COVID-19 Vaccine Update – AstraZeneca/Oxford Uni Vaccine Approval Imminent

The Latest

Over the weekend, news hit the wires that the UK will begin to roll out the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine from Monday. With access to both the BioNTech/Pfizer Inc. and AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccines, the UK government intends to vaccinate 2 million people within the next 2-weeks.

The news, published by the Telegraph, also stated that India also plans to approve the vaccine by next week.

In the UK, a total of 616,933 people reportedly received the vaccine between 8^th and 20^th December. The government has ordered 40 million doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer Inc. vaccine and 100 million AstraZeneca doses.

The news hit the wires following the Malaysian government’s increased order. Last week the Malaysian government announced that it placed a 6.4m dose order with AstraZeneca. In addition, the Malaysian government was also negotiating with both China and Russia to obtain further doses.

Malaysia is currently battling a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The identification of more virulent strains of the virus has led to governments ramping up vaccination orders.

Combined with a 12.8m dose order from BioNTech/Pfizer Inc., the government has secured enough doses to vaccinate 40% of the Malaysian population.

The Malaysian government expects to have sufficient doses to vaccinate 83% of the population once vaccine orders have been placed with China and Russia.

What’s next?

As governments ramp up vaccine doses, expectations are for economies to begin reopening once the “most-at-risk” have been vaccinated.

Across the EU, the UK, and the U.S this could happen before the end of January. Timelines remain key to forecasting any economic recovery.

The markets will be anticipating combined fiscal and monetary policy measures to kick start economic recoveries.

Some nations will lag the developed nations, however. Poorer nations will have less access to COVID-19 vaccines, while other nations were late in placing orders.

We can therefore expect some economic divergence that will not only impact the bourses but also the respective currencies.

The game-changer, from a vaccine perspective, remains a single-dose vaccine. To date, Johnson & Johnson is out in front in the running to deliver a single-dose vaccine. Clinical trial results are expected to be available by the end of January. If the vaccine proves to be effective and safe, Johnson & Johnson would then submit a EUA to the FDA in February. Submissions to other health regulators would be made in parallel, according to the Johnson & Johnson website.

The Latest COVID-19 Numbers

At the time of writing, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases stood at 80,728,962. The total number of U.S cases has risen to 19,433,847, with the total number of related deaths rising to 339,921.

Behind the U.S, India saw the total number of cases rise to 10,188,392, with Brazil reporting 7,465,806 cases in total.

For France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, the total number of cases stood at 8,102,402, with 214,174 related deaths.

Across the United Kingdom, the total number of cases stood at 2,256,005, with 70,405 related deaths.