Hey everyone me kevin here. I know a lot of us are tired about hearing about omicron, but the reality is. It is going to put a severe dent in global gdp in 2022. It could affect supply chains, it could affect a lot of discretionary spending and we could see that household savings rate go right back up and, of course, the potential of a reintroduction of certain types of business stimulus.

Again, we've got to talk about omicron. Let's talk about it, we'll also recap what we've talked about in the past so that way, if you're new here, you get a quick little recap. So, let's get into the news first, so omicron is expected to be dominant in britain, denmark and norway. This month the us is facing a rising cases, but low levels of the variant so far have been detected in individuals.

Remember just the other day the cdc said we were at a three percent uh case rate of omicron. However, listen to this folks abc news. Just reported that, even though there have been almost no clinical omicron infections in florida, waste water samples already show that the new omicron variant is the dominant strain in orlando florida. This is really important because orlando, you might not know, is the home to disney world, which is obviously popular vacation destination, which means we're likely to see omicron very quickly become dominant throughout the rest of the united states.

Omicron represented almost 100 of the coronavirus samples uh collected. That's unbelievable, now, uh those hospitalized tentatively, at least for the time being seem to be coming in with delta, though delta seems to be leading to that rise in hospitalizations. The omicron variant has been detected in at least 40 states since the first case in the united states 17 days ago, on a seven day, average coven 19 hospital admissions are up four percent to 7 800 per day and deaths are up 8 to 1200 per day. Now this is this part: here's going to be a little bit of recap with some of the most important of the data that we've talked about in prior days, along with updates that are most relevant now, so i'm going to try to only in this next section Here, try to keep the most relevant information to what we know specifically about about these various different topics so, for example, t cells.

We know that t cells help our body fight illness. They specifically help prevent severe disease. Well, folks, 70 of our t cells are expected to still respond to omicron. If you have two doses of either the pfizer or the moderna vaccine, the pfizer was the one that's tested and the moderna one is the one that is expected to have a similar response.

However, antibodies folks, this is where we're running into issues with the antibodies. There are indications uh. On 12 9, we got an indication from bloomberg that antibody levels by uh, as studied by bioentech, were at least to a decent level to where antibodies could still help fight. Omicron, but another study was much less positive and after this we find out through yet another study that there's a 40-fold reduction in antibody effectiveness in omicron from the alpha variant for individuals, with a double shot of the vaccine.

So antibodies are really getting hurt hard here and again, that's because of all the mutations to the tip of the spike protein, the t helper cells. They attack the entire spike, but it's the tip that has a substantial amount of mutations over 30 mutations. The antibodies are really failing here. This is helping well.

This is, i should say, compounded by the fact that omicron is four times more transmissible than delta and now we're getting indications that omicron infects 70 times faster than delta. But the variant replicates about 10 times less effectively than original covid. And this is how they're sort of getting to this net net 4x transmissibility. This was really interesting, released by a university of hong kong study on wednesday, and the lead researcher did mention that, although omicron is less severe, it is so infectious that it may lead to a higher volume of severe disease and even death.

And if you think about it to some degree, this makes sense. If every single day you have 50 000 people get covet and it's the delta variant and maybe let's say 10 percent of those individuals are going to the hospital. That's 5 000 individuals going to the hospital right. Well, if every day with omicron, you have 1 million people who are getting omicron and one percent so five times fewer people are going to hospital one percent of going to the hospital - that's 10 000 hospitalizations, that's twice as many as delta, and so that's the concern And you can see in the numbers it's going to create problems right now.

This was revised down, which is scary from 2.4. The previous rate was 2.4 in the united kingdom. Omicron was doubling at a rate of 2.4 days per double it's now down at one and a half in the united kingdom. It is spreading like wildfire.

Now it's worth recapping that the one death boris johnson mentioned uh was a death with omicron and not from omicron. The daily mail from the united kingdom, they indicated that they spoke with this stepson of the individual who died and the stepson said the person who died was in his 70s, who was fit and healthy and never left the house. He was an unvaccinated conspiracy theorist, and this is what the stepson claimed late yesterday and that we did not get this transparency from boris johnson. Now there are still some disease modelers that believe we could usher in the end of the pandemic.

By having omicron, however, there are still questions of like hey sure, but if a lot of people get omicron and we end up getting hurt immunity through omicron, what about long covet and so long covet is still a big question mark? Could people get long coveted from omicron? We just don't know yet, so people are still nervous about catching omicron because of the potential for long coven, which a lot of folks are trying to avoid. There are even younger folks who are like look, i'm not worried about dying, i'm not worried about having to go to the hospital, but i don't want lankova to affect me in my sports or whatever now regarding re-infections early indications per bloomberg suggests. It is much easier to get reinfected with the omicron variant, even if you've already had coven the same study. That indicated this showed clinical results showing that clinical results are coming out say that the omicron variant is demonstrating high rates of not only reinfection but also vaccine.

