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Our briefing for Friday, September 24, 2021:
Sep 24, 2021 3:47:08 PM
- In the United States, the state of Alaska is experiencing its worst wave of the coronavirus pandemic yet, as hospitals come under extreme pressure. The state is averaging 125 new cases per day for every 100,000 people, more than any other state in the country, according to the New York Times. On Wednesday the state announced that they were implementing crisis care standards for their entire hospital system, which gives hospitals legal grounds for making difficult triage decisions. Under half of the population of Alaska is fully vaccinated, compared with about 55% of the national population.
- In Canada, hospitals in the province of Alberta are seeing record numbers of patients admitted for critical care. The average number of intensive care unit admissions over the past five days has been 23 per day, according to Alberta Health Service officials. Across the province there are 226 people in total in intensive care with Covid-19. Meanwhile in Saskatchewan, pediatric intensive care beds are being used to treat adults because of a lack of capacity. The Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital in Saskatoon is currently treating two adults, one of whom has Covid-19. As of Tuesday, 262 people in Saskatchewan are in the hospital with Covid-19, while 54 of them are in intensive care.
- In the United Kingdom, male life expectancy has dropped for the first time in 40 years because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports that a boy born between 2018 and 2020 is expected to live until he is 79, down from 79.2 for the 2015-17 period. The numbers for females are largely unchanged, with a girl born between 2018 and 2020 expected to live until age 82.9, the same as for the 2015-17 period. The ONS said that the coronavirus pandemic led to a greater number of deaths in 2020, so as a result, life expectancy for females saw no improvements, while for males it fell back to 2012-14 levels.
- South Korea has set another record for daily coronavirus cases, at 2434, after the country’s biggest holiday drew to a close. The government is currently working on a plan for how the nation can better live with Covid-19, which includes 80% of adults being fully vaccinated by late October. President Moon Jae-in told reporters on Friday that he feels the country is in a good place for vaccinations. "There is no problem at all with the amount of vaccines secured for this year," Moon said. "The vaccine shipment got off to a slower start than other countries, which delayed the vaccination programme, but I believe by next month, we will catch up and be a leading country by inoculation rate."
- Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced that the nation would be doubling its commitment of vaccine donations to the world. "Today, I am pleased to announce that, with additional contributions, Japan will provide up to approximately 60 million doses of vaccine in total," Suga said in a pre-recorded video message to the United Nations General Assembly. Of the 30 million previously committed doses, the country has already donated about 23 million of them to countries like Taiwan, Vietnam and Indonesia. Nearly 2100 new coronavirus cases were reported across the country, with 235 of them being in Tokyo.
- In Australia, the state of Victoria reported its highest number of daily cases on Thursday at 766. The state will roll out the Moderna vaccine starting next week as they strive to hit 80% first-dose vaccination rates. So far in the state some 76.2% of adults have received their first dose while about 46.2% are fully vaccinated. The state will receive 32,000 Moderna doses to be administered through state vaccination sites. The state’s health minister, Martin Foley, says record numbers of Victorians have come forward to get vaccinated over the past week. He says the state will reach 80% first doses within a week, at which point a small number of restrictions can be eased.
Covid-19 – Due Diligence And Asset Management
Powell Hears Covid-19 Ruptures Still Dog Economy as Fed Listens
Brief: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell listened to a litany of ways in which the U.S. economy remains distorted by Covid-19 as he and his colleagues calibrate withdrawing emergency pandemic support. “I’ve never seen these kind of supply-chain issues, never seen an economy that combines drastic labor shortages with lots of unemployed people and a lot of slack in the labor market,” Powell told a virtual Fed Listens panel Friday. He didn’t address the economic outlook or monetary policy during the hour-plus event, but got plenty of food for thought: The U.S. central bank gets “tons and tons of data,” he said, but “it doesn’t really live for us until we hear your stories.”
Office vacancies in Canada hit highest level since 1994
Brief: Canadian office vacancies have reached their highest point in more than a quarter century, surpassing the levels of both the dotcom bubble and the global financial crisis. The distress in the commercial real estate market comes as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to keep workers home and as employers reconsider how much space they’ll need long term. The national vacancy rate reached 15.7 per cent in the third quarter, the highest since 1994, according to a report released Friday by commercial real estate brokerage CBRE Group. Across the country, office buildings that began construction before the pandemic are being completed and hitting the market even as many tenants are walking away from the space they have now, the report says.
Property in a post-pandemic world
Brief: With government bond yields in the US and UK yielding 1.3% and 0.6% respectively, lower than where they started in 2020, and corporate bond spreads narrowing to levels below those seen pre-Covid, the search for sustainable yield in global asset markets has once again become very challenging. Against this backdrop, the hunt for yield is pushing investors further up the risk curve, while pricing suggests investors accept the benign view that current levels of inflation will not persist. The question now is whether there remain any areas to invest where yields remain attractive, economic recovery is not fully reflected in valuations, and which provide some protection in the event inflation proves less transitory than expected. One sector that fulfils these three criteria is property.
European VC shakes off effects of Covid-19
Brief: Invest Europe, in partnership with the European Investment Fund (EIF), has published ‘The VC Factor - Pandemic Edition’, a new report illustrating European venture capital’s continued strong support for innovative and fast-growing start-ups in the immediate aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The study is the second edition of the ground-breaking collaboration between Invest Europe, the association representing Europe’s private equity, venture capital and infrastructure sectors, as well as their investors, and the EIF - Europe’s largest investor in venture capital funds. It draws on data from 2,611 firms investing into VC and 32,114 start-ups between 2007 and 2020.
DC schemes largely unaffected by Covid-19 market volatility
Brief: The 2021 edition of The DC Future Book, published by the Pensions Policy Institute in association with Columbia Threadneedle Investments, finds that positive trends in the UK Defined Contribution (DC) pension market have continued despite the backdrop of volatile investment markets due to Covid-19. However, the unprecedented nature of the market volatility should encourage DC schemes to assess the resilience of their default funds allowing them to derive and implement suitable measures to improve member outcomes. As an established annual compendium of statistics, The DC Future Book provides insight into the current state of DC workplace pensions and their likely direction of travel.
