Market comment 2021

[admin]

From the BBC:

Does Omicron cause milder disease?
Data on hospital admissions for Covid in South Africa show them rising quite sharply in all provinces. But they are not going up as fast as you would expect given the number of cases. Fewer patients currently need oxygen and ventilators, and they are in hospital for shorter periods. Discovery Health, a major health provider there, calculated adults infected early in the Omicron outbreak were roughly 30% less likely to be admitted to hospital than those infected in South Africa's first wave. Senior South African scientists say this doesn't show the variant itself is milder, though.



The big difference from previous waves is the rate of vaccination and natural immunity in the population. Although either two doses of vaccine or a previous infection appear much less effective at stopping people catching the Omicron variant, they still seem to provide protection against severe illness.

[admin]

And there is an offset that Thomas Peacock, the scientist first to post on B.1.1.529 before it was called even that, noticed immediately: that it probably evades monoclonal antibodies. Our GM was quite certain that would be the case, and our IM Doc now has pretty some pretty sick patients who are not responding at all to Regeneron, which has an EUA for use as a Covid treatment and is generally seen as effective. German researchers confirmed yesterday that Regeneron’s and Eli Lilly’s Covid treatments are not effective against Omicron. GlaxoSmithKline’s cocktail Xevudy still appears to work in vitro, but that may not translate as well in vivo. The loss of some, perhaps all, monoclonal antibodies as Omicron remedies means that some patients that could otherwise have been treated outside a hospital will wind up being admitted. This is an offset to any average reduction in severity. So it should not come as any surprise that, so far, deaths in Gauteng are tracking previous Covid waves   

 Omicron: Fog of Information and Definitions | naked capitalism

[admin]

An ancient Greek drug derived from the saffron plant could improve the treatment of people with severe COVID-19 and reduce the COVID mortality rate by as much as 50%, according to a report published earlier this month in the European Journal of Internal Medicine by an Israeli researcher from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Hadassah Medical School. The drug, colchicine, dates back thousands of years to ancient Egypt, where it was known for its special healing properties. It is one of a few medicines that survived until modern times. Most recently, it has been used to treat and prevent inflammation caused by gout that can lead to painful arthritis and Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF), which is common among Jewish people of North African descent.

 Ancient Greek drug could cut COVID-19 deaths - Israeli scientist - The Jerusalem Post

While not the firm’s base-case, zero-COVID lockdown strategies in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan are a potential wild card, “especially if Omicron proves similar enough to existing variants in terms of health consequences." According to Goldman, “back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that a return to restrictions half as severe as during peak Delta could cut 1-3 [percentage points] from first-quarter GDP in most regional economies.”

 China, still a 2022 worry: Morning Brief

[admin]

This just about sums it up..

[admin]

There is currently no evidence that the Omicron variant of coronavirus causes less severe disease than Delta, according to an early study of UK infection data – which also found a fivefold risk of reinfection and highlighted the need for booster jabs. Studying NHS and Health Security Agency (UKHSA) records of those with a positive PCR result in England between 29 November and 11 December, Imperial College London scientists found that there was not yet any significant change in the proportion of people developing symptoms or requiring hospitalisation with the Omicron variant compared to the Delta. Scientists involved with the study stressed that “hospitalisation data remains very limited at this time” and said it “may take several weeks to fully understand” the fast-spreading variant’s severity.

 Covid: ‘No evidence’ yet that Omicron less severe than Delta, study finds | The Independent

• It's simply too early to tell, which is why we argued the markets are running on hopium, as what is clear is that Omicron spreads much faster than any previous variant.
  

[admin]

Suppose we have two viruses, one that is twice as transmissible as the other. (For the record, Omicron is currently three to five times as transmissible as Delta in the U.K.—though that number is likely to fall over time.) And suppose it takes five days between a person’s getting infected and their infecting others. After 30 days, the more transmissible virus is now causing 64, times as many new cases as the less transmissible one. Exponentials are one hell of a growth hack. If we are banking on the idea that Omicron is more mild to get us through winter, then we had better hope that it’s really, really mild.

 We Know Enough About Omicron to Know That We’re in Trouble - The Atlantic

There are some tentative positive signs

• Anti-viral medicines
  
• South Africa experience
  
• Lab tests
  

[admin]

Wall Street is getting nervous about what will happen to the economy next year. The big concern is whether inflation will run too hot, forcing the Federal Reserve to step in with more rate hikes to stop rising prices in their tracks. The Dow fell more than 530 points Friday, about 1.5%, as fears grew that the Fed could potentially cause an economic slowdown by tightening too aggressively. Such concerns are global: Investors everywhere are worrying about inflation and the likelihood central banks will follow the Bank of England's lead and soon raise their own interest rates. But what if investors are scared of the wrong bogeyman? The rise of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 around the globe is raising the possibility that countries...or private businesses...may have to issue new lockdowns. 

