Covid19 never ceases to surprise us as we have found out over the last 22 months. Every time we thought that we were coming nearer to the finishing line, the virus just moves the line further away from us.
The last 36 hours was a madhouse in every asset class as the perfect storm was created. US Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday developed into an opportunity for a long weekend and most markets were thin and illiquid into the year-end holiday season. People were getting ready for Black Friday/Monday sales when the new variant news was unloaded upon all of us.
Suddenly, the world was turned upside down and everyone had to head for the exits. WHO has already given a name to the new B.1.1.529 variant – it is now called the Omicron. Sounds like a new Marvel supervillain to me LOL. It is supposed to be a Greek letter to follow the tradition in the way in which Alpha and Delta were named previously.
What we know so far. It was identified in early Nov in South Africa. Some reports suggested that it mutated in the body of an HIV host. Initial data indicates that it could be more transmissible and hence WHO had elevated it to a more serious Variant of Concern (VOC) in the last 12 hours. A Variant of Interest (VOI) is the less serious term used for any new mutation. The high number of mutations in the spike protein of the variant was also another reason for the alarm.
As of now, there is still no news on how this is affected people who are vaccinated or not. We are only told that it may have a higher RO index but there is no idea of how serious it is on the patient. Hopefully, it could be a milder version even though the transmission rate is high. The comforting thing is that the world is now reacting much faster to new risks and some countries have started to ban flights from the high-risk areas. We have learned this the hard way after the Trump fiasco last year.
Vaccine companies are rushing to do tests on it now to determine if the current shots do provide protection. They are confident that if the vaccines need to be modified to cater to this new variant, it will only take 60 to 90 days.
It was already bad enough that people were warned of a possible winter spike up in positive Covid cases. Now a new mutant is thrown into the mix at the last minute to spice up the chaos. It will be a few more weeks before we get more information about the effects of this new strain.
The markets reacted badly to this news as it was into a long weekend and liquidity was bad. Everything turned red and there was blood on the floor for practically every asset class. Even oil prices fell as the expected economic turnaround might now be in jeopardy. Gold and cryptos were also not spared as every investor tried to get out of positions with this sudden earth-shattering news.
On a personal front, I am likely to take a 2 or 3 weeks break from my weekly blog after today as we head for a real overseas vacation next Thursday. It was decided on a whim after the authorities opened up VTLs (Vaccinated Travel Lanes) in Nov. Within less than a month of the departure date, our group of 6 were able to plan everything from scratch. This was the first time that this is possible for us as most holidays in the old normal usually take months to prepare and we needed to book flights at least 6 months in advance into a peak holiday period.
My wife had suggested South Spain as an ideal spot for this time of the year to visit as it is cooler, unlike where it is too hot in summer. Another 2 close friends said why not and can we join you too? How about asking another couple? Sure, the more the merrier? Then it was 6 of us and we managed to firm up our dates and booked our flights all within a few days. The friends’ adult kid and boyfriend will even join us halfway into the vacation.
We brainstormed about the cities to visit and had an interactive Whatsapp chat group created for ongoing real-time discussions. We will start at Madrid, then head south to Seville before zigzagging to Cordoba, Granada and finally Marbella. On the last leg, we will split off at Malaga and head back to Madrid for our flights back home while the other group continues with their trip extension.
It is a real vacation after a long Covid winter for most of us. We had done our first New Zealand trip in Feb 2020 just before the whole world realized what the virus was about. We were the only kaisu couple wearing masks throughout the flight then. I had my last business trip to Yangon at the end of Feb too and spent the rest of the months since then using Microsoft Teams to do the monthly calls.
Then there was my UK trip in Sep 2020 to accompany my son to Oxford for the start of his 1st school year. Looking back, that was a scary and high-risk venture as we had no idea what would happen to us if we had contacted Covid then. I stayed put in Oxford and refused to go to London for fear of the rising cases there. I basically behaved and lived like a local, spending most of my time jogging and going for long walks alone and cooking my own meals while watching British TV. The tough part was being locked up in a hotel room back in S’pore for my 14 nights quarantine. The scarcity of tests then meant that I could only do one test on day 11 while getting the results a few days later.
Now we know more about the virus and tests are getting more common and easily available (ART and PCR). Vaccines have been discovered and rolled out while we are already into our 3rd booster shot. Oral medications are soon to be implemented. I believe that the fear of the unknown is much less than a year ago. The pandemic will become endemic. Let the vacay begin then!!!
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