After a great tragedy it’s amazing how many people lose everything. The pandemic is not over. The economy has not recovered and many people are making many serious mistakes. That also means there are serious opportunities. We’ll discuss this in this edition of Radio Free Wall Street.
JERUSALEM, July 5 (Reuters) – Israel reported on Monday a decrease in the effectiveness of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in preventing infections and symptomatic illness but said it remained highly effective in preventing serious illness. The decline coincided with the spread of the Delta variant and the end of social distancing restrictions in Israel
. Vaccine effectiveness in preventing both infection and symptomatic disease fell to 64% since June 6, the Health Ministry said.
At the same time the vaccine was 93% effective in preventing hospitalizations and serious illness from the coronavirus. (NB Its to early to asertain this) The ministry in its statement did not say what the previous level was or provide any further details. However ministry officials published a report in May that two doses of Pfizer’s vaccine provided more than 95% protection against infection, hospitalization and severe illness. A Pfizer spokesperson declined to comment on the data from Israel, but cited other research showing that antibodies elicited by the vaccine were still able to neutralize all tested variants, including Delta, albeit at reduced strength. About 60% of Israel’s 9.3 million population have received at least one shot of Pfizer’s vaccine in a campaign that saw daily cases drop from more than 10,000 in January to single digits last month.
This spurred Israel to drop nearly all social distancing as well as the requirement to wear masks, though the latter was partially reimposed in recent days. At the same time Delta, which has become a globally dominant variant of the coronavirus, began to spread.
Since then daily cases have gradually risen, reaching 343 on Sunday. The number of seriously ill rose to 35 from 21. Data scientist Eran Segal of Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science said the country was unlikely to experience the high levels of hospitalizations seen earlier in the year since there were much fewer critically ill. He said it was fine to “continue with life back to normal and without restrictions” while stepping up measures like vaccination outreach and ensuring testing for Israelis returning home from abroad
The final lifting of lockdown restrictions will go ahead in England on July 19 if all the tests are met, Boris Johnson has confirmed. Addressing the nation and flanked by Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, the PM said tonight (Monday, July 5) that step four of the roadmap plan is expected to go ahead. The final decision will be confirmed next Monday (July 12) following a review of the data and will see most rules end.
“I want to stress this pandemic is far from over,” the PM warned.
He added: “We must take a careful and balanced decision.” The vaccine rollout will be further accelerated by reducing the dosing interval for under-40s from 12 weeks to eight weeks.
June 2 (Reuters) – As the U.S. economy continues to recover from the coronavirus crisis and the labor market rebounds, it may be time for Federal Reserve policymakers to start thinking about the best way to slow the pace of its asset purchases, Philadelphia Fed Bank President Patrick Harker said on Wednesday. “We’re planning to keep the federal funds rate low for long,” Harker said during remarks prepared for a virtual event. “But it may be time to at least think about thinking about tapering our $120 billion in monthly Treasury bond and mortgage-backed securities purchases.” Harker said the Fed would not move suddenly when it begins to reduce the pace of the purchases, which were ramped up last year in an effort to stabilize markets and support the economy after it was upended by the pandemic. “We will remove accommodation carefully and methodically as the economy continues to strengthen,” he said. “Our goal here is to be boring.” Fed officials agreed at their last meeting to keep purchasing bonds at the current pace until there is substantial further progress toward the central bank’s goals for inflation and maximum employment. Several policymakers acknowledged recently that they are closer to discussing when to reduce some of those purchases. The Fed’s next policy-setting meeting takes place on June 15 and 16. Harker said he expects the U.S. economy to grow by 7% this year and at a slower pace of about 3% in 2022. The policymaker said he expects job creation to pick up over the next several months and that the labor market could return to pre-pandemic trends by next summer. The Fed has said it doesn’t plan to lift rates until the economy is back to full employment and inflation is set to reach its 2% target.
https://youtu.be/WlO8AjPZtO4
A recent burst of inflation could prove more long-lasting than expected as the surging U.S. economy faces widespread bottlenecks that have severely disrupted the global supply chain, a Federal Reserve official said on Thursday.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Inflation may be even stronger in coming months than Federal Reserve policymakers currently expect as the U.S. recovery likely gains steam in the fall and a global recovery follows, St. Louis Federal Reserve president James Bullard said on Thursday.
That could push the level of prices beyond what is needed to account for recent years of inflation below the Fed’s 2% target, and presented a “new risk” that Fed officials will have to consider in coming months.
