The perception of vaccine effectiveness has been influenced by Israel's experiences since early 2021.
There has been three faces already in 2021...
A) Hope, B) Doubts, C) Fresh Hope
A) In the first half of year, Israel's success in getting cases down to VERY low levels (combined with full reopening) created global optimism that 'normalization' was around the corner in many parts of the world.
B) But then we had a fresh spike in cases as delta emerged, and lots of coverage of break-through cases (=doubt about vaccine effectiveness)
C) And now, we have another phase, booster shots have been delivered to a significant part of the population, and vaccine effectiveness is picking up again (and this will presumably help case dynamics soon)
With delta, the outlook is more complex than appeared in early 2021 when Israel achieved early success around its vaccine roll-out. But perceptions about vaccine effectiveness continues to be shaped by Israel's experiences, good and bad. END.
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Here is a thread about getting involved with NFTs...
It is not about whether NFTs are inherently valuable (it seems like an unresolved philosophical question). But simply about observing the process for the first time, and the FEES, which can be rather wild!
here we go...
It is hard to have an opinion about a new market / asset until you have actually been directly involved in some form...
...I bought my first Bitcoin many years ago, to experience the process. And I did the same with ETH too, quite a few years back. It was pretty simple, although the identification process involved a bit of a lag on some platforms at the time.
Here is our 'prediction model' from today. It mean to pull information together from many many different instruments and map them into a simple signal for the S&P500 based on historical correlations
It is an information aggregator, not a prediction tool
Here is our FX summary. It is meant to give a clear, objective daily overview, in vol adjusted space, so you can get a feel for global action in 5 seconds (rather than spending 5 minutes on it)
For wealthy countries with progressed (but not complete) vaccine roll-outs, it is time for governments to think fresh.
The main remaining challenge is that young cohorts are not yet vaccinated, and not as afraid of COVID as the older more vulnerable cohorts.
What to do???
Given that the young can give the virus to the old and start new waves, governments have a strong reason to push vaccinations hard for all ages, to avoid future hospital pressure (and avoid long-covid issues), and to avoid economic damage from fresh lockdown steps.
The economic cost (alone) of lockdowns is so dramatic that it is a good investment to offer incentives, even if they do cost something.
Seigniorage is just one aspect. But a dimension that is easy to quantify. El Salvador derives no government income from 'money printing'. Most other countries, with their own independent currency, do.
This is relevant to the 'who is next' q, and will likely exclude a long list.
"normal' countries, with their own currency, can generate government revenue from their 'money printing activities'. El Salvador had to move to a dollarized system years ago, and is therefore not comparable to those with independent monetary policy.
Tomorrow, was supposed to be the day of final reopening in the UK. But the delta variant has made policy makers more cautious, and there is now an expectation of a delay.
What is the data saying? How bad is it?
In the global picture, the UK stands out as the only European country with significant case growth.
Cases levels are still far from peak, but we have seen 2-3 weeks of >50% week-on-week growth now.
And levels are now 300% of what they were 3-4 weeks ago
Still, hospitalizations are growing more modestly. Focussing on England, they are up 50% over the last 3-4 weeks, and still at very moderate levels compared to past waves.