed by investors and policymakers as a solution to getting the US economy going again as the pandemic ravages every state, overwhelming hospitals and turning businesses upside down. The US has the worst outbreak in the world, with more than 18.2 million cases and at least 322,849 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Earlier on Wednesday, the director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, who on Tuesday together with Dr. Anthony Fauci had received his first vaccine against Covid that he is hoping for Americans if the US government does not achieve its vaccination target by the end of this month. “I will understand that this is a logistical challenge of enormous proportions.”

“In all honesty, I think it’s pretty amazing that it’s been going as fast as it ever was. It’s only been 10 days since the FDA first approved the emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine, and then a week later for Moderna,” Collins told CNN. “I think the sales effort went through [Operation] Warp speed and then working across the states is pretty amazing. “

Global health experts had said distributing the vaccines to around 331 million Americans within a few months could prove to be much more complicated and chaotic than originally thought. Not only do states and territories make enough doses, they also need enough needles, syringes, and bottles to vaccinate people. People also need training in the storage and administration of the vaccines. (Pfizer’s vaccine requires a storage temperature of minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit.)

Public health officials insist the vaccine rollout went smoothly overall, save for a few unfortunate glitches. The U.S. had its first hiccups last week when about 3,000 doses of Pfizer’s vaccine that traveled to California and Alabama had to be quarantined and returned to the company after the vials somehow got too cold. It’s unclear why the temperature dropped, but Pfizer said in a statement that it was able to intercept the shipments and “seamlessly trigger subsequent delivery to these customers.”

States have also reported confusion over vaccination schedules. In the past few days, state officials said they learned that their second shipment of Pfizer’s vaccine would be smaller than expected or delayed. Army General Gustave Perna, who oversees the logistics for President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed ​​vaccination program, apologized for the confusion last week and said it was a “planning mistake”.

Soumi Saha, pharmacist and vice president of advocacy for Premier, a consultancy that works with thousands of hospitals and nursing homes, told CNBC last month that vaccine distribution was “whole new territory” for healthcare systems. “This is a brand new logistical challenge to distribute and get this vaccine to the right place while maintaining the integrity of the product,” she said.

Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist and professor at the University of Toronto, said the rapid expansion of vaccinations to pharmacies, hospitals and primary care networks was “extremely impressive.”

“It looks like one of the bigger hurdles to vaccination efforts in the US will be hesitation, while elsewhere in the world the hurdles will be access to vaccines,” he told CNBC on Wednesday.

MIAMI – Move over, Texas. The Lone Star state has made headlines as tech companies like Oracle, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and billionaire Elon Musk plan to move larger operations out of California for their greener pastures and lower taxes.

But now Miami is becoming a magnet for businesses trying to escape high taxes and overcrowding.

The Sunshine State’s most famous city has been trying for years to convince businesses that it’s not just a playground for partying vacationers, but fertile ground for finance and technology firms to foster a start-up atmosphere.

Then the coronavirus pandemic hit.

“I’ve been buying real estate in Miami for over 20 years and it’s been a great flight. It’s been a rocket ship since Covid took off,” said developer Alex Rodriguez – as in “A-Rod,” the former Major League Baseball superstar who has invested in commercial and residential real estate.

Rodriguez recently partnered with Barry Sternlicht of Starwood Capital to develop restaurant and retail space in Starwood’s new Miami Beach headquarters, the first Class A office space in the community.

Sternlicht relocated Starwood from Greenwich, Connecticut in 2018. Taxes had a lot to do with it, but he also blames political leaders, particularly New York City under Mayor Bill de Blasio.

A settlement for high tax countries

“People don’t feel safe,” Sternlicht said of New York. “The wealthy leave in busloads and Miami is getting more than their fair share.” He compares Miami to Singapore – a “working, diverse culture” that is business-friendly. “In all honesty, some of these states, like Illinois and New York and Connecticut – my home state – are going to have to have a payroll day when they have to find out they just can’t raise taxes any further. I just don’t go to work. People can live in other places. ”

For example, California lawmakers are considering raising the state’s highest income tax rate above the current 13.3% and raising corporate taxes. A bill that would have tried to tax wealthy Californians for up to 10 years after they left the state died in the last session after severe setbacks.

“It’s not just about taxes, it’s also about quality of life,” Nitin Motwani said of Miami’s appeal. He’s a developer who left Wall Street and Goldman Sachs over a decade ago to return to Florida. “I loved New York. I just loved South Florida and I felt that South Florida really had great potential given what I’d seen in New York.”

For the past seven years, Motwani has worked with business development officials to persuade companies to follow him south. His hardest sell was his wife, Anshu, who also worked at Goldman before receiving her MBA from Harvard.