“Inflation may surprise still further to the upside as the reopening process continues, beyond the level necessary to simply make up for past misses to the low side,” Bullard said in a presentation prepared for delivery to the Clayton Chamber of Commerce near St. Louis. Bullard earlier this week said he was among the Fed policymakers who expect interest rates will need to increase next year. Faster than expected inflation this year and on into 2022 will, he said, meet the Fed’s intent to let the pace of price increases exceed the formal 2% target for a time to offset years in which inflation has been too low. His comments Thursday suggest concerns of an even larger inflation shock.There has already, he said, been a “substantial” surprise in terms of stronger than anticipated economic growth and inflation. As schools reopen in the U.S. in the fall and more countries reopen their economies, “the risk is tangible” inflation could move higher than projected. “Policymakers will have to take this new risk into account in the months and quarters ahead,” he said.
Oil prices fell on Tuesday as outbreaks of the highly contagious COVID-19 variant Delta and the re-emergence of travel restrictions raised fears over demand ahead of Thursday’s OPEC+ meeting. International benchmark Brent crude was trading at $74 per barrel at 06.55 GMT, a 0.19% decrease after closing Monday at $74.14 a barrel. American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) traded at $72.86 a barrel at the same time, a 0.07% drop after ending the previous session at $72.91 per barrel. Uncertainties on whether restrictions due to the coronavirus variant will be re-imposed in Europe and many Asian countries are weighing on prices. “The forecast for oil demand recovery over the summer may be a bit overestimated and traders are facing a reality check this week as the Delta variant reached Europe, and as infections surge in Southeast Asia and Australia to bring back lockdowns,” said Rystad Energy’s Oil Markets Analyst Louise Dickson. Investors also await US crude oil inventory data to be announced by the country’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday. Another key signal anticipated is the outcome of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other affiliated producers, known as OPEC+, at Thursday’s meeting, and whether it will reflect investor demand fears in their production quota decision. “The market consensus is that OPEC+ will likely raise production by about 500,000 bpd [barrels per day] for August, which would still be a net positive for oil prices as it doesn’t fully satiate the swiftly growing demand profile over summer, depending on the Delta variant developments, of course,” Dickson said. The UK saw its highest daily number of coronavirus cases since the end of January this year. In Russia, 21,650 coronavirus cases were recorded over the past day, raising the overall count to more than 5.47 million with active cases reaching 369,708 – the highest figure since Jan. 20. Bangladesh recorded a new spike in COVID-19 infections with 8,364 cases, raising fears of a serious crisis in hospital beds if the surge continues.
United Nations/Geneva: The Delta variant of COVID-19, identified in at least 85 countries, is the ‘most transmissible’ of the variants identified so far and is spreading rapidly among unvaccinated populations, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned. “I know that globally there is currently a lot of concern about the Delta variant, and the WHO is concerned about it too,’ Director-General Ghebreyesus said at a WHO press briefing on Friday. The Delta variant was first identified in India. ‘Delta is the most transmissible of the variants identified so far, has been identified in at least 85 countries, and is spreading rapidly among unvaccinated populations,’ he said in Geneva.
He noted with concern that as some countries ease public health and social measures, ‘we are starting to see increases in transmission around the world.
‘More cases means more hospitalisations, further stretching health workers and health systems, which increases the risk of death,’ he said. While pointing out that new COVID-19 variants are expected and will continue to be reported, ‘that’s what viruses do, they evolve – but we can prevent the emergence of variants by preventing transmission.’ In a strong warning, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 Technical Lead at the WHO said the Delta variant is a ‘dangerous” virus and is more transmissible than the Alpha variant, which was itself extremely transmissible across Europe and any country that it entered. ‘The Delta variant is even more transmissible,’ she said, adding that the WHO is seeing trajectories of incidents that are almost ‘vertical” in a number of countries around the world. Many European countries are witnessing a decline in cases but there are a lot of events happening across the region, including large sporting or religious events ‘or even backyard barbecues.’ ‘All of these actions have consequences and the Delta variant is spreading readily among people who are unvaccinated,’ Kerkhove said. While some countries have high percentages of people who are vaccinated, yet the entire population of those nations is not yet vaccinated and many people have not received their second dose or the full course of dose of the COVID-19 vaccines, she said. Kerkhove underlined that COVID-19 vaccines are “incredibly effective’ at preventing severe disease and death, including against the Delta variant. ‘The virus will continue to evolve. And right now our public health and social measures work, our vaccines work,’ the diagnostics work and the therapeutics work. ‘But there may be a time where this virus evolves and these countermeasures don’t. So we need some kind of movement to pull ourselves together to drive transmission down and keep it down,’ she said.
Kerkhove warned that events that are large scale and see huge crowds ‘will have consequences. We are already starting to see some consequences of these events with increasing transmission again. The Delta variant will make that epidemic curve exponential,’ she warned.