Breakouts not ideal now, regarding vaccines, if you are double vaccinated, you are more likely to be asymptomatic, especially if you're closer to when you got that shot. Obviously, if it's been six months, your efficacy has declined substantially against delta after six months. Your efficacy goes from, like 85 to 90 percent, down to around 45 to 50 percent, with omicron you're, going down with two shots to as low as 22.5. According to time who broke this story now, the world health organization recommends, if you do get your second dose get the same.

Brand pfizer is conducting clinical clinical vaccine trials for children under five. However, so far two doses was not enough for children under five, so the current trial is including a three dose regimen for children under five. In order to create an immune response in younger children. The vaccine just did not generate enough of an immune response for children under five, and especially under two now the cdc says children exposed to covet can safely return to school for in-person learning as long as they're regularly tested for coven.

Regarding boosters, the last that we had was from reuters that on 1210 we heard boosters could give a 70 to 75 percent protection against symptomic disease, but that you were likely to still potentially get covid uh, but that you would be asymptomatic and a recent columbia university Study from 1216 indicated that omicron is markedly resistant to vaccines and boosters, saying that a third vaccine may not protect against infection or a third booster. Well, your third shot, the booster may not protect imperial college uh of london indicated that having had covid only offers a 19 protection against omicron. Now then, we already know that apple is offering money to some employees for staying home. Jeffries and many funds are working at home.

Pinterest is working at home throughout 2022. Google's uh, you know, threatening to withhold pay from individuals who are unvaccinated and others are delaying returning to the to work. Uh, facebook, uber lyft, other companies. Like this, you know corporate office workers uh, so this this folks, this is going to be a big drag on gross domestic product.

Right now regarding masks, uh a quick. This was just a quick little note here. If two people are masked with surgical masks, you do see about a 92 percent reduction in transmission and i know we all hate masks, but i thought this was interesting. If an uninfected person is masked and somebody is infected and is not masked, you get a 67 reduction in covid, but if the infected person is masked, you get a 75 reduction in kova transmission.

Obviously the n95 mask is providing the valveless one is providing uh. Some of the best protection uh for both both cases here new york really is, is the hot epicenter of all of this right now, uh live nation. Cancellations are up ohio's, also having issues they've activated a thousand national guard individuals to help relieve staffing shortages at health care facilities of the 263 people. 263 000 people tested we're at about eight percent positive in new york, though npr reports we could be as high as 13 positive, with omicron in uh in new york now uh, the johnson and johnson vaccine.

There is an advisory panel for the cdc that mentioned that it prefers the pfizer uh. This was yesterday prefers the pfizer and moderna vaccines over johnson and johnson, and this is after the cdc confirmed that 54 people have developed a rare blood clot condition following the johnson and johnson vaccination all were hospitalized and nine of them died. 36 ended up having to go to the icu, so that is why they unanimously voted to recommend pfizer and moderna over the johnson johnson vaccine. Johnson johnson stock didn't really fall after this news, because the j j vaccine is mostly a non-profit project for them.

The condition is trombosis uh by the way that was uh. That was happening, but anyway uh the death rate for johnson and johnson was still uh. Per 1 million. Doses was 0.57, which is higher than the moderna and pfizer.

There are the myocarditis concerns regarding uh the modern vaccine, especially in younger males. However, none of those have been linked to a death and uh, almost all of them, recovered, naturally without treatment. There were a few more severe cases that took longer for individuals to recover from. We covered that and and cited citations for this in uh in a report just a few days ago now the fda also says uh.

The currently available evidence supports this casual relationship between thrombosis and the johnson vaccine uh. Now it's worth noting that the side effects listed by the cdc do not include uh thrombosis uh anyway. Now i know a lot of people don't like dr fauci, but dr fauci did mention that some rapid home tests uh are apparently not as accurate as the pcr test. Right now, the pcr tests are still the gold standard.

So if you get a negative at-home test, some of the at-home tests are not functioning as well as they should. This is obviously uh not ideal, but that that is seen as an issue at the moment. We do also have some miscellaneous quotes here that are just worth noting uh eric topol, dr eric topal mentions. The concern here really is for a lot of folks is getting long coveted and then there is a professor who argues that a lot of the projections for kovitz trajectory are being overblown to keep people fearful and at home.

But at least at the moment we are noticing mobility decline substantially in the uk and in new york, and we could expect mobility and increased uh work from home to uh to affect gdp and, unfortunately, the stock market, but also obviously people's lives who are getting sick. So uh do your best stay safe and folks. Thank you so much for watching this video. If you found this helpful found any information that is useful, consider sharing the video, and i appreciate your support, as always we'll see in the next one goodbye.