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Our briefing for Tuesday, November 2, 2021:
Nov 2, 2021 2:35:21 PM
- In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices are meeting on Tuesday where it is expected they will give the green light for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccination to be given to kids aged 5-to-11. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted its emergency approval last Friday and the White House said on Monday that it began the process on that same day of moving 15 million Pfizer doses from freezers and facilities to distribution centers. The Biden administration said it has procured enough vaccine to inoculate all 28 million 5-to-11-year-olds in America. According to the CDC committee meeting on Tuesday, there have been at least 1.9 million COVID-19 cases in this age group, with 8,300 hospitalizations and at least 94 deaths.
- Canada took another step to get the travel industry in the country back to normal – announcing it would open eight more airports to international flights as of November 30th. Currently, there are 10 airports in the country already receiving international flights. British Columbia will open three additional airports, while Ontario and Saskatchewan will do the same with two and Newfoundland’s St. John’s International rounding out the list. “This move will ensure travelers are able to access more regional airports for their international travel this winter while continuing to support our government’s measured approach to reopening its borders,” said Transport Minister Omar Alghabra.
- The United Kingdom parliament have tightened coronavirus restrictions amid a surge of cases in the country, with tours and banquets canceled for two weeks. Facial coverings were made compulsory for parliamentary staff, contractors, and journalists last week. Ironically enough though, members of parliament can’t be ordered to do wear facial coverings because they’re not employed by House of Common authorities and it was noted in recent weeks, many Conservative MPs have not worn masks. The UK reported just over 40,000 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, along with 40 deaths.
- Bloomberg is reporting the extent that China will go to in pursuit of COVID-zero cases. The report noted a primary school located in Beijing had parents waiting outside for their children as they were caught in a snap lockdown triggered by a teacher diagnosed hours earlier with COVID-19. The principal appeared a little after midnight telling them some of the kids would have to quarantine with one parent to accompany them through the two weeks of isolation. For students whose test results hadn’t yet come back, parents were asked to bring quilts and pillows to spend the night at school. Beijing – China’s capital – is in the midst of its largest COVID-19 outbreak since the beginning of the year.
- In Australia, state officials in New South Wales are rewarding those who decided to become fully vaccinated from COVID-19. Fully vaccinated residents will be able to have unlimited visitors to their home, hospitality venues can host more diners, and nightclubs can reopen starting November 8th. People who aren’t fully vaccinated will need to wait until the state has hit 95% full vaccination or December 15th, whichever occurs first, to exit their stay-at-home orders. Unvaccinated people had previously been promised they would be under the same restrictions as the rest of the population from December 1st. Premier Dominic Perrottet said the changes were made because of high vaccination rates as of Tuesday, 88.3% of New South Wales residents aged 16 and over are fully vaccinated.
- The Nikkei are reporting Japan’s government is considering easing its COVID-19 entry restrictions for visitors on short business trips, foreign students, and technical trainee workers. The Nikkei, not citing how they obtained the information, said the changes would shorten quarantine restrictions from 10 days to three days for those in Japan on short business trips or Japanese nationals returning from business trips. Japan has been noted as having one of the strictest border policies among developed nations since the pandemic hit, effectively banning most foreigners from entering the country unless they already had a visa.
Covid-19 – Due Diligence And Asset Management
With Hedges in Place, Ackman Calls on the Fed to Raise Rates
Brief: Even with five million fewer people employed in the U.S. than before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the economy’s recovery has been so robust and thethreat of inflationso high that hedge fund manager Bill Ackman thinks the Federal Reserve should “begin raising rates as soon as possible.” “A ‘wait and see’ approach to raising interest rates creates significant risks given the substantial progress to date on employment and inflation combined with the unprecedented economic backdrop,” Ackman wrote in an extensive presentation of the Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets to the New York Federal Reserve on Oct. 20. Ackman, a member of the investor committee, acknowledged on Twitter — where he posted his PowerPoint presentation — that “as we have previously disclosed, we have put our money where our mouth is in hedging our exposure to an upward move in rates, as we believe that a rise in rates could negatively impact our long-only equity portfolio.”