She urged people to keep themselves safe and make decisions individually about what they need to do every day. “There’s a lot that all of us want to be doing, but there’s not a lot that we need to be doing right now,’ she said. ‘It’s not for the next couple of months. that we need to be thinking about this. We need to be thinking about it right now, because every single decision that we make, leaders make has consequences, good and bad.” The WHO chief said it’s ‘quite simple’ that more transmission means more variants and less transmission means fewer variants. ‘That makes it even more urgent that we use all the tools at our disposal to prevent transmission: the tailored and consistent use of public health and social measures, in combination with equitable vaccination,’ Ghebreyesus said. He said this is the reason why WHO has been saying for at least a year that vaccines must be distributed equitably, to protect health workers and the most vulnerable. This week, WHO had said that the Delta variant, the significantly more transmissible variant of COVID-19, continues to be detected in new countries around the world. The COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update released on June 22 by WHO said that globally, the variant Alpha has been reported in 170 countries, territories or areas, Beta in 119 countries, Gamma in 71 countries and Delta in 85 countries. ‘Delta, now reported in 85 countries globally, continues to be reported in new countries across all WHO Regions, 11 of which were newly reported in the past two weeks,’ the update said. WHO said the four current Variants of Concern being monitored closely ‘ Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta – are widespread and have been detected in all WHO regions. ‘The Delta variant is significantly more transmissible than Alpha variant, and is expected to become a dominant lineage if current trends continue.’
The growing threat of the delta coronavirus variant in the European Union has prompted a fresh warning from the bloc’s disease prevention agency about the pace of vaccinations and not rushing reopenings. The mutation, first seen in India, is considered even more infectious than the alpha strain, and could hamper efforts to get past the pandemic. It accounts for at least 20% of new cases in Ireland and parts of Germany, while in localized hotspots such as Lisbon, the figure is above 60%. In a threat assessment published Wednesday, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said it’s likely the variant will “circulate extensively during the summer, particularly among younger individuals that are not targeted for vaccination.” Delta has already taken hold in the U.K., and governments across the European Union have said it’s likely to become the dominant strain in their countries. But officials are somewhat in the dark about its current prevalence, given the low rates of genetic analysis in many countries. While the delta variant is increasingly dominant in Europe, that’s happening as overall Covid-19 cases are plunging across most of the continent to the lowest levels since last summer. The risk for Europe is a repeat of the dynamic that played out at the start of the year when lockdown measures had brought down Covid levels until another strain, the alpha variant, spread rapidly. That triggered a fresh wave of infections and another round of restrictions on movement and businesses.
“Modelling scenarios indicate that any relaxation over the summer months of the stringency of non-pharmaceutical measures that were in place in the EU/EEA in early June could lead to a fast and significant increase in daily cases in all age groups, with the highest incidence in those <50 years, with an associated increase in hospitalisations, and deaths, potentially reaching the same levels of the autumn of 2020 if no additional measure are taken.”
–ECDC Threat Assessment, June 23
One big difference now is that vaccination campaigns have kicked up a gear, meaning far more people are at least partially protected. Across the EU, almost 48% have got one shot. But the ECDC said that those who have only received one dose are more vulnerable to delta compared with other variants, and second doses should be administered “within the minimum authorized interval.” Despite being at the center of the delta outbreak, some U.K. figures offer reason for hope. New Covid cases are back at levels last seen in February, but there hasn’t been a corresponding increase in hospitalizations or deaths. While there’s a lag between increases in positive tests and deaths, the figures suggest the U.K. could break the link between the two, and that the situation won’t get as out of control as before. “There are still too many individuals at risk,” said ECDC Director Andrea Ammon. “Until most of the vulnerable individuals are protected, we need to keep the circulation of the delta virus low by strictly adhering to public health measures, which worked for controlling the impact of other variants.” Major stock markets in Europe opened lower on Monday, as the surge in the COVID-19 Delta variant cases in the United Kingdom prompted fears of a more widespread problem. Over the weekend, the UK registered a five-month high in the number of daily cases, as Germany is reportedly trying to push for an outright ban on Britons traveling to the European Union over the summer. Meanwhile, Germany’s import prices increased in May. The DAX traded 0.23% in the red, with Continental AG losing 0.98%. The FTSE 100 opened 0.11% lower, as Standard Life Aberdeen plc was 1.72% down. The CAC 40 dropped 0.16% at the start, led by BNP Paribas falling 0.61%. The euro stood flat against the dollar trading for $1.19394 at 9:03 am CET, while the pound increased 0.34% against the greenback selling for $1.39260 at the same time.