Our entire repository of COVID charts is HERE.
There have been many, many headlines about omicron today, whipsawing markets. Briefly, WHO officials stated vaccines are likely to protect against severe infection, Germany is mulling nation-wide restrictions for unvaccinated and mandatory covid shots starting February 2022 (more here), South African officials noted omicron is jumping to older people, hospital admissions are up, but omicron may be thwarted by t-cells (more here), and the U.S. identified its first confirmed case of omicron in California. John Burn-Murdoch (who we referenced yesterday) has another great chart; ~50% of adults in the U.S. are either unvaccinated or have not had a booster. That’s not a great sign for case growth, which makes it even more important to pay attention to severity instead. And so far, so mild. It’s also worth noting that although booster uptake is low, it’s higher in those 65+, who account for 75% of COVID deaths.
Here are hospitalizations and ICU utilization in the U.S. entering a possible omicron wave. Almost all hospitalizations are within those with an underlying condition.
Mobility is still elevated in South Africa and the government is not entertaining new restrictions because cases, so far, are mild.
Here’s what we said yesterday about severity, which bears repeating. John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times put together a great graphic of COVID cases and hospitalizations in Gauteng, South Africa, the epicenter of omicron. Cases are rising faster but hospitalizations are on the same pace; that could imply the variant is less severe and/or people have some built up immunity from prior infections and vaccinations. That could also be because the cases are primarily in the young, but we have no reason to be overly pessimistic and assume it’s all demographics. In the same vein, the EU has recorded 44 confirmed cases of the omicron variant in 11 counties and all are either asymptomatic or people with mild symptoms. So far, the prospective omicron wave does not appear to be too different than the delta wave, during which activity remained elevated because cases were decoupled from hospitalizations and deaths.
Investors have to contend with policy responses to Omicron. Travel restrictions are being imposed globally. The Netherlands tightened its partial lockdown – now most venues have to close at 5 pm. German officials are meeting Tuesday to discuss toughening restrictions. The list goes on in but with varying degrees of severity. Oxford’s stringency indices will help objectively score how intense restrictions are. Restrictions are rising in Europe but are still below early 2021 levels, but are stable in the U.S. and Asia.
Global case growth continues to increase. Cases are concentrated in Europe and now South Africa.
Recorded case growth in the U.S. has been volatile because of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Charts for every state and country we have data for are HERE.
