Markets rise, Omicron to push health systems “to the brink”

Markets rose on Tuesday.

The S&P 500 jumped 1.8 percent, the STOXX Europe 600 rose 1.4 percent and the Nikkei 225 surged 2.1 percent.

“The market seems to be reacting to a short-term oversold position,” said Timothy Lesko, principal at Granite Investment Advisors. “If omicron-induced illness remains mild, which seems to be of some debate, we could see a rally.”

Mark Hackett, Nationwide’s chief of investment research, said that “increased volatility and thinner trading volumes could cause the market to overreact, which could be a buying opportunity in the run-up to Christmas”.

Meanwhile, though, the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus continues to be a threat to the world.

Data published on Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the Omicron variant is now the dominant COVID-19 strain in the US, representing 73 percent of sequenced cases.

In Europe, Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization's top official in the continent, warned that Omicron will dominate in more countries of the region, “pushing already stretched health systems further to the brink”.

And while leaders have pushed the people in their countries to get vaccinated against COVID-19, a report in the New York Times said that research so far suggests that the vaccines used in most of the world offer almost no defense against becoming infected by the Omicron variant.

“[O]nly the Pfizer and Moderna shots, when reinforced by a booster, appear to have initial success at stopping infections, and these vaccines are unavailable in most of the world,” the report said.

“The other shots — including those from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and vaccines manufactured in China and Russia — do little to nothing to stop the spread of Omicron, early research shows.”