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One of the first groups of people scheduled to receive Covid vaccinations are residents of nursing homes.
Good idea, right? After all, they are likely the most vulnerable among us.
From a science viewpoint, I think it makes sense. But from a broader perspective, some doctors are having second thoughts.
And all because of the strong and growing anti-vax movement in our country and around the world.
It is almost certain that a few frail residents of nursing homes will die after receiving Covid vaccinations. The danger is that those deaths will be misread by a segment of the population as caused by the vaccine.
Bob Wachter is the head of the department of medicine at the University of California in San Francisco. He crunched the numbers on the normal course of illnesses and deaths expected in a group of 10 million Americans over the course of two months.
He gave the Financial Times the numbers: about 4,000 will have a heart attack; another 4,000 will have a stroke; about 9,500 will be newly diagnosed with cancer; 60 will be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis; and 14,000 will die of various causes.
How many of these normal occurrences will be blamed on the vaccines by people opposed to vaccines?
I suspect a lot of them. That will lower the number of Americans getting Covid vaccinations.
This will make reaching herd immunity via vaccines much more difficult to achieve. And it may mean the virus will linger as a problem longer than expected by Wall Street,
The Big News
Another Stimulus Effort
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has proposed a $916 billion Covid relief package. That’s about the same size as the bipartisan attempt at a package. The main difference is that the Administration offer has a direct $600 check to be sent to Americans instead of increased unemployment benefits.
Biden Covid News
President-elect Biden pledged to get “at least 100 million Covid vaccine shots into the arms of the American people” during the first 100 days of his presidency. He also said he would make mask-wearing mandatory on planes and buses that cross state lines. The same will apply at federal buildings nationwide.
DoorDash IPO
DoorDash priced its IPO above expectations. This caps a dramatic rise for the meal delivery company whose business has flourished during the pandemic. The company sold shares to investors at a price of $102, exceeding its price range of $90 to $95. At the new higher price, DoorDash is raising almost $3.4 billion in proceeds. It will have a market capitalization of $32.4 billion.
Covid Short Notes
- More than a third of Americans live in areas where hospitals are running critically short of ICU beds.
- The football game between the University of Michigan and Ohio State University has been cancelled. The two rivals have played each other every year since 1918.
The Coronavirus Numbers
Here are the numbers from Wednesday at 8 a.m. ET from Johns Hopkins University:
- 68,367,895 Infected Worldwide
- 1,559,873 Deaths
- 15,173,851 Infected in the U.S.
- 286,338 Deaths in the U.S.
Wall Street Bets $307 Million on This EV Stock
+$307 million. That’s how much Wall Street plans to invest in this new EV battery stock. Hedge funds. Pension funds. Silicon Valley billionaires. Even trillion-dollar sovereign wealth funds from the Middle East. Go here for urgent details.
What’s Next
A positive session on Wall Street set the tone for firmer stock markets overseas. The positive tone came despite lawmakers still struggling to agree on fiscal stimulus.
The Dow Jones rallied over 100 points, or 0.4%, to close at 30,173.88. It achieved a record intraday high of 30,246.22. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% to 3,702.25 to close above 3,700 for the first time ever.
And no surprise here – Tesla shares rose again despite announcing another $5 billion share sale. More cash for capital expenditure is viewed as a positive by Wall Street despite the share dilution.
Besides Tesla, there will be excitement the next two days as two hot IPOs come to market, DoorDash and Airbnb. Both companies have been greatly affected by the pandemic . . . DoorDash positively and Airbnb negatively.
One quick final note on cryptocurrencies and how they have prospered during the pandemic . . .
Institutional investors pumped $429 million into cryptocurrency funds and products for the week ended Dec. 7. This was the second highest week on record, pushing the sector’s assets under management to an all-time peak of $15 billion. At the end of 2019, assets were only $2.57 billion.
Meanwhile, a top Tesla engineer just QUIT . . . and is now creating a brand new EV battery. Go here to grab Pre-IPO shares of this new EV stock.
Yours in Health & Wealth,
Tony Daltorio