Market comment 2021

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British consumers have largely stayed away from the traditional Boxing Day sales amid concern over the Omicron Covid variant, with visits to high streets, shopping centres and retail parks down more than 45% on pre-pandemic levels, according to industry figures. Fears over the virus, as well as several key retailers including John Lewis, Marks & Spencer and Next deciding to keep their stores closed, and the traditional bumper shopping day falling on a Sunday this year, all put a dampener on sales.

 Britons shy away from Boxing Day sales amid concern over Omicron variant | Retail industry | The Guardian

• Consumer sentiment another casualty of Covid..
  
• And then there is this:
  

New York’s acting state health commissioner, Dr Mary Bassett, said the “striking increase” in hospitalisations of children with Covid-19 that the state has recorded in the last three weeks showed urgent action was needed. All children older than five should be fully vaccinated, she said, while those under five should be shielded by ensuring those around them have protection through vaccination, boosters, mask-wearing, avoiding crowds and testing, Reuters reports.

 Covid live: US reports highest seven-day cases average since January; UK ‘considering door-to-door vaccinations’ | World news | The Guardian

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Omicron is “not the same disease we were seeing a year ago” and high Covid death rates in the UK are “now history”, a leading immunologist has said. Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University and the government’s life sciences adviser, said that although hospital admissions had increased in recent weeks as Omicron spreads through the population, the disease “appears to be less severe and many people spend a relatively short time in hospital”. Fewer patients were needing high-flow oxygen and the average length of stay was down to three days, he said.

A number of scientists have criticised the government’s decision not to introduce further Covid restrictions in England before New Year’s Eve, with some describing it as “the greatest divergence between scientific advice and legislation” since the start of the pandemic. They have expressed concern that while the Omicron variant appears to be milder, it is highly transmissible, meaning hospital numbers and deaths could rise rapidly without intervention. The NHS Providers chief executive, Chris Hopson, said it was still unclear what would happen when infection rates in older people started to rise. “We’ve had a lot of intergenerational mixing over Christmas, so we all are still waiting to see, are we going to see a significant number of increases in terms of the number of patients coming into hospital with serious Omicron-related disease,” he told BBC Breakfast.

 Omicron is ‘not the same disease’ as earlier Covid waves, says UK scientist | Omicron variant | The Guardian

• Even the specialists have diverging opinions..
  
• However:
  

The number of children in New York City hospitalized with COVID-19 has increased five-fold from the start of the month, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Monday. Speaking during a briefing on the pandemic, Hochul said the spike in infections among children up to 18 serves as a warning to pediatricians and families that COVID in children is real.

 Children hospitalized with COVID increases five-fold in New York City

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The highly transmissible omicron variant of COVID-19 is sending waves of children to the hospital in record numbers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) latest data. The week of Dec. 22 to Dec. 28 was the highest spike yet of COVID-19 hospitalizations for children aged 0 to 17 years, the CDC tracker shows. More than 370 children are currently hospitalized daily, a 66 percent increase from the week prior. Doctors have called the omicron-fueled surge "heartbreaking," telling the Associated Press that low vaccination numbers among children during the outbreak are concerning. “It was hard enough last year, but now you know that you have a way to prevent all this," Paul Offit with the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia told the AP. More than 1,000 children aged 0 to 17 years have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of children have been hospitalized in the last few months alone. From Aug. 1 to Dec. 28, more than 76,000 children have been hospitalized with COVID-19. The omicron variant was first detected in the U.S. in early December but accounted for 59 percent of all cases last week.

 Omicron sending children to hospital in record numbers | TheHill