At the moment, Dow futures are down about 800 points on fears of a new COVID variant found in South Africa. “The new variant contains more mutations to the spike protein, the component of the virus that binds to cells, than the highly contagious Delta variant. Because of these mutations, scientists fear it could have increased resistance to vaccines, though WHO said further investigation is needed,” as reported by CNBC.
So far, the variant has been identified in South Africa, Botswana, and Hong Kong. While we hope it won’t spread around the world as the last ones have, there’s a good amount of fear that it could be highly transmissible and vaccine resistant.
At the same time, the fear is driving vaccine stocks to higher highs. In fact, one of the top ones to consider, Pfizer (PFE) is up more than $3 this morning.