Archives of “COVID-19” category

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Coronavirus – London’s hospitals less than 2 weeks from being overwhelmed, even under the “best” case scenario

  
Analysis, COVID-19

Comments from the UK’s National Health Service England London medical director Vin Diwakar set out the stark analysis to the medical directors of London’s hospital trusts on a Zoom call.

  • even if the number of covid patients grew at the lowest rate considered likely, and measures to manage demand and increase capacity, including open the capital’s Nightingale hospital, were successful, the NHS in London would be short of nearly 2,000 general and acute and intensive care beds by 19 January.
Chilling stuff.

EMA recommends Moderna coronavirus vaccine for authorisation in EU

  
Analysis, COVID-19

EMA makes the announcement

  • Approves Moderna coronavirus vaccine
  • Moderna vaccine requires two injections, 28 days apart
This was very much expected given the developments earlier in the week and as they convened for the meeting earlier. Either way, that is added good news (or at least reaffirms the optimism) on the vaccine front to kick start the year.
The question mark though, is whether the EU can go about handling the rollout efficiently.

Germany’s Scholz: Germany can cope with lockdown for a long time

  
Analysis, COVID-19

Remarks by German finance minister, Olaf Scholz

  • Germany likely will have less debt after pandemic than the 2008 financial crisis
  • Debt won’t much exceed 70% of GDP, it will shrink quickly
He’s mostly referring to their capacity to incur further debt amid the need for extended lockdown measures as the country battles to curb the virus spread/deaths.
That said, don’t expect a major change of attitude in their views towards austerity. As soon as the crisis shows any signs of getting better, it will be back to the same old, same old.

UK hits 60,000 daily covid cases for the first time

  
Analysis, COVID-19

UK nearing grim milestone

UK covid
With 66m people in the UK, we could soon be seeing one-in-1000 people being diagnosed with the virus each day.
Today’s record tally of 60,916 cases surpasses yesterday’s record of 58,784.
What especially worries me is that the weekly pattern in the UK is strong and the Mon-Wed period is generally the softest with spikes Thurs-Sat. The holidays could somehow have skewed that but I don’t see a good reason why.

Most countries today have failed, all but ensuring that COVID-19 will remain with us over 2021

  
Analysis, COVID-19

Here’s a piece from Market Watch that is a sobering take on the wishes for a Happy New Year on emergence from the pandemic.

Its from William Haseltine, a past professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health and founder of its Division of Biochemical Pharmacology and Division of Human Retrovirology.
Obviously, his expertise is not in the same league as a failed NY property developer but successful reality TV star, but its worth checking out.
  • Despite its virulence, many simply assume that the pandemic will end sometime in 2021. But such hopes are misplaced. Controlling an epidemic involves four fundamental components: leadership, governance, social solidarity, and a medical tool kit. Most countries today have failed on the first three, all but ensuring that COVID-19 will remain with us over the next year.
Here's a piece from Market Watch that is a sobering take on the wishes for a Happy New Year on emergence from the pandemic. 

UK reports record 58,784 new covid cases vs 55,157 yesterday

  
Analysis, COVID-19

US cases remain high but pace of growth slows

US cases remain high but pace of growth slows
This is another record in UK cases but it’s only marginally higher than two days ago.
Can we take any comfort in the plateauing of cases in the past week? I don’t because there’s usually a weekend effect on Mondays and we’ve got a record anyway. Given all the holiday mingling and lagged effects of symptoms, it’s tough to see any improvement in the near term, even with lockdowns.
At the present case, one in every 1200 people in the UK is being diagnosed positive every day.

Covid-19 second-stage vaccinations to be delayed across UK by up to 3 months

  
Analysis, COVID-19

Guardian with the report on a change of policy on vaccinations in the UK.

  • the NHS will now prioritise administering the first to as many people on the priority list as possible
  • this re the Oxford/Astra Zeneca vaccine or the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines
NHS says its to maximise the number of people protected against the disease. More than 500,000 people who have been vaccinated with the first shot already will have their second dose delayed for up to 12 weeks (was originally expected to be a four-week gap between the 2 shots)

UK approves AstraZeneca/Oxford coronavirus vaccine

  
Analysis, COVID-19

The UK confirms that regulators have approved the use of the AstraZeneca/Oxford coronavirus vaccine

The UK health department has announced that the government has accepted the recommendation by the MHRA to authorise the AstraZeneca/Oxford coronavirus vaccine for use across the UK.

This was very much expected since last week and will just add to some added vaccine optimism as we look towards the new year. That said, the rollout will once again be the key factor under scrutiny once the market gets over the initial hype train.

The full press release can be found here.

Tokyo governor warns of possible ‘explosion’ in coronavirus cases ahead of New Year’s holiday

  
Analysis, COVID-19

Tokyo governor, Yuriko Koike, calls to “emphasise life over fun”

She warns that the virus situation in the Japanese capital is quite severe and could face an ‘explosion’ of cases ahead of the New Year’s holiday starting tomorrow.
The virus situation in Japan remains rather tense as it isn’t showing much signs of abating while slowly continuing to gather pace in terms of worsening:
Japan
There are now more than ~37,000 active cases across the country with roughly 1% reported to be in critical condition.
As for the New Year’s holiday, it is a good time to be reminded that Japanese markets will be closed starting from tomorrow through to next week so that will impact liquidity conditions even more than what we are seeing already in the past few days.
In the bigger picture, the virus situation in Japan is worth keeping an eye out for in case it starts to impact the country’s preparation to host the Olympics next year.

Germany reports deadliest day of the pandemic, with over 1,000 deaths recorded

  
Analysis, COVID-19

Germany reports 1,129 deaths in the latest update today

Germany
That marks the deadliest day of the pandemic for Germany, with another 22,459 new coronavirus cases reported in today’s update. The case count has been lower in the previous days, owing to the holiday period but is seen picking back up again.
Meanwhile, the total death count has now risen to 32,107 persons with there being over ~352,500 active cases across the country.
According to local media, the contagious UK virus strain variant (B1.1.7) has been circulating among the German population since November already.
That in part may explain the virulent surge in infections amid lockdown measures being implemented since then to try and curb the virus spread.
In terms of healthcare capacity, there are 5,649 (+52) virus patients requiring intensive care as of yesterday with 4,728 (18%) intensive care units still available.
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