Super-Covid variant spooks markets – but ministers must hold their nerve

It has more than 30 mutations, the most ever recorded and double the number found in the Delta variant. It could be more vaccine resistant and transmissible than any previous version, triggering an “exponential” rise in cases in South Africa and other countries that it spreads to. And its so-called spike protein looks different from the version that vaccines were designed to target.

Bond king Bill Gross says investors have long been living in a “dreamland” of cheap, easy money pumped up by central banks. This has long been the great fear that haunts global markets – a new highly lethal, more transmissible and vaccine resistant super-strain, with the capacity to set off another devastating wave around the world that derails the economic rebound from the pandemic.

With markets seemingly content to shrug off a fourth wave of infections sweeping across Europe, spiralling inflation, and the prospect of higher interest rates, could this be the great shock that finally brings the seemingly infinite equity bull run to a juddering halt, taking the global economy with it?

It is far too early to make that call. But the panic serves as a reminder of just how fragile the recovery is. Growth has been stalling for some time, but in Europe the outlook has deteriorated markedly after Germany missed growth targets and consumer confidence plunged. 

With restrictions being tightened in the continent’s largest economy, there are fears that growth could stagnate before the end of the year or even contract, in what would be a baptism of fire for Chancellor-elect Olaf Scholz.

 Yet it is far too early to panic. Only 59 cases have actually been genetically sequenced in South Africa, Hong Kong and Botswana and the World Health Organisation has yet to decide whether this classifies as a variant of “interest” or of “concern”.

Of particular reassurance is how fast the UK and Europe have responded. A travel ban on flights coming from the five countries in southern Africa is the right thing to do.

The mind still boggles at how the Government allowed international travellers and tourists to pour through airports at the height of the pandemic. It buys time and helps to slow the spread while scientists gain a better understanding.

But ministers must resist the urge to go further, locking down the borders and worse, forcing us back into lockdown. That should be avoided at all costs. 

We should take great comfort from the experience that has been gained from dealing with the delta variant, the vaccine effort more generally, and the pipeline of new Covid medicines that the world’s scientists are working day and night to produce.

The speedy vaccination rollout, which has been mirrored by the rapid delivery of booster jabs for the most vulnerable, has propelled the country to a state of relative normality. 

Manufacturing order books are at their highest level since records began in 1977, when James Callaghan was prime minister. Meanwhile confidence among shoppers is rising, with record retail sales expected for December, according to Enders Analysis. We cannot afford another Christmas washout.

As Professor James Naismith, director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: “It is bad news but not doomsday.” 

The time is for cool heads and calm, not knee-jerk panic and a return to the hated draconian measures that crippled the economy once before.