COVID-19 Data Update

I will be on vacation from 1/17 to 1/25, a late Christmas vacation

– we will still publish our COVID-19 daily commentary (thanks tireless Ken)
– market commentary will resume 1/26

POINT 1: Daily COVID-19 cases 644,557, down -138,122 vs 7D ago…

Current Trends — COVID-19 cases:

• Daily cases   644,557 vs 782,679 7D ago, down -138,122
• 7D positivity rate  27.9% vs 28.2% 7D ago
• Hospitalized patients   151,481, up +3.1% vs 7D ago
• Daily deaths  1,963,   up 9.6% vs 7D ago

The latest COVID daily cases came in at 644,557, down -138,122 vs. 7D ago. Although some states are still facing case rise, the overall US case trend has rolled over. This is confirmed by the 7D average of 7D delta in daily cases – the decline in 7D delta in daily cases persists and the negative 7D delta confirmed that the daily cases in US are falling now. In fact, NY, NJ, and CT, the first states hit by the Omicron variant, have seen largest decline in daily cases – daily cases in all 3 states have fallen > 50% from their recent Omicron peaks (see our state tracker below).

More importantly, what is happening in NY, NJ and CT is consistent with what we have observed in South Africa and UK, where the case decline was as fast as the case rise. Therefore, as we see case rollover in more US states, the US daily cases could drop dramatically in the next 1-2 weeks. We will be closely watching this progress.

7D delta in daily cases is negative and confirmed by the 7D average…
The 7D average of 7D delta in daily cases finally fell to negative. This is great news as it shows US daily cases are finally falling. As we noted above, we expect the decline in 7D delta to persist – that means the cases will accelerate to the downside (similar to what we have observed in South Africa and UK). Although some states are still facing case rise, the overall US case trend should be in full retreat.

29 states are seeing a rise in cases while 21 states + DC are seeing cases falling or about to roll over…
*** We’ve split the “Parabolic Case Tracker” into 2 tables: one where cases are falling (or about to fall), and the other where cases are rising

In these tables, we’ve included the vaccine penetration, case peak information, and the current case trend for 50 US states + DC. The table for states where cases are declining is sorted by case % off of their recent peak, while the table for states where cases are rising is sorted by the current daily cases to pre-surge daily cases multiple.

• The states with higher ranks are the states that have seen a more significant decline rise in daily cases
• We also calculated the number of days during the recent case surge
• The US as a whole, UK, and Israel are also shown at the top as a reference

Hospitalizations and deaths are rising, while positivity rates seem to roll over now…
Below we show the aggregate number of patients hospitalized due to COVID, daily mortality associated with COVID, and the daily positivity rate for COVID.

• Net hospitalization just made a new all-time high recently. The good news is the daily mortality did not follow the same pattern as hospitalization, which shows Omicron is less deadly compared to other variants (at least so far).
• Positivity rate climbed to nearly 30%, and has plateaued over the past week. But if the positivity rate remains high, it tells us that there might not be enough tests performed.

POINT 2: VACCINE: vaccination pace has been flat… Still more than half of eligible people have not received their booster shots…

Current Trends — Vaccinations:

• avg 1.1 million this past week vs 1.3 million last week
• overall, 25.2% received booster doses, 63.0% fully vaccinated, 75.0% 1-dose+ received

Vaccination frontier update –> all states now near or above 80% combined penetration (vaccines + infections)
*** We’ve updated the total detected infections multiplier from 4.0x to 2.5x. The CDC changed the estimate multiplier because testing has become much better and more prevalent.

Below we sorted the states by the combined penetration (vaccinations + infections). The assumption is that a state with higher combined penetration is likely to be closer to herd immunity, and therefore, less likely to see a parabolic surge in daily cases and deaths. Please note that this “combined penetration” metric can be over 100%, as infected people could also be vaccinated (actually recommended by CDC).

• Currently, all states are near or above 90% combined penetration

• Given the 2.5x multiplier, all states besides MS, WA, OR, TX, ID, MI, MO, and GA are now above 100% combined penetration (vaccines + infections). Again, this metric can be over 100%, as infected people could also be vaccinated. But 100% combined penetration does not mean that the entire population within each state is either infected or vaccinated

There were a total of 1,430,449 doses administered reported on Thursday. Daily number of vaccines administered has been down over the past few days. The daily number of vaccines administered remains the most important metric to track this progress and we will be closely watching the relevant data.

Below we plotted the number of people who are eligible for booster dose and the number of people who received booster dose over time. As you can see, there are still more than half of people who are eligible but yet received their booster dose yet (172 million eligible, 84 million received). Hence, to convince these people to receive their booster dose remains the key.

This is the state by state data below, showing information for individuals with one dose, two doses, and booster dose.

In total, 531 million vaccine doses have been administered across the country. Specifically, 249 million Americans (75% of US population) have received at least 1 dose of the vaccine. 209 million Americans (63% of US population) are fully vaccinated. And 84 million Americans (25% of US population) received their booster shot.

POINT 3: Tracking the seasonality of COVID-19
***We’ve updated the seasonality tracker to show figures from the last 9 months, from this calendar day, in each of the last two years***

As evident by trends in 2020 and 2021, seasonality appears to play an important role in the daily cases, hospitalization, and deaths trends. Therefore, we think there might be a strong argument that COVID-19 is poised to become a seasonal virus.

The possible explanations for the seasonality we observed are:

• Outdoor Temperature: increasing indoor activities in the South vs increasing outdoor activities in the northeast during the Summer
• “Air Conditioning” Season: similar to “outdoor temperature”, more “AC” usage might facilitate the spread of the virus indoors
• Opposite effects hold true in the winter

CASES
It seems as if the main factor contributing to current case trends right now is outdoor temperature. During the Summer, outdoor activities are generally increased in the northern states as the weather becomes nicer. In southern states, on the other hand, it becomes too hot and indoor activities are increased.

As such, northern state cases didn’t spike much during Summer 2020 while southern state cases did. Currently, northern state cases are showing a slight spike, especially when compared to Summer 2020. This could be attributed to the introduction of the more transmissible Delta variant and the lifting of restrictions combined with pent up demand for indoor activities.

Figure: Way forward ➜ What changes after COVID-19
Per Fundstrat

Figure: Fundstrat Portfolio Strategy Summary – Relative to S&P 500
** Performance is calculated since strategy introduction, 1/10/2019