“You’d better do it worth it,” she told him in 2008. A dozen years later, Anshu Motwani said she would never retire. “People often think that Miami doesn’t have certain things that New York has. I don’t think that’s the case anymore.”

Millions have been spent on arts and cultural institutions. There are reportedly 40 artist studios in the city center.

Company on the move

The migration to Miami gained momentum as firms like Universa Investments from Los Angeles and Nucleus Research from Boston moved. Then came Starwood, and now Blackstone is opening its technical headquarters there. Growing numbers of Silicon Valley investors are mocking California on Twitter as they head east to Miami – names like Jon Oringer, who founded Shutterstock, Keith Rabois of the Founders Fund, and Shervin Pishevar, who started Hyperloop One.

“They don’t know which side their bread is buttered on,” said Scott Absher, referring to California’s political leadership. Absher is the CEO of ShiftPixy, a part-time tech start-up that has just moved its headquarters from Irvine, California to Miami’s Brickell Key. The lease for his new waterfront office is about 25 percent less than what he paid in California. The money the company needs to achieve profitability.

According to the Miami Downtown Development Authority, the average cost per square foot of office space is $ 45.45, compared to $ 64.12 in San Francisco.

“I came to California in the mid-1990s and one of the things I saw was just this bubbling of activity, excitement, and optimism. I don’t see it that much anymore,” Absher said. He admits that he feels a little “melancholy” after giving up his California driver’s license, but believes he found the innovative energy and welcoming business atmosphere in Miami that he felt in the Golden State. “I think you have to look outside. You have to look ahead.”

An analysis by LinkedIn of where technicians are moving this year shows that Miami’s tech workforce grew 3% in 2020 (Madison, Wisconsin, grew the most at 75 percent, but the total workforce is much smaller).

Home sales and prices in the Miami area are up double digits year over year, and executives considering moving here are now asking about the quality of schools, not just the tax breaks.

Talent is finally showing

“One of the really interesting things that happens here is the arrival of talent and that has always been the big hit for Miami,” said Rodriguez. “It has always been a challenge to hire people here. But now you have talent from all industries.”

It helps Nitin Motwani feel validated. He grew up in Fort Lauderdale and watched his parents struggle in the hotel business. He vowed to leave Florida and never return. Now he’s a managing partner in a $ 4 billion mixed-use development in downtown Miami called the Miami Worldcenter, which doesn’t seem intuitive for a future where office space may not be quite as necessary. Except … maybe … in Miami.

“During the pandemic, we had transactions valued at over $ 100 million at the Miami Worldcenter,” Motwani said. “There is a phrase ‘death by a thousand cuts’ and that was ‘success through a thousand cuts’. This was the longest overnight success story you can imagine.”

Nanoracks Bishop airlock installed on the International Space Station.

NASA

Voyager Space Holdings’ fourth acquisition in just over a year since its inception is a controlling stake in the parent company of Nanoracks, a space services and hardware specialist that has dispatched more than 1,000 missions to the International Space Station.

“Nanoracks is a fundamental shift for us when it comes to adding some pretty significant functionality in space,” Dylan Taylor, CEO of Voyager Space Holdings, told CNBC.

Voyager intends to acquire a majority stake in XO Markets, Nanoracks’ holding company, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2021.

While Voyager Space Holdings did not disclose the financial details of the deal – Taylor merely remarked that “we are putting quite a lot of money into the business” to make it grow – those familiar with the deal told CNBC that Voyager plans to will invest more than $ 50 million worth of nanoracks in the coming year.

The majority stake in XO Markets is Voyager’s fourth deal since it was founded in October 2019. The company previously had rocket and spacecraft services specialists The Launch Company, satellite services company Altius Space Machines and Pioneer Astronautics, the research and development company of Dr. Robert, taken over by Zubrin, best known for his talks with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk about building a permanent human presence on Mars.

“We’re an operating company, not a fund. This is how we put skills together,” said Taylor. “Once we have all of these skills put together, we can have an overwhelming impact on the industry by being able to carry out really complex and meaningful missions in space.”

Jeff Manber, CEO of Nanoracks, said he began looking for new capital last summer, including a special purpose vehicle (SPAC) review of the IPO. But Manber told CNBC that he didn’t want to “spend my next two years” talking to Wall Street investors and “figuring out how to take it” instead of focusing on running and growing his business.

“With Voyager, we have a platform that enables us to grow into the entire development of the infrastructure for in-space services, with a financial sophistication and synergy that we honestly wouldn’t have on our own,” said Manber. “They give us stability. They give us the platform. They give us some of the expertise that we don’t have today.”

In turn, Manber sees Nanoracks as the “core” of Voyager’s space effort, with new access to the company’s mission control room in Houston, Texas, as well as facilities across the country, and talent who have experience working with a variety of payloads gone into space .

