OMG Omicron

[MightyGiants]

Sure is. Yesterday too. The markets seem to be moving on from omicron. Nobody thinks it's a big deal anymore.

I have to think the big funds and the big investors have long since hired Covid experts (or found ones to consult).  I suspect it's a good sign (in terms of the threat Omicron poses) that the markets are behaving that way.

[DaveBrown74]

I have to think the big funds and the big investors have long since hired Covid experts (or found ones to consult).  I suspect it's a good sign (in terms of the threat Omicron poses) that the markets are behaving that way.

I think that is a very good and very true observation. While it obviously does not confirm anything as fact, you're absolutely correct that sophisticated institutional investors go to great pains and spend considerable resources acquiring all kinds of knowledge and information from true experts in an effort to get an edge. I'm sure they have done exactly that.

So I would agree that the moves we are seeing this week are probably resulting from better informed views than those that drove some of the selling of last week. People have probably done more homework to this point.

[DaveBrown74]

NY state covid hospitalizations up 70% since Thanksgiving.

https://twitter.com/CBSNewYork/status/1470786986801782790

[MightyGiants]

NY state covid hospitalizations up 70% since Thanksgiving.

https://twitter.com/CBSNewYork/status/1470786986801782790

NY State (or at least the areas with spiking cases) has low vaccination rates.

At the end of the day, things are looking pretty grim on the Covid front.  There is little I am seeing that would be a cause for optimism (with the possible exception of the Pfizer covid drug).   At this point, all we can do is get vaccinated, get boosted, and exercise more care in terms of masks and social distancing.   I think we are in for a bumpy ride

[DaveBrown74]

NY State (or at least the areas with spiking cases) has low vaccination rates.

At the end of the day, things are looking pretty grim on the Covid front.  There is little I am seeing that would be a cause for optimism (with the possible exception of the Pfizer covid drug).   At this point, all we can do is get vaccinated, get boosted, and exercise more care in terms of masks and social distancing.   I think we are in for a bumpy ride

I think those who thought covid was "over", at least for those who got vaxed, are surely in for a big disappointment if they haven't been already. It's clearly a lot more complicated than that. However it has not even been two years yet. I think therapeutics will continue to get better over the next couple of years, and eventually this will not be such a life-altering thing as it will be more under control. However I doubt very much that it will just "go away." In the shorter term, hopefully this omicron strain turns out to be as benign as the optimists seem to be saying.

[DaveBrown74]

The transmissibility of omicron is really startling. Obviously we've all seen the data, but just in anecdotal terms it is really noticeable. I keep in close touch with a lot of friends and acquaintances in the UK. They seem to be a few or several weeks ahead of us. I know so many people now who either currently have covid or just very recently got over it. Nobody I know has had a truly life threatening case, but a number of people have told me their experience was pretty rough. The numbers are really incredible though. So many of the people I know who have gotten it recently managed to avoid it up until now by taking precautions and behaving responsibly. Now all of a sudden they have it, and many have told me they weren't in any obvious risky places like theaters, restaurants, bars, etc. Many are also work from home people. It's pretty incredible how easy it is to catch this. The hope of course is that the running narrative that it generally does not cause severe illness holds true, but there is basically zero question that this country will get enveloped by it in the coming several weeks, and you can see into the future by looking at some of these other countries across the pond.

[MightyGiants]

It would appear the markets are being shaken by the bad news from Covid.  I can tell you things are not doing well or going well on the Covid front

[DaveBrown74]

It would appear the markets are being shaken by the bad news from Covid.  I can tell you things are not doing well or going well on the Covid front

No doubt we're in for a challenging multi-month period here, but it feels like a bit of wait and see to me as far as just how bad it will be. If policy makers were severely worried, I think the messaging would be much sterner and there would be far more restrictions. So far, the messaging from Fauci and others in visible positions has basically been "if you're vaccinated, maybe take a test, but enjoy the holidays with your loved ones. If you're not, you better get vaccinated or you could be f---ed."

Looking overseas, some of these countries like South Africa that are much further along in the omicron surge phase have seen relatively benign movement on the total deaths front. The UK seems similar, and that's a much older population than SA. None of this of course proves beyond doubt that omicron is not dangerous, but it is certainly a relatively positive sign. While there may not be actual firm "proof" yet, as everyone knows there is plenty of evidence that omicron is not overly virulent. The question will be whether the case numbers are so high that even a low severity multiple will still result in hospitals overflowing and lots of people dying. I hope that won't be the case, but I don't think the answer to that is known yet.

