Good morning, it's Paul here with Thursday's SCVR.
Timings - I'm on the case nice and early today, so we should have a decent report up earlier than usual. I'll try to make some inroads into the backlog too, maybe with briefer comments later.
Covid/macro preamble - antibody testing
The most significant news yesterday was that a UK authority has given approval for a covid antibody test made by Roche, which has proven close to 100% accurate. The way I imagine how the future might look (important because small caps investing is fundamentally all about predicting the future), then I see an antibody test as being a game-changer an important step forward.
Take me for example, I'm fairly sure I had covid in March/April, because as I've previously mentioned here, in my London home all 4 of us came down with similar covid-like symptoms, at the same time. The eldest member of our household had to be hospitalised, tested positive, and died after spending a fortnight on a ventilator. The remaining 3 of us recovered, but it's taken about 2 months to actually start feeling well again.
Hence for that reason, I am fairly sure I've had covid, recovered without any medical intervention, and hence probably have immunity through antibodies. Although scientists are stressing they don't know for sure yet, nor how long the antibodies stick around for. As an aside, there's a suggestion that the under-40s immune systems deal with it in some different, unknown way, so not everyone who's recovered from it necessarily has antibodies apparently. Or maybe the tests didn't detect antibodies that were there, who knows?
The point being that if we can test everyone, then we'll know exactly who has had it, hence two things: (1) some kind of health passport could be given (maybe electronically via an app) to people who test positive for antibodies, and then allow them to mix freely with other similar people, in bars, restaurants, work, everywhere, and (2) we could then properly protect the vulnerable (e.g. in care homes) by only allowing contact with staff who have passed an antibody test. I think this could be the key to unlocking the whole situation, and allowing the economy to begin recovering from the catastrophic damage that the lockdown has caused.
In terms of shares, this makes me feel a lot more bullish on the bombed-out hospitality sector. As…
