DB: Is The World Learning To Live With The Virus?

After a day of zigzags on the virus front, we end with some encouraging observations from Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid who shows in his “chart of the day” that according to global mobility data, most of the world is back close to pre-pandemic levels of mobility (at least on a population-weighted basis) even if the GDP-weighted figure still lags, partly due to some of the larger DM economies still being down vs. February 2019.

Regardless, as Reid observes, the graph shows that “on both measures mobility is notably above last year’s levels. This helps show why reasonably strong YoY growth shouldn’t be too difficult to attain in H1 2022. In H1 2021, the world wasn’t that mobile.”

This is good news because it means that – at least so far- as the winter covid wave and Omicron hit us, aggregate mobility hasn’t yet dipped. This, according to Reid, shows that either people are learning to live with the virus more or that it’s too early to tell as travel and domestic restrictions, only very recently imposed, have yet to fully take their toll, with more possibly to come.

To be sure, Austrian mobility has declined significantly with Germany also drifting lower. So where restrictions have been imposed there has been a consequence.

A more detailed heatmap of global mobility is shown below.

To be sure, the swing factor to winter mobility will be Omicron. For those readers looking for good news, the second chart from Reid shows that in South Africa covid fatalities from the Omicron wave have not responded to the rise in cases in the same manner as prior ones (with a 12-day lag).

While it is still very early days with the data subject to revisions, Reid notes that “we are getting more and more (albeit patchy) evidence that the new variant is less severe. So much now depends on how more transmissible it is, especially in heavily-vaccinated populations.” Reid says that he leans on the optimistic side here “but it seems the number of Omicron cases are building fast enough that we should get some decent data very soon on how its impacting well-vaccinated countries.”