More Women Check Writers Means More Money for Female-Founded Companies
Brief: When Hannah Olson was in college, she was diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease. The severity of her case required Olson to have a PICC line — essentially, a permanent IV that funnels antibiotics into the patient eight hours a day — inserted in her arm. As a young woman hoping to start her career in marketing, Olson felt anxious about telling her new boss about her condition and its impact on her day-to-day life. “I felt so much fear and shame and stigma,” Olson told Institutional Investor. “No one wants to go into their first job ever and have to be hooked up to an IV all day. I ultimately ended up at a company that wasn’t inclusive and didn't allow me to administer my meds at work, so I was forced to choose between my health and my work.” In 2020, Olson founded Chronically Capable, a job-matching platform that connects people with disabilities and chronic illnesses to jobs with accommodations. A month after the platform launched, the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
Pfizer Top Q3 Forecasts as Total COVID Vaccine Sales Soar
Brief: Pfizer is hiking sales expectations for its top-selling COVID-19 vaccine again, and its early look at 2022 also falls well above Wall Street forecasts. The drugmaker said Tuesday that it now expects to book about $36 billion in revenue from Comirnaty this year. That’s about 7% higher than what Pfizer forecast in July and more than twice what the company expected at the start of the year, shortly after distribution of the two-shot vaccine began. Next year, Pfizer says global vaccine sales could total around $29 billion or more, and there’s room for growth. The company expects to recognize revenue for 1.7 billion doses in 2022, but it could produce 4 billion. “We continue to believe the vaccine has durability, and there will continue to be significant revenue beyond 2022,” Chief Financial Officer Frank D’Amelio told analysts. Analysts forecast, on average, $24 billion in sales from the vaccine next year, according to FactSet. They also expect revenue from the shots to start waning in the following years, depending on how the pandemic plays out.
Air Canada CEO Hopeful as Revenue Climbs Back Toward Pre-Pandemic Levels
Brief: Air Canada sees hope on the horizon as revenues soared over 2020 levels last quarter, despite continuing to operate far below pre-pandemic capacity and at a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars. Domestic leisure bookings have started to rebound, but business travel remains down across the board amid the persistence of remote work. "We're witnessing a strong rebound in VFR (visiting friends and relatives), and leisure traffic remains strong, specifically within North America, across the Atlantic and to sun destinations," chief operating officer Lucie Guillemette told investors on a conference call Tuesday. "We were pretty confident that come 2022 corporate Canada returns to their offices and business travel should return. But no doubt that for us, business has lagged a little bit." Revenue nearly tripled year over year to $2.10 billion in the quarter ended Sept. 30 alongside an 87 per cent boost in capacity. But revenue and capacity remained more than 60 per cent and two-thirds below Air Canada's third-quarter figures in 2019 respectively as COVID-19 fallout continues to damage carriers' bottom lines.
UK Renters Prioritise Home Working Space Amid Return-to-Office Returns
Brief: An overwhelming majority of UK renters aged 25-40 want desk space for working from home, according to new research from M&G Real Estate, the real estate investment division of M&G plc – a leading savings and investments business. Almost nine out of ten (87 per cent) of those who have experienced home working questioned in M&G’s 2021 Home Renters Survey said that, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, dedicated home workspace is ‘quite’ or ‘very’ important to them. Furthermore, three quarters (75 per cent) of these home renters stated they were now using rooms and spaces at home differently. More than a third have improved garden or balcony spaces or rearranged internal areas for ‘living or relaxing’ during the various restrictions, while 34 per cent of respondents had used the time to allocate more space for exercising or to improve sleeping areas. When asked if the pandemic had made them more or less likely to continue renting in the future, just over a quarter (26 per cent) said they were less likely to continue renting, rising to 37 per cent among those on higher incomes (GBP50,000 plus per annum). Nearly two thirds (64 per cent) said that Covid-19 has had no impact on their attitude towards renting.
