South China Morning Post (May 18)
“A surge in the number of Chinese professionals looking for emigration opportunities in response to China’s strict zero-Covid measures could affect the country’s ambitions to become a science and technology superpower.” The “noticeable spike” in interest in leaving China began after “outbreaks of the Omicron variant emerged in Shanghai” around the end of May.
Tags: Ambitions, China, Emigration, Omicron, Opportunities, Outbreaks, Professionals, Science, Spike, Strict, Superpower, Surge, Technology, Variant, Zero COVID
Wall Street Journal (April 14)
“Events in Hong Kong and Shanghai have demonstrated that a ‘zero Covid’ strategy can look very effective for a long time—until suddenly it isn’t, either because a more infectious variant changes the game or because success itself breeds overconfidence.” Unless the Chinese government moves “quickly to vaccinate and boost its elderly, and start spending much more heavily on hospital capacity, then the human and economic consequences could be disastrous.”
Tags: Boost, China, Consequences, Disastrous, Elderly, Events, Government, Hong Kong, Hospital capacity, Infectious, Overconfidence, Shanghai, Vaccinate, Variant, Zero COVID
Tampa Bay Times (February 9)
The latest Omicron wave “isn’t receding as quickly as hoped” based on the symmetry of past waves. “By now cases should have fallen to fewer than 5,000 cases a day. Instead, Florida’s daily average was nearly 18,000 cases on Sunday…nearly 270 percent higher than expected had the wave been perfectly symmetrical.” Omicron’s lingering success appears linked to “an abundance of mutations that made the variant about 2.7 to 3. 7 times more infectious than the delta variant in vaccinated households.”
Tags: 000 cases, 18, Delta, Expected, Florida, Higher, Infectious, Lingering, Mutations, Omicron, Receding, Symmetry, Variant, Wave, Waves
Atlanta Journal-Constitution (February 1)
“The highly contagious omicron variant has pushed the daily average of U.S. COVID-19 deaths higher than last fall’s delta wave as the nation nears a chilling milestone of 900,000 coronavirus deaths.” Statewide deaths have also been growing, though “it remains unclear if Georgia will surpass the peak that followed the devastating surge of the earlier delta variant.”
Tags: Chilling, Contagious, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Deaths, Delta wave, Devastating, Georgia, Milestone, Omicron, Peak, Surge, Surpass, U.S., Variant
LA Times (January 17)
“The Los Angeles County saw an average of 40 coronavirus deaths a day over the last week, the highest such rate in nearly 10 months, a sign that the prolific Omicron variant may be deadlier than many initially believed.”
Tags: Coronavirus, Deadlier, Deaths, Highest, Los Angeles, Omicron, Prolific, Variant
New York Times (January 16)
China’s zero-tolerance COVID policy has been “highly effective, but the extreme transmissibility of the Omicron variant poses the biggest test yet,” and threatens to disrupt supply chains. “The potential for setbacks comes just as many companies had hoped they were about to see some easing of the bottlenecks that have clogged global supply chains since the pandemic began.”
Tags: Bottlenecks, China, Clogged, Covid, Disrupt, Effective, Omicron, Supply chains, Transmissibility, Variant, Zero tolerance
Wall Street Journal (January 13)
“The U.K. appears to have passed the peak of the latest wave of Covid-19 caused by Omicron, a promising sign that the highly transmissible variant’s impact may be brief, if intense, and fueling optimism that the pandemic may be waning.”
Tags: Brief, COVID-19, Impact, Intense, Omicron, Optimism, Pandemic, Peak, Promising, Transmissible, U.K., Variant, Wave
San Francisco Chronicle (January 10)
“As the omicron variant once again scrambles well-laid plans, possibly killing the return-to-office date altogether,” millions of workers hope they will “never have to work in an office full time again.” The initial response to COVID may have appeared confined to “a niche, tech-world revolution,” but this has “spread to nearly every sort of job where remote work is possible,” close to 50% of the U.S. workforce.
Tags: Covid, Full-time, Office, Omicron, Plans, Remote, Return, Revolution, Scrambles, Tech-world, U.S., Variant, Workers
Bloomberg (January 7)
“This isn’t the way Xi Jinping wanted to start 2022. In Xi’an, China is witnessing its worst Covid outbreak since the virus emerged, and the ancient city has been locked down for two weeks battling the delta variant…. Any nationwide outbreak could raise questions about Covid Zero and its number one supporter: Xi Jinping.
Tags: 2022, China, Covid Zero, Delta, Locked down, Outbreak, Variant, Virus, Xi’an
Wall Street Journal (January 6)
“Investors are bracing themselves for volatility in 2022. Easing supply chain snarls, potential interest rate increases and slowing growth in corporate earnings are all being closely watched. Contributing to the murky picture: a mixed economic recovery, complicated by the fast-moving Omicron variant of Covid-19, which is making it harder for investors to consider whether to readjust portfolios toward value stocks.”
Tags: 2022, COVID-19, Earnings, Growth, Interest rates, Investors, Murky, Omicron, Portfolio, Recovery, Slowing, Snarls, Supply chain, Variant, Volatility