Interest rates are set to rise next year. Here's what that means Restaurants and pubs in London are closing in response to the Omicron threat. Some Broadway shows in New York City have been canceled. And companies ranging from Apple and Ford to ridesharing firm Lyft and investment bank Jefferies have recently announced plans to delay workers' return to the office. More businesses are likely to follow suit. This might not be priced into the broader stock market just yet. The S&P 500 is up 23% this year and is just a little more than 1% from its record high. Investors aren't exactly running for the hills and hiding. But there are pockets of the market that are getting hit harder than others. The tech stock heavy Nasdaq has fallen 6% from its record high, putting it closer to 10% correction status. But even after its recent drop, the Nasdaq is still up 18% in 2021.

 Stocks slide on inflation fears but market may be ignoring risk of Omicron shutdowns - CNN

• There are other things we can do against Omicron:
  

Mass lateral flow testing cut the number of people needing hospital treatment for Covid by 32% and relieved significant pressure on the NHS when the measures were piloted last year, a study has shown. Liverpool conducted the first city-wide testing scheme using rapid antigen tests in November last year, amid debate about whether or not lateral flow tests (LFTs) were accurate enough to detect the virus in asymptomatic carriers.

 Mass rapid tests in Liverpool cut hospital stays by a third | Coronavirus | The Guardian

[admin]

One of the first to report was Dr Alex Sigal at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. His team confirmed that Omicron largely escaped antibodies from vaccines or past infection, with antibodies following the Pfizer shot 41 times less effective against Omicron than the original Covid-19 virus. Other data from South Africa, and soon from around the world, showed that Omicron spread like wildfire, doubling every two to three days. As Prof Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, phrased it: “There are several things we don’t know, but all the things that we do know are bad.”

As the infection spread, the UKHSA crunched early numbers to show that two doses of Covid vaccine did little to prevent symptomatic infection, though a booster kicked protection up to about 70%. On Friday, two reports from Prof Neil Ferguson’s group at Imperial College rounded out the picture. Their findings are tentative, but suggest a booster provides 80-86% protection against hospitalisation from Omicron. That is good from an individual perspective, but compares with 95% for Delta. The upshot is that hospitalisation rates for boosted people could be four times higher with Omicron.

 The science is clear: the case for more Covid restrictions is overwhelming | Health policy | The Guardian

People who catch Covid after having two vaccine doses could develop even better immunity against the virus, new research suggests.
A study that examined the blood of 26 people who had so-called breakthrough infections of Covid after double vaccination developed as much as 1,000 per cent more effective and abundant antibodies, creating a form of “super-immunity”, researchers said.

 People who get Covid while double-vaccinated ‘may get super-immunity’ | The Independent

[admin]

South Africa has reported data on Covid cases driven by the Omicron variant that appears to give added impetus to claims the country is experiencing a lower severity of disease. “In South Africa, this is the epidemiology: Omicron is behaving in a way that is less severe,” said Prof Cheryl Cohen of the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), one of the authors of the study. “Compellingly, together our data really suggest a positive story of a reduced severity of Omicron compared to other variants,” she said during a news conference by a group of NICD scientists on Wednesday. Scientists, however, cautioned that the reasons less severe cases were being seen was not fully understood and that South Africa’s experience – with a young population – might not translate into how other countries experience Omicron.

 South African data suggests Omicron outbreak has caused less severe disease | Coronavirus | The Guardian

• Some good news at last but one might still wait for these results to translate to other countries, which is not guaranteed.
  
• And some less good news, often forgotten:
  

Long Covid did return to the news last week, with the publication of data from a multi-centre study suggesting that fewer than 30% of patients hospitalised with acute Covid had fully recovered a year later. It’s a stark statistic – yet this study did not account for the significant number of us who were never admitted to hospital, and have still not fully recovered. The most recent ONS data from October reports that 1.2 million people are living with long Covid (in hospitalised and non-hospitalised patients); 36% of those have had it for more than a year, with greatest prevalence in health and social care workers, and people living in more deprived areas.

 More than a million of us are suffering with long Covid – yet still it’s not taken seriously | Joanna Herman | The Guardian

[admin]

The NHS is “on a war footing” to confront the spread of the Omicron variant, its medical director has said. Professor Stephen Powis added that no stone would be left unturned in getting the health-service “battle-ready”, partly through its booster programme. His analogy comes as the number of NHS staff off sick jumped to 18,829 last week, around 50 per cent higher than the total seen over the previous seven days. London, the epicentre of the Omicron wave, had more than a fifth of these absences.

 Covid news: UK ‘still in danger zone’ as Javid insists there is clarity over restrictions | The Independent

• Here is what people forget, it's not just hospitals filling up, it's staff getting infected as well that affects healthcare capacity. Indeed:
  

Daily hospitalisations in England up by more than 40% in a week at same time as more staff on sick leave

 NHS leaders alarmed by rise in hospital admissions as Covid cases hit record | Coronavirus | The Guardian