My family and I have changed our behavior a little bit in light of this. We're avoiding indoor restaurants for now and other crowded venues that we might have found ourselves in at this time of year. Parties have been canceled, etc. We often travel at this time of year but didn't this year and I am glad we didn't. I wouldn't want to deal with planes and airports right now. I'm not particularly terrified of omicron, but my parents and certain other relatives are in their late 70s, and I really want no part of infecting them. As a result we have been a bit more conservative recently, and we'll do rapid tests at home before visiting anyone.

As for the markets, we'll see. A number of tech stocks and some of these other highly speculative stocks have been gutted for the past few weeks. The broader indices (S+P 500 in particular) has been more range-bound. I think the market is pricing in and expecting a big spike in cases but a less disastrous pickup in hospitalizations/deaths and hence no overly draconian restrictions being put into place. If we start seeing lockdowns in places like New York or LA then I think you'll see more pressure on stocks in the coming weeks. If it's just a big case spike but on the whole not a huge number of grave cases overall, then I'm not sure that stocks go too far to the downside myself. In general though I'm more cautious on stocks these days than I was for basically all of this year and trimmed holdings over the past month or so. I am still long the market, but I want to be better positioned than I was before to buy into a much deeper dip (10-15%) if we get one. I think 2022 will be much choppier than 2021.

[MightyGiants]

I found this article to be worth the read.

https://www.science.org/content/article/early-lab-studies-hint-omicron-may-be-milder-most-scientists-reserve-judgment

[DaveBrown74]

I found this article to be worth the read.

https://www.science.org/content/article/early-lab-studies-hint-omicron-may-be-milder-most-scientists-reserve-judgment

Thanks for this article.

I agree that we would "do well to be careful" with this variant, however the government, so far at least, is basically telling you that if you've been vaxed and boosted you can more or less proceed with life as normal. They're advising testing before family gatherings, but that was probably prudent to do before this thing came around, and I'm pretty sure that would have been the advice from people like Fauci anyway (even with no omicron). So far we have not seen any sort of very stern warnings or restrictions from policy makers outside of to those who are unvaxed. So when you read or hear that you should "be careful", that sounds like good advice, but the government isn't really telling people to do that yet as long as you've been vaxed/boosted. People are still being allowed to go to indoor restaurants and bars and to pack into crowded theaters to watch Spider Man this weekend. There does not seem to be any serious effort at this stage by the government to slow the spread of omicron other than to basically tell non-vaxers that they're all going to die. 

[DaveBrown74]

Scientific studies now are more or less affirming the already widely believed narrative that omicron is significantly less deadly than delta. Here is one of several articles. The study is showing the hospital risk is two-thirds below delta, and that is derived from a sample of millions of people.

The anecdotal data also clearly supports the view that this strain is significantly less severe than the others.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-booster-offers-substantial-protection-against-symptomatic-infection-with-omicron-study-finds-11640191103

I would say the narrative that "we still don't really know yet" is dying pretty quickly, if it's not dead already. While caution is obviously always prudent in general, if you're boosted and not in a high risk group, it seems like overkill at this point to dramatically alter your life based on this strain.

The main thing I'm focusing on now is taking extra care to minimized (if not all but eliminate) the chance of infecting my elderly parents or other elderly relatives during this period. Testing is key for that.

The markets seem to be cheering these studies, which is understandable.

[MightyGiants]

Scientific studies now are more or less affirming the already widely believed narrative that omicron is significantly less deadly than delta. Here is one of several articles. The study is showing the hospital risk is two-thirds below delta, and that is derived from a sample of millions of people.

The anecdotal data also clearly supports the view that this strain is significantly less severe than the others.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-booster-offers-substantial-protection-against-symptomatic-infection-with-omicron-study-finds-11640191103

I would say the narrative that "we still don't really know yet" is dying pretty quickly, if it's not dead already. While caution is obviously always prudent in general, if you're boosted and not in a high risk group, it seems like overkill at this point to dramatically alter your life based on this strain.

The main thing I'm focusing on now is taking extra care to minimized (if not all but eliminate) the chance of infecting my elderly parents or other elderly relatives during this period. Testing is key for that.

The markets seem to be cheering these studies, which is understandable.

DB,

I am cautiously optimistic, but I feel you are jumping the gun.   You are looking at non-peer-reviewed studies which should always be taken with a grain of salt.   You also need to be cautious drawing conclusions from South Africa as their population is significantly younger than our own.

I would also caution against your throw caution to the wind strategy.   Until we are sure of what this new variant is and isn't it wouldn't be wise to ignore what the public health and medical experts are advising.   When you are dealing with people's health and lives the thresholds for gambling are quite high.

