'Astonishing' Astra Vaccine Reduces Asymptomatic Cases

peer reviewed data. Apparently the Astro Oxford vaccine prevents the worst COVID symptoms in this particular study. It's effective, but it does leave questions in older ages. This is all according to a peer review study at ten hospitalization cases seen in the trial. All occurred among those given a placebo. Let's bring in somebody who knows a little bit more about the background to this particular vaccine and has been looking at the results and is looking at these headlines

as they come out. Now. Michelle Court has Health science and medical technology reporter for Bloomberg. So Michelle, this is good, but rossively speaking, is it as good as the other vaccine news we've been hearing? You know, Vanni is a great question, and it actually is not appearing to be as effective as the Visor and Maderna trials. That being said, there was a little bit of a hiccup with this trial.

In fact, there were there were a couple which is really to be expected given the pace of development here. They originally were only going to be using one dose of the vaccine. Then they realized it would be more effective if they did too, so they added that second

dose in later. And of course there was an issue where some of the patients or some of the volunteers in the trial got actually half of the dose in that first injection than they were expected to get, and that unexpectedly turned out to be much more effective vaccination efficacy rate with that smaller first dose with only a you know, six efficacy race in the people who got both full doses. So that's unexpected. They're going to have

to be more research here. So Michelle, kind of have we got anywhere clarity on that, uh, you know, that half dose issue that we learned about a couple of weeks ago that seemed to surprise a lot of people in the community, right, it is inexplicable. I mean, we do know that the people who got that half does were actually a younger group of patients, and so they are less likely to get severe disease, they're less likely

to become infected. So there could be some explanation that happening there, but indeed we don't exactly know what's going on here. The company has said that they do plan to do another trial to look at this specific effect. That should not take as long to do because you're just looking at how the body responds to the vaccine, so we should be able to get through that pretty quickly.

But even when you're looking at the higher efficuity rates, it's not quite reaching than levels that we're seeing with sisor in the journal. It does appear that less is more in this case, but that may not be the full story. What does Astra do next? I mean, is this good enough data to release the vaccine into the wild as Fiser has already done, or do they have

to do more well. They have said that they're going to be doing more as well, and of course the fact is is that we're not going to have enough vaccine to protect the entire world for some time to come. So when you're looking at an epicacy rate with this lower first dose, I mean that is still extraordinary. It is absolutely unbelievable that they were able to get this effect. This trial was done in some very high risk areas.

A lot of these patients were in Brazil, which is having a massive outbreak, and the idea that you can be getting this vaccine to people across the world who would otherwise have no no protection against the virus is really breath taking. Is you can't and you can't overestimate how important it is. It is really important to be

getting all of these vaccines. Yeah, So Michelle, it seems like again, you know, we were started this process when we started talking about vaccines and we were kind of told that if you get a fifty your efficacy rate, uh, that's good. And obviously now we're getting much much higher rates. So it seems to me that while the astro Zenka perhaps is not on par with some of its competitors or peers, it's still very good. Is that the expectation

that this is still a good uh number. It is a good uh, it's good science, it's a good the vaccine, and that it will be effective in the marketplace. Absolutely it is. It's an astonishing vaccine. We're even seeing you know, some some data coming out of this trial that we haven't seen as much with the other trials. For example, we know that the astro vaccine is preventing asymptomatic cases.

So for people who didn't show any signs or symptoms of the disease but might still be infected, this vaccine is actually protecting against that. That's very important to know that there's not some latent level of vaccine circulating among the people who got this vaccine. And you have to remember the numbers are astonishing in this low dose group

of people. There were seven cases out of over a thousand people who were treated with the vaccine, and that's just amazing to think that you can get that kind of efficacy, even if it's not, you know, in it. In comparison, there was one in the Fiser trial. But still, and we're talking about seven people. One people, it's a handful of people. It's remarkable, no matter which way you

look at Yeah, that's amazing. Also, the fact that you can prevent it, you know, in people who might otherwise be asymptomatic, that's really important because it's the people who don't have it that are that that you don't know, have a that are dangerous. I mean, if somebody is coughing in front of you, you're obviously not going to, you know, go near them. But if there's somebody looking completely healthy who may have the virus, you wouldn't know

that necessarily. So how is this different to the m r N A platform. How are Oxford and Astra approaching this differently to say Fiser and the others. Right, Well, there are different technologies. The m RNA. Uh, the RNA vaccines are brand new. There are no vaccines like this out there in the world. This will be the first vaccine using this technology ever developed. It is again, I mean, it keeps staying remarkable, but it's just like, how do

