Why we believe that you need to be a medium-term market timer, to do well in all markets. A lesson from history http://puzzlefinancialadvice.com.au/2021/Core/Static_Asset_Allocation_long_term_buy_and_hold_strategies_often_fail_Why_is_that_210202.pdf
Puzzle Financial Advice
Jeremy Grantham 27/2/2012 "Believe in history. History repeats. All bubbles break. Be patient and focus on the long-term. Wait for the good cards."
Puzzle Financial Advice is NO LONGER providing personal financial advice
COVID variants
Variants of concern. Summary from the US Centre for Disease Control.
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https://covariants.org/per-country ** Variants mix chart by country. Very useful.
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https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/transmission/variant.html **
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https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions **
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https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/variant-surveillance/variant-info.html#Concern ** This web page also shows which variants of concern have which important mutations
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https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#global-variant-report-map ** World map - which variant where
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https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/transmission/variant-cases.html ** US map - which variant where
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https://outbreak.info/location-reports?loc=USA&selected=B.1.1.7&selected=B.1.617.2 Lineage (variant) prevalence in United States
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Translate greek symbol variant names to variant number https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2-variants/
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Alpha B.1.1.7 UK variant
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Beta B.1.351 South African variant
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Gamma P.1 Brazilian variant
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Delta B.1.617.2 Indian variant - more dangerous
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Kappa B.1.617.1 Indian variant seemingly not as bad as B.1.617.2
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Indian Delta Variant - the rising dominant variant 24/May/21
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
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"Current COVID vaccines could be ineffective by next year: epidemiologists"
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https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/current-covid-vaccines-could-be-ineffective-by-nex 31March2021
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"Two-thirds of epidemiologists who took part in a recent global survey have predicted it will be less than a year before SARS-CoV-2 mutates to such an extent that the majority of first generation COVID vaccines are rendered ineffective and new or modified candidates are required."
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"Variants of concern have already emerged in South Africa, the US, India and Brazil, and Yale University’s Associate Professor Gregg Gonsalves said the fact that millions of people around the world are still contracting the disease means new mutations will arise every day."
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‘There is some concern that the AstraZeneca vaccine shows much less protection against the South African strain [B.1.351], but it was quite a small study that did not examine whether there was still protection against severe disease.'
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"What are the Indian, Brazil, South Africa and UK variants?" 24/Apr/21
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https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55659820
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"These strains of Covid-19 may be more contagious and dodge immunity to some extent.
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The UK or Kent variant (also known as B.1.1.7) now dominant in much of Britain, has spread to more than 50 countries and appears to be mutating again
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The South Africa variant (B.1.351) has found in at least 20 other countries, including the UK
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The Brazil variant (also known as P.1) has now been found in the UK
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The Indian variant B.1.617 has some potentially important mutations (E484Q, L452R and P681R) that might help it escape some immunity, which is why experts are urgently studying it."
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The title of the L452R paper , is "Transmission, infectivity, and antibody neutralization of an emerging SARS-CoV-2 variant in California carrying a L452R spike protein mutation"
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"We identified a novel SARS-CoV-2 variant by viral whole-genome sequencing of 2,172 nasal/nasopharyngeal swab samples from 44 counties in California. Named B.1.427/B.1.429 to denote its 2 lineages, the variant emerged around May 2020 and increased from 0% to >50% of sequenced cases from September 1, 2020 to January 29, 2021"
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Anne de Gheest's 30/Apr/21 Epidemiological update spends some time on the Indian variant. http://puzzlefinancialadvice.com.au/2021/COVID/Anne_de_Gheest_Epidemiological_COVID_update_210430.pdf I don't think we really know how dangerous the Indian variant is just yet at this time 4/May/21. (not enough research on it yet) Clearly Ann de Gheest is worried about it..... worried about the Indian variant getting into the USA. And Anne does point out that this variant has over 2 months, become dominant in India. (7min6sec into that video update).
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More about the Indian delta variant here
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"With Rise In Variants, Scientists Warn Of Evolutionary Arms Race Between Virus And Vaccines" 14/Apr/21
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The original coronavirus is being overtaken in Massachusetts by newer and more infectious variants. The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard regularly sequences the genomes of coronaviruses taken from COVID-19 patients and, lately, the analyses have been showing more of these variants than the original or "wild-type" strain, which contains no major mutations.
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“In the past few weeks and as of last night in particular, we are seeing over 50% of the cases we are sequencing at the Broad being variants of concern,” Bronwyn MacInnis, a genomicist at the Broad Institute, said at a state legislative hearing on Tuesday. “A large proportion of those being the B.1.1.7 variant first identified in the U.K., but also P.1, the variant first identified in Brazil.”
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Barouch mentioned several concerning variants including the P.1 strain first identified in Brazil and domestic mutations that have emerged in California and New York, noting these variants “also have the property of being able to partially evade antibodies, and therefore raise the specter as to whether they may reduce vaccine efficacy.”
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Scientists point to the rapid spread of these variants in their countries of origin and around the world as one line of evidence that they’re more infectious than the original coronavirus strain. In Brazil, the P.1 variant quickly became dominant in the country and surged into nearby nations. In the United Kingdom, the prevalence of B.1.1.7 rapidly overtook other coronavirus variants in multiple parts of the country.
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Which variant has most immune evasion properties?
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Eric Topol's summary. 25/Apr/21
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https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1386014651180146690
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"An approximation of ascending immune evasion properties, with B.1.351 the highest that has been documented through multiple studies. And vaccine responsive. Antibodies to B.1.351 cross-react with other variants."
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Eric Topol's summary of results of testing of vaccines vs variants. 25/Apr/21 ->
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https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1386012416895447041
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"My table to summarize the evidence Many publications and preprint are in prior posts Overall the lab studies of sera from vaccinees have correlated closely with clinical results"
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7/May/2021 https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1390707410407358464
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"Although B.1.617.2 (Indian variant) looked OK for some vaccine protection (below) a new UK report today shows it has high transmissibility, at least as high B.1.1.7 (which is the highest to date - UK variant) and has been upgraded to a variant of concern"

