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Our briefing for Monday, December 13, 2021:
Dec 13, 2021 4:24:58 PM
- The United States has hit a few more important milestones in the ongoing battle against Covid-19. On Sunday the death toll surpassed 800,000, marking a 4.6% increase in the number of deaths in the past month. The tally for case numbers has also reached 50 million, with hospitalizations up 20% since the Thanksgiving holiday. It took nearly a year to reach the first 25 million cases, while it took slightly less than a year to go from 25 million to 50 million, according to a Reuters analysis. It took 111 days to jump from 600,000 to 700,000 deaths, but the next 100,000 deaths occurred over just 73 days.
- In Canada, the latest federal modelling suggests a resurgence in Covid-19 cases is likely over the coming weeks; Canadians should be cautious and keep gatherings small, says Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam. Although Delta is still the dominant strain in Canada and most parts of the world, there have been early signs of community transmission of the Omicron variant in Canada. Despite this, Tam says the country is in a much better position now than it was last year. “This time last year, we were experiencing double the number of daily cases and more than double the number of people with Covid-19 being treated in hospitals and in intensive care daily. Most importantly, daily reported deaths are 82% lower than this time last year,” Tam said.
- The United Kingdom raised the Covid-19 alert level on Sunday from level three to four, the second highest level, to address the rapid spread of the Omicron variant. The announcement from the country’s four chief medical officers came as the U.K. reported 1239 new cases of Omicron, bringing the total number of infections to 3137 – a 65% increase from Saturday’s totals. “Early evidence shows that Omicron is spreading much faster than Delta and that vaccine protection against symptomatic disease from Omicron is reduced,” the four medical officers said in a joint statement. Shortly after the announcement, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he is speeding up the booster campaign and will offer everyone age 18 and older a shot by the end of the month. The previous target was the end of January.
- France has opened 400 investigations into the use of fake Covid-19 passes. Recently a woman died of the virus in Paris after showing a fake vaccine certificate; the hospital that treated her said they would have given her immediate antibody treatment had they known she wasn’t vaccinated. The case has been getting increasing media attention as the country braces for another wave of Covid-19 infections, fuelled by Delta and now the Omicron variant. Interior Minister Gerald Demanin told French radio that authorities have identified several thousand fake Covid-19 passes in use across the country, including some that are connected to healthcare professionals. The country is tightening the rules on the passes, which are required for access to all non-essential services and events.
- In Brazil, a Supreme Court justice ruled that all travellers arriving in the country must show proof of vaccination. The decision from Justice Luis Roberto Barroso comes as a blow to President Jair Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly rejected vaccine mandates. Bolsonaro’s government announced on Tuesday that travellers arriving in Brazil would not need vaccine passports but would only have to undergo a five-day quarantine if unvaccinated. But Barroso said monitoring the quarantine of thousands of travellers would be too difficult. “The threat of promoting anti-vaccine tourism, due to the imprecision of the regulations that require the voucher, represents an imminent risk,” Barroso said in the ruling.
- Australia’s state of Queensland reopened their borders to fully vaccinated travellers from other parts of the country. Queensland has spent a total of 435 days with the borders closed, with the most recent closure lasting around five months. Meanwhile, Western Australia will reopen to fully vaccinated domestic and international travellers from February 5. “This is a date that some in the community have been waiting to hear for a long time,” Premier Mark McGowan said. “For others, this is an announcement that will cause great concern.” Western Australia has had its borders closed for nearly two years and experienced only 12 days of lockdown. The decision to reopen comes as the state reaches 80% double dose vaccination rates.
Covid-19 – Due Diligence And Asset Management
Goldman Sachs Tells London Staff to Work From Home If They Can
Brief: Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has told its London staff to work from home if they can, as the City of London’s biggest firms adjust to the latest government guidance. “Those of you who are able to work from home effectively should do so from Monday,” the lender said last week in an internal memo. The bank’s offices will remain open for those who still need to come in. Safety protocols including an on-site testing program and the wearing of masks away from desks remain in place. The guidance mirrors moves from firms across the City of London after U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson tightened pandemic rules to curb the spread of the omicron variant.HSBC Holdings Plc, Deutsche Bank AG and Citigroup Inc. have all told staff to return to home working if they could.
Charities forced to sell investments during the coronavirus crisis to offset falling incomes
Brief: New research from the charity investment arm of independent investment manager James Hambro & Partners reveals 64 per cent of charities with at least GBP1 million of investable assets have had to sell or cash in some of their investments during the Coronavirus crisis because they have suffered from a fall in income from for example, fewer fund-raising events. Also, four out of ten (42 per cent) say they have been forced to do this to meet growing demand for their services during the pandemic. Charities with investible assets rely heavily on them to generate an income, but 18 per cent said the income they generate has fallen dramatically since the Coronavirus crisis started, and a further 52 per cent said they have fallen slightly.
BlackRock Gets Ready to Rewind 2021 Playbook in 2022
Brief: Bonds get battered in run-it-hot economies. Stocks march higher. And it’s a good idea to hedge inflation, according to BlackRock Inc. If those forecasts for 2022 sound like a replay of 2021 it’s no coincidence. The world’s biggest asset manager says markets are in a “new nominal” where equity is favored over fixed-income. Two consecutive annual losses for bonds and gains for stocks is an occurrence so rare it last happened almost 50 years ago.“This was the new nominal in action and marked the start of a regime shift,” BlackRock strategists including Wei Li and Scott Thiel wrote in a report published Monday. “We see the forces that drove stocks up and bonds down in 2021 to still be at play in 2022 as inflation settles at higher levels than pre-Covid.”
Gaining exposure to biotech in times of uncertainty
Brief: The end of November saw the largest one-day fall in stock prices globally since June 2020, as investors reacted to the potential economic impact of a possible fourth wave of Covid-19, manifest in the new and ominously named Omicron variant of the Sars-Cov-2 virus. But the panic selling was not entirely across the board: on the same day, the US biotech firm Moderna, one of three main suppliers of a Covid vaccine, saw its share price jump by 25%, adding a tidy $35bn to its market capitalisation. Moderna is an obvious beneficiary of any new round of pandemic panic, but the extent of the share price reaction was helped by news that it expects to have a new version of its Spikevax product out soon specifically addressing Omicron.
Slowing Big Tech performance a ‘telltale sign of things to come,’ hedge fund manager says
Brief: The tepid trade for U.S. tech behemoths in the last couple of months is a “sign of things to come” in 2022, according to David Neuhauser, chief investment officer at U.S. hedge fund Livermore Partners. With inflation running extremely hot and central banks under pressure to tighten monetary policy, along with the emergence of the omicron Covid-19 variant in recent weeks, global stock markets face a unique confluence of uncertainties. The U.S. Labor Department will release November’s consumer price index reading on Friday, which is expected to show annual inflation notching an almost 40-year high. Neuhauser believes this upward trend in prices is going to continue as new Covid variants emerge and supply chain bottlenecks persist.
