The Competition and Markets Authority is exploring what “immediate action” the government can take to tackle the huge variation in prices being charged by private PCR firms for Covid travel tests amid a growing backlash from the travel industry.
The UK economy rebounded sharply in Q2, with GDP growing by 4.8%. From next week the government said fully vaccinated people in England would no longer need to quarantine after coming into contact with an individual who has tested positive for Covid.
In the US president Joe Biden’s $1trn infrastructure plan got the green light from the senate, as inflation held steady at its 13-year high of 5.4%.
See below for a summary of the key events and click through the slides above to find out what investment managers think this means for portfolios.
Monday 9 August
-Research from life science analytics company Airfinity shows the UK is on track to “hoard” up to 210 million spare Covid vaccines by the end of the year
-Hargreaves Lansdown warns the pandemic-driven retail trading boom is likely to fizzle after reporting a record 233,000 new clients and £8.7bn in assets over the first six months of 2021
-Recruitment company PageGroup swings back into the black, posting a £63.7m profit, after demand for workers in tech, healthcare, life science and logistics surges in H1
-Vaccine hesitancy among young people in the UK drops from 9% to 5% for 18- to 21-year-olds and 10% to 9% among 22- to 25-year-olds, according to stats from the Office for National Statistics (ONS)
-Tokyo reports 2,884 new Covid cases the day after the 2020 Olympics ends
-The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urges Americans not to travel to France, Thailand, Israel and Iceland after placing them in its Level 4 category, denoting “very high” instances of Covid cases
-Iran records 588 Covid-19 deaths in 24 hours, its highest number of fatalities since the pandemic began, as it suffers from a medicine supply shortage and hospitals run out of capacity
-Biontech forecasts sales of its mRNA Covid shot, developed with Pfizer, will reach €15.9bn in 2021, up from its previous forecast of €12.4bn
-The latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey shows job openings in the US climbed above 10 million to a record high in June
Tuesday 10 August
-President Joe Biden’s $1trn infrastructure bill passes in the US Senate
-Property group Derwent acquires five buildings around Bloomsbury and Marylebone as demand for new office space begins to recover
-Head of the Oxford Vaccine Group professor Andrew Pollard tells MPs the faster spreading Delta variant renders the concept of herd immunity “mythical” and questions the immediate need for booster jabs
-French president Emmanuel Macron warns the country’s overseas territories, especially the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, are being badly hit by the pandemic
-The OECD says the growth rate in many major economies is “moderating”
-Moderna inks a deal to build an mRNA facility in Canada
-The UK government says three quarters of adults have now received both doses of the Covid vaccine
-Citigroup becomes the latest US bank to mandate vaccines for employees returning to the office
Wednesday 11 August
-Facebook removes hundreds of accounts from Russia linked to a marketing firm that tried to recruit social media influencers to sow anti-vaccination disinformation about the Covid jabs
-US inflation holds steady at its 13-year high of 5.4% in July
-Deliveroo narrows pre-tax losses by a fifth as its sales shoot up 82% and orders double in the first half of the year
-Passenger numbers at Heathrow have recovered to March 2020 levels, with 1.5 million people passing through the UK’s busiest airport in July
-California becomes the first state to require schoolteachers and staff to be vaccinated against Covid or tested weekly
-The New York Stock Exhange will require proof of full vaccination for anyone wishing to access the trading floor from 13 September
-China’s drug regulator approves the country’s first mixed-vaccine trial, following growing concerns about the efficacy of domestically produced jabs
Thursday 12 August
–The UK competition watchdog says it is exploring “immediate action” the government can take against consumers being exploited and overcharged for Covid PCR tests for travel
-ONS stats show the UK economy grew by 4.8% in Q2 as the easing of restrictions and vaccine rollout fuelled growth
-Fully vaccinated people in England will no longer be legally required to self-isolate after coming into contact with a person who has tested positive for Covid from Monday and instead will be advised to take a PCR test
-Cineworld mulls a US-listing to shore up additional liquidity as Covid losses continue to bite
-Revenues at Anglo-German holiday maker Tui increase by ninefold between April and June to €650m from €72m a year ago as bookings surge. But this was not enough to quash losses
-The International Energy Agency lowers its forecast for oil demand by 500,000 barrels per day in the second half of 2021 due to spike in Delta variant cases
-Disney swings to an operating profit in Q2, as its theme parks across the US, France and China re-open
-Airbnb brings in $1.3bn worth of revenue in the second quarter, four times higher than a year ago, as travel recovers
Friday 13 August
-The US Food and Drug Administration approves a Covid booster jab for immunocompromised Americans
-A quarter of adults in the UK think it will take a year for life to return to normal from the pandemic, according to the ONS
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