Below, from Anne de Gheest's 30/Apr/21 COVID Epidemiological update, you can see how fast this new Indian variant became dominant in India - even out-competing the UK variant B.1.1.7 which is also in India. That is a very bad sign, suggesting (to me at least) perhaps that this Indian might rapidly become the globally dominant variant

15/May/25 Variants in the USA & UK https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1392524120122748933
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"Keep your eyes on these 2 variants in these 2 countries B.1.617.2 (India) in UK; P.1 (Brazil) in US"


On the Australian chart, the light green variant showing up at the bottom is variant: 20A/S:154K which is also better known as B.1.617.1
You can find the mapping of COVID variant names here
https://covariants.org/variants/20A.S.154K
The dark pink section above B.1.617.2 is the Brazilian variant P.1
Much of this Aussie data will be from sequencing of infections in hotel quarantine
3/June/21 Mix of variants in California. The 3 to watch are Indian variant (pink), UK variant (blue), Brazilian variant (light blue)

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1402384202805374978 9/June/21
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Among the major variants of concern (not including delta) beta (B.1.351) clearly has the most immune escape, due to RBD and NTD mutations, and acquired the ability to use other species ACE2 for cell entry/infection
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https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(21)00247-8

The following is a very important article.
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https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1407013310432571394 22/6/21
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Has #SARSCoV2 reached peak fitness? Will its further evolution provide resistance to our vaccines? @RobertoBurioni and I explore this issue in a new @NatureMedicine essay
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The following 16/June/21 article is a very useful summary of how effective each vaccine is against each major variant (except the Brazilian variant Gamma). I commend this article to you.
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1407526454594703361 23/June/21
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All covid vaccines are not created equal, especially when it comes to reducing infections and transmission. Notably, the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines have shown effectiveness issues in multiple countries. Published data are quite limited.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM5dpZsjM1c Anne de Gheest COVID Epidemiology Update. 25/June/21
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South America is dominated by the Gamma Variant - previously known as the Brazilian P.1 variant. In South America, they have mainly been relying on the Chinese vaccines.
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At the 2min45sec point in this presentation Anne says that in Argentina, neither Sputnik nor Sinopharm nor AstraZeneca has proved to be a effective against the Gamma variant. This is the first time I have heard an authoritative assessment of that. I had expected that this might be the case because:
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AstraZeneca is not effective against the Beta variant because of immunity-evasion mutation E484K. Also see Mutations.
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And Gamma variant also carries the E484K mutation.
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Anne de Gheest's latest COVID clinical update 25/June/21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77skcFyRWXE
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The latest vaccine vs variants matrix
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Also the very dangerous Gamma (P.1) variant from Brazil is growing in the USA
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A useful summary of comparative transmissibility by variant provided below.
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New variants emerging including mutant variant of Delta.




New variant cousin (AY.3) of delta (B.1.617.2) rapidly replacing B.1.617.2 in USA. Must have advantages vs B1.617.2
This is really interesting https://outbreak.info/location-reports?loc=USA&selected=B.1.1.7&selected=B.1.617.2&selected=P.1
This chart is indicating that in the USA, variant AY.3 seems like it is well on the way to replacing the delta COVID variant.
What is AY.3 ? https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/variant-info.html It appears that AY.3 is a variant derived from delta. Delta Plus is also known as AY.1. Looks like WHO is classifying AY.3 still as part of the delta family. https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2-variants/
This web page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS-CoV-2_Delta_variant perhaps gives us a little extra information. I think it is saying that AY.3 is a close relative of Delta Plus. My guess is that, noting the rapid rise of AY.3 in the USA, rapidly replacing (it seems) B.1.617.2 (the primary delta variant), it won't be long before AY.3 has its own name - and will be famous. :) :) '
"Delta plus" variant See also: Variants of SARS-CoV-2 § Delta (lineage B.1.617.2) Delta with K417N corresponds to lineages AY.1 and AY.2[40] and has been nicknamed "Delta plus" or "Nepal variant". It has the K417N mutation[41] which is also present in the Beta variant.[42] The exchange at position 417 is a lysine-to-asparagine substitution.[43] As of 15 July 2021, the AY.3 variant accounted for approximately 21% of cases in the United States.[44]'
In summary, that chart (see below) is pretty interesting - and for me, pretty alarming ... because it says to me that delta now has a nastier cousin coming to visit us real soon .... It would be interesting to know which member of the delta family is causing all this current lockdown in NSW (at July 2021)