you do that. It's a vaccine that we've never even tried before, and they're like, well, let's try it, and not only let's try it, but in less than ten months, we're going to start from zero and actually get it into people's arms. Um. The way that vaccine works is it actually delivers a little bit of the genetic seapoint, so yoursels are producing of the like protein showing your immune system what they should be going after. The after

vaccine is a little bit different. It actually developed it delivers the virus itself to inactivated version of it into the cells themselves, and so then they are producing that protein and so they know what to go after. It's a different approach the same idea in terms of exposing the immune system to the virus so that it will know what to look at. The after vaccine will be easier to deliver. It doesn't require this super cold gain deliver a system that the Fiser and Maderna vaccines do need.

So there are different different approaches here. Each one has different benefits and risks. You know, if you are a country that is very hot that doesn't have great consistent electricity, you're probably not going to want the Visor and Maderna vaccine anyway, you might not have the technology to deliver that. So having the ASTRA version would be helpful for these areas. And Michelle, what do we know about the timing of

getting approval for this vaccine across the world. We're seeing it almost daily, including today with the FDA and and

the Fiser news. What do we know about the ASTRA timeline. Well, it's interesting because ASTRA was on hold longer in the US than it was in other places, specifically in Europe that is very cautious when it comes to reviewing all of these vaccines, making sure that they're dotting every ion cross in every two So when it looks like for the US, ASTRA is going to be a wild delayed here is probably going to take a you know, a couple of months at least to get this additional trial

underway and to figure out exactly where we're going. Certainly there are other countries where we will most likely see AFTRA going much more quickly and getting their vaccine onto the market in other areas more quickly. That could happen within the next month or two. Michelle, this idea that was out that the Trump administration didn't put in a big enough order with Fiser, how is that being received? Well. The Trump administration is saying that they have ordered enough

vaccine to cover the entire US population. Anybody who's interested in getting vaccinated should be able to have access to that by the end of the summer. What their approach was, they were ordering a hundred million doses from each of the different vaccine companies so that they would be broadening

out their exposure level. So if one doesn't work, then they haven't already purchased an awful lot of that and and not enough of something else, so they didn't broadly, you know, order six hundred million doses across various vaccines. Of course, now we know that there's one or two that are highly effective, you want to get all of

that as much as you possibly can. And as you point out, they have already sold that vaccine to other places, so it's going to be yet until the summer before they can start delivering more of those doses to the US government. We'll have to see if we if we're going to need those doses or not. At this point, we're still getting results from the other vaccine manufacturers, and there could be additional benefits. Maybe you only need one

shot from some of these vaccines. Those side effects they're very mild, but they do occur, and they occur in more than half of people in some cases. So there are other vaccines that are being developed still that might have less of those sort of issues, or maybe they're more effective than older people. So there's still details to

be teased out here. It does look like, you know, a little bit of a setback that the US isn't going to get as much of this first sisor vaccine as they want, but ultimately it's going to be hard to get it into everybody, and so we have to see how it plays out. Michelle, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate your reporting there. Michelle Cortez, Health science and medical technology reporter for Bloomberg News. Let's move to Tesla. Paul, you mentioned it earlier on speaking

with Dave Wilson. It's up at six ninety five now, and you know, it just continues to move on up. It's going to sell shares as the proceeds of up to five billion dollars. That just doesn't seem to be any stopping the investors in this company. Let's bring in Don Eves of web Bush, analyst on Tesla. So Don talk to us about this share price isn't warranted? Should we throw another five billion dollars at this company? Look,

it's a great question. I mean, we are books is a thousand dollars and we continue to view this right now as just a transformational market in terms of ev demand. And if you look at evening market right now, Houselow's World and everyone else, Pam Rent and I think that's when that's what they're looking at they're looking at what this market is going to be the next three to

four years. Obviously stock to continue to devout, but in terms of playing the E V space when you look out and I think that right now is why this stock continues to move higher. They're just given the supply demand. I'm sure you d please, so Dan, give us a sense here of use of proceeds. Here is just simply let's shore up the balance sheet, raised capital when we can, not necessarily when we need it. But that's exactly a pole. I mean, this is a twelve billion in countering in

