AstraZeneca's Covid-19 Vaccine Put On Hold -- September 10, 2020

On September 7, 2020, global oil prices started to crash, and on September 8, 2020, the US stock market tanked. I posted a note asking "why" that particular day, why not a week earlier; or a month earlier; or a week later; or a month later? The very day that global oil prices started to crash there was a little story that got very little attention.

On September 9, 2020, after hearing from readers I posted an update, but did not post the "little story" that I had seen the day before, although I alluded to it. From September 9, 2020:

OPEC basket, link here: $40.29. Holy mackerel. Remains in free-fall. This is simply amazing. I haven't seen anything like this in quite some time. By the way, one has to ask the question (again), why now? Why didn't this happen a month ago; a week ago? This (the drop in the price of oil) happened very suddenly beginning September 1, 2020, but accelerated through the third, and snowballing September 7, the day after it seemed to stabilize. There are three direct reasons to explain the timing with a fourth contributing reason:

• traders were waiting to see how the US driving season would end on Labor Day weekend (preliminary numbers now suggest gasoline demand in the US dropped, after initial projections looked good)
• by September 1, 2020, traders realized that all that hype about Hurricane Laura was just that. Hype. Laura went from "unsurvivable" to "no-impact" in less than a day;
• huge setback in fight against Covid came to light on Monday, September 7, 2020 (yet to post); will affect global demand for crude oil going for forward; although I have trouble accepting this as a huge factor, it was another nail in the coffin, as they say (yet to be posted)
  
• contributing to the OPEC basket meltdown:
• those reports of crude oil tankers off China with up to 40 days wait to off load

For the archives: remember, Monday 7, 2020, was Labor Day, a US holiday. Equity markets were closed, but global oil was still trading, and updates were provided by multiple sources including updates on Twitter.

Ask yourself this: what would the price of oil / the equity markets have done on September 8, 2020, had there been an announcement by Dr Faust that a vaccine would be released on September 9, 2020, a vaccine that approached 100% efficacy and safety; and a vaccine that would close the chapter on Covid-19? Unfortunately we did not get that announcement. Instead, on the day oil prices crashed there was a tweet foreshadowing the story. On the day the equity market crashed we got this story, link here.

AstraZeneca was farthest along with the vaccine, and then that headline. The headline was tweeted on Monday, September 7, 2020, mid-afternoon; the story above was published the next day.

But there was something even worse: one adverse reaction in one participant and ... drum roll ... the study is "put on hold." That's all it took. One adverse reaction in one participant and the study is put on hold.

Does anyone really think we think will have a vaccine universally accepted by "all" Americans before November 1, 2020, as some have suggested? The possibility of such a vaccine wasn't driving the market to "frothy" heights -- but all it took was a single adverse reaction in one participant.

And now, as expected, we will get the "spin":

First reading of this suggests to me: if you have an "underlying medical condition," you may not be a candidate for AstraZeneca's vaccine. Again, what demographic needed this vaccine the most?

Whatever. Time to move on.