Nanoracks: ‘The boys from the space station’

The Bishop airlock, built by Nanoracks, will be installed on the International Space Station via the Canadarm2 robot.

NASA

The deal also comes after Nanoracks reached important milestones on Saturday in installing its Bishop Airlock on the International Space Station. Nanoracks fully funded the development and manufacture of the airlock and launched it on a SpaceX cargo mission to the ISS on December 6th.

Bishop is the first private airlock to add five times the payload capacity of the current government-operated JEM airlock. NASA noted that the addition of Bishop “significantly increases the capacity for public and private research,” which “also allows the use of larger satellites and the transfer of space-grade tools and hardware inside and outside the station.”

“Nanoracks are the largest commercial user of the International Space Station,” said Manber. “We’re the people of space stations – we understand space stations better than probably any commercial emerging company in the world.”

Nanoracks employs around 70 people worldwide and is headquartered in Houston. The company also has offices in Washington, DC, as well as Turin, Italy and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Manber sees the growth of nanoracks in a strategy of three pillars, the first of which is the current use of the ISS.

“The Bishop airlock is our biggest growth catalyst for the future,” said Manber.

But “the space station is aging,” said Manber, and he would like nanoracks to be involved in “private space stations with market orientation” in the future. He expects “small private space stations”, each focused on individual markets, to be introduced in the next decade with “some hotels and some for professional astronauts”. The “second pillar” of Nanoracks is the outpost program, which aims to turn the large discarded fuel tanks of rockets around the earth into small space stations.

The first demonstration of Nanoracks’ outpost technology, named Mars Demo-1, is set to launch on a SpaceX ridesharing flight in June 2021. The mission will use a robotic arm to cut metal material in space to demonstrate that Nanoracks can safely cut missile tanks to turn them into revolving hubs. Manber hopes that Nanoracks will start a follow-up mission in 2023 and then “stay longer and longer in space each year and rebuild these otherwise empty platforms”.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launches on November 15, 2018 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with the Es’hail-2 communications satellite for the country of Qatar.

NurPhoto | NurPhoto | Getty Images

“The third pillar is to become a space exploration customer,” said Manber. “In-space research is a market that has been completely dominated by the government and is funded by space agencies that occasionally involve a trading company such as a pharmaceutical company or a pharmaceutical company [agricultural] Tech company. “

Nanoracks’ in-space research service would help more companies “take advantage of the harsh environment of outer space to develop new products”.

Manber described his three-pillar strategy as “emulating what SpaceX does” by taking over a core business and then steadily building on it.

“This industry is getting very serious now and an important one from a commercial point of view,” Manber. The more [Nanoracks] I’ve spoken to a number of family funds and hedge funds the more I’ve looked at this and noticed how the industry is going. “

Joining Voyager is Manber’s way of aligning Nanoracks so that there isn’t a single project or program that it depends on for success.

Voyager aims to go public in late 2021

Rocket 3.2 is on the launchpad in Kodiak, Alaska.

Astra / John Kraus

Taylor explained that a disadvantage of building an operational business is that “you really can’t do more than four deals effectively or productively a year” because Voyager doesn’t create a “brand portfolio” but works to integrate them as a cohesive whole . Still, Taylor said that Voyager has about a dozen acquisitions “in our pipeline under various due diligence” and expects to announce another two or three by summer 2021.

“And then it’s still our wish … to try to go public sometime late next year,” said Taylor.

He intends to bring Voyager to the public via the traditional IPO route and says “it is valuable to go through the S-1 process”.

In the meantime, Voyager wants to add companies that build spacecraft components and specialists in software – also known as GNC or guidance, navigation and control. Taylor says Voyager will at some point “look at a launch capability,” which means a rocket builder like SpaceX or Rocket Lab, but he doesn’t expect that to happen in the next year.

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U.S. government debt prices were lower on Wednesday after President Donald Trump proposed not to sign a lengthy coronavirus bailout package.

The benchmark 10 year Treasury note yield rose to 0.921%, while the yield on the 30 year Treasury note was slightly higher at 1.655%. Bond yields move inversely with prices.

Trump on Tuesday poured cold water on the $ 900 billion Covid bill passed by Congress earlier this week. Calling the measure an inappropriate “disgrace”, he called on lawmakers to make a number of changes, including larger direct payments to individuals and families.

The current package includes an increase in unemployment benefits, more small business loans, an additional $ 600 in direct payment, and funding to streamline the critical distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. However, Trump was dissatisfied with the $ 600 direct payments and requested an increase to $ 2,000.

Investors were also upset this week by a new strain of coronavirus first identified in the UK. The variant is believed to be up to 70% more transmissible than previous strains.

Regarding economic data, durable goods, unemployment claims, personal income and expenses, new home sales, consumer sentiment and reports of the FHFA house price index are due to be released on Wednesday.