terms of what they have raised. Go back a year ago, that was the biggest Bara thesis in terms of shoring up the balance sheet. They were not profitable. Now you've got profitability. They're hitting when the iron is hot in terms of raising capital, and it really throws that bare thesis out the window. And naturally the key when you go forward in terms of the tests of story. Now

you don't have any baluncari issues. So in until he spends it, I mean, he seems to have an unlimited ability to spend the money that he gets in so how for how long will there be no balancy to issues even with capital deployment in Berwin as well as in Austin. I mean this really shures him up for the next few years in terms of those capital issues. Now, investors,

you and is what's the growth opportunity going forward? And right now if you look at ev especially in China, you know, test has really seen an inflection of them and profitable. That speaks of the S and P five hundred inclusion, which is different from a year ago. Hey, Dan, give us a censor. Let's take a step back here.

It just feels like we're starting to hear more and more out of the traditional automakers in terms of maybe some product introductions, some ev products in particular, How do you think the traditional auto manufacturers over the next five years are going to move on e V And how do you think that to what extent is at a

risk to Tesla? Well, I think if you look at GM spending twenty billion the next five years on EVY, and I think it speaks to what's happening, is this is really gonna be Today it's three overall automotive sales worldwide. I think that goes at ten percent by two thou I think traditional automakers of you and this, you're gonna have tax incentives. Of course, you have it in Europe.

I think with the Biden administration doubling down tax incentives in the US, and ultimately from a multiple perspective, remember, Tesla doesn't get treated as an automotive company. It's a technology disruptive technology means and I think automotives and the boards. They also recognize that. More and more success on evy, you can start to see names like GM Forward get rerated on that success. A couple of questions done you

don't mind. One is you've ben underperformer on Nicolas. You obviously feel like that's a whole different type of story. And the similarities that we see between the Nicolas story and the Tesla story really maybe we shouldn't be seeing them. So I want to ask you about that. I also want to ask you if elon Muska is spread too thin and white people have stopped complaining about that. They used to complain about that when it came to Dr

Dorsey all the time. Yeah. In terms of Nicol, I mean, our cautious stands has been just some of the company's specific issues going on, you know, especially with GM and others I do think that they will start to clear over the next three to six months. But that's why we've been more cautious on Nicola, even though they still have great prototype and opportunity. I think, look, it's not

a campaign every company with the same brush. And I think in terms of e V, you know, going to to the Musk question, I mean, he's kind of had that red tape. He's been able to do Superman like things, not just with Tessa, but of course with SpaceX, and I think that's not as much of a concern for investors just given what you've seen, more maturity, more profitability. They've scaled across US the globe and must continue to kind of navigate, as well as a strong bene that

they've started to develop over ex three months. So you know, it's interesting down as we think about the test of story, it's always just what's the next catalyst? What's the next catalyst? You know, um, is it to take a look at the test of story? Is that new products? Is that manufacturing numbers? What investors really focusing on in terms of metrics these days? Yeah, metrics right now, leaves are focused on China. I'm not think China could be worth a

hundred hours per share. That's the focus looking at what we see. We've always seen strength in terms of this quarter going into next year. You know, can they get the two hundred fifty thousand units potentially in China from one fifty first year out, That's gonna be the key. And then it's the drum roll to the cyber truck. I mean, that's gonna be the next, you know, really potential game changer model. And you're seeing that pickup truck market.

It's not just test, it's for GM now obviously Rivian. You know, that's a whole another opportunity in terms of easy and it speaks to what you're seeing in these stocks not just in the US, but even in China and Neo and others. Just you know, really in the early days of this market breaking out, what's your your favorite company or your most ferry company. I suppose in your coverage universe you cover a lot of companies that are relevant to the current period, including docu sign and

companies like that. Yeah, with doctor Sign has been our favorite work from home name along with z Scale. I think you've got to play cloud and cyber securities core themes, and there are favorite large cap continues to be Apple, I think going into a supercycle, demand looks very strong going into next year, and that continues to be our favorite large company. And along with Microsoft to play the cloud, and those are the keys cloud, cyber security and these

large tech names. We still think tex Stox a year from now or thirty percent higher. Dan Apples had a bunch of news out today, some new products and headphones, some chips. What's the takeaway from what you've heard from Apple over the last twenty four hours. Yeah, it's just further solidifying not just the supercycle in terms of iPhone, but the broader products cycle that's happened across Max, across

air pods. I mean, we think air pods this year ninety million units sold, that's up from sixty million a year ago. That's gonna be five percent of South. So when you're starting to seek not just on services, which is a big part of the re rating, but Apple right now is in the biggest product cycle, not just an iPhone, but if you could cross the board billion, it's history, and I think that speaks to why this stock has a lot more fuel on the engine. You know,

right now we see hundred fifty price target. I think potentially bull Case could start to get you towards two hundred. Dan. Thanks as always, we like to just kind of go across the board tech with you, and you're always able to give us some great insights. Dan i'ves Managing director Equity Research web Bush Securities giving his thoughts on Tesla, Apple and some of the stay at home stocks. Dan