[DaveBrown74]

DB,

I am cautiously optimistic, but I feel you are jumping the gun.   You are looking at non-peer-reviewed studies which should always be taken with a grain of salt.   You also need to be cautious drawing conclusions from South Africa as their population is significantly younger than our own.

I would also caution against your throw caution to the wind strategy.   Until we are sure of what this new variant is and isn't it wouldn't be wise to ignore what the public health and medical experts are advising.   When you are dealing with people's health and lives the thresholds for gambling are quite high.

I don't have a throw caution to the wind strategy at all though. My family and I are testing frequently and not partaking in foolish, pointless risks. With that said, we're not completely locking down and completely isolating ourselves from society either. For example, my teenage daughter goes to school in person and as of now there are no plans for that to change. We also plan to see relatives, all of whom, like us, are vaxed/boosted/tested, during the holidays. If that's "throw caution to the wind" we can agree to disagree.

None of my family have gotten covid to this point, and we certainly don't want to. I think we have been way more responsible than average since the start of this. I also think I'm very much following the current advice of the government, which is to be boosted but to still enjoy the holidays with loved ones, as long as you verify your negative reading through PCR tests, which we are doing. I don't think we're being cavalier at all. We have no large gatherings planned, for example. I just don't see the need to be quite as excessively cautious the way we were during waves before we were vaxed. This stance is very much in line with government guidance.

South Africa has a young population (27 median age) but Scotland is in fact quite old (42). So I don't think these studies can be easily dismissed with the age argument.

Look, I'm not suggesting that we won't see hospitals become stretched or that this is a non-event. If you're not vaxed, it's a whole different ballgame. I'm just simply pointing to the evidence, which seems to be that it is not excessively dangerous for fully vaxed people who aren't in a highly vulnerable category. Hence, I don't think there is any call for fully vaxed people to live in a current state of sheer terror and panic right now, as one might have reasonably done a year ago.

[MightyGiants]

You know I looked into the Scotland study that the WSJ characterized as looking at the medical records of "millions of people"


The study in Scotland has been tracking coronavirus and the number of people ending up in hospital.

It said that if Omicron behaved the same as Delta, they would expect around 47 people to have been admitted to hospital already. At the moment there are only 15.

The researchers said they were seeing a roughly two-thirds reduction in the number needing hospital care, but there were very few cases and few at-risk elderly people in the study.


https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59758784


I am not sure I would say the WSJ was honest and accurate in their characterization of the study (I have seen other reports in my research that match what I just posted)


Still, I don't think we are far apart in things.  You are behaving in a cautious manner so I don't think there is a disagreement.   I just think your comment about "reasons for caution are dying" is getting ahead of yourself (the public health and medical officials are still warning against that).

Plus, the biggest risk at this point is medical facilities becoming overwhelmed and people dying as a result.   Say that this new strain has a 50% less chance of putting people in the hospital.  If it infects twice as many people (or worse more) that 50% will be meaningless in terms of overwhelming our medical systems.

[DaveBrown74]

Still, I don't think we are far apart in things.  You are behaving in a cautious manner so I don't think there is a disagreement.   I just think your comment about "reasons for caution are dying" is getting ahead of yourself (the public health and medical officials are still warning against that).

I'm not looking to harp on semantics too much here, because I agree we're not far apart, but to be clear I didn't say (or mean) that the reasons for caution are dying. My point was more that the narrative that we "still don't know what this is" is dying. I said caution in general is always worthwhile, and I certainly feel I/we are being cautious. I just meant that there is probably little cause for dramatic life alterations for the fully vaxed like going into strict lockdown mode or never seeing family and close friends. I wasn't suggesting people throw caution to the wind and take absolutely no precautions.

Plus, the biggest risk at this point is medical facilities becoming overwhelmed and people dying as a result.   Say that this new strain has a 50% less chance of putting people in the hospital.  If it infects twice as many people (or worse more) that 50% will be meaningless in terms of overwhelming our medical systems.

Completely get it and agree with this, but that is a separate discussion from the topic we are on. That is absolutely a good reason to remain concerned about this overall, but the overwhelmingly vast majority of that problem will be driven by non-vaxers. They are the ones who are going to overflow the ICU units with bad omicron cases. Sadly, while I wish a much greater segment of society would get vaxed than they have to this point, that doesn't really impact whether or not my fully vaxed and negatively testing family members and I should see each other this Christmas in moderately sized groups. It's a separate issue. That's a reason to be encouraging (begging, even) more people to get vaxed, but not really a reason to impose or even strongly recommend overly draconian restrictions on fully vaxed and boosted people who are behaving reasonably.