I was a big, big ball on technology. He's been absolutely on top of these names, and he's been absolutely right writing this technology ballmarket that we've seen really since uh the end of the financial crisis isn't really come into play really just over the last twelve months as well, So we appreciate dance thoughts. Let's bring in Daniel Master, who is chairman of coin Shares Group at one point eight billion dollar platform and as you can imagine, how's

a little bit to do with cryptocurrency. So Danny, thank you for joining. Very happy to have you chat with us. I'm very interested in coin shares and how it inhabits the ecosystem that is crypto and cryptocurrencies and platforms. Can you explain a little bit about it to us? Yeah, um, coin shares, we make it easy for institutions and other investors to own bitcoin. Um. We see this demand reflected in our a U M the figures which have been rising as you just mentioned. UM. The second thing we've

do as we provide liquidity. We've done about eight billion dollars in cryptocurrency trading volume this year, which is up about four times on last. And we're helping to build and shape the infrastructure of the cryptocurrency ecosystem with other global banks like Namura creating products, investing in innovative companies,

and building this new financial system. So, Danny, give us a sense of kind of what you're seeing just in the marketplace as to the adoption of just cryptocurrencies in general. We hear a lot about fintech, a lot about cryptocurrencies, but give me some sense of the applications you're seeing out there in the marketplace. Well, that's one of the

most fascinating aspects of my job day to day. I think we've think back to in the last peak cycle of crypto prices, one of the criticisms, which I think was valid, was that not much of the infrastructure had been built, not much of the software and new applications had been developed. But now We're seeing some fantastic companies, companies like unite Swap, companies like Compound Finance, d y p X, Leverage and many other names who are delivering

essentially banking services. They're borrowing, lending, hypoblication, trading, custody and derivatives all on the blockchain. So where do you fit into that, Danny, I mean coin shares. You're not a You're not a currency, right, You're a platform. Yeah, I mean we we we issue eight securities that list on nasdaimexans dot com. This makes it easy to buy and own cryptocountcy exposure through your normal bank of broker um.

That's a big part of our business. We are investors in early stage equity for companies in the ecosystem that are building exchanges, data companies, wallets, lock chains. We have produced a gold back to Swiss gold back to stable coin which is issued across Europe. And we're also put forward a very interesting indexation strategy called the coin Shares Gold and Cryptocurrency Index, which pairs gold and a basket of cryptocurrency in a risk managed way for institutional investors.

So we do a number of things well, Daniel, just on my blueber terminal. Here I kicked in xpt U s D the bitcoin ticker and what a chart that is. Give us your thoughts on bitcoin. The mood is electric. At the momentum, we've seen a transformation due to COVID. Bitcoin was created as a reaction to the twenty oh a quantitative easy program. Obviously with a situation we've all been facing in the last nine ten months, this quantitative easing h end has only magnified probably three or four folds.

So at the moment the markets driven by the narrative for inflation resistance investments, it's driven by digitization. Bitcoin is a store of digital value which people want. And interestingly, investors are becoming less spooked by the characteristic volatility of bitcoin, which has been dropping over the last few years. And while other investments we know the drama in the oil market earlier this year, other investments are becoming more volatile,

so that volatility profile is becoming a bit more palatable. Danny, is it still a land grab? So, I know, you know, for the platforms in particular, it was a bit of a land grab for a long time. Is it still the case who is emerging the winner when it comes to when it came to sort of taking the bets on the infrastructure of it all. You say, you do

many things. You obviously placed bets in a lot of different calces, and now that central links are starting to talk about it, I imagine it's becoming a little bit more mainstream. But where where are the places where people want? Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I'll even wind the clock forward a little bit. I think we are contemplating a new environment, maybe two to four years forward, where central bank digital currencies are the norm, and there are huge

advantages for central banks for issuing such digital currencies. Um. Now when we see that, we're going to be asking the question who's going to perform those banking services in the intermediate layer, the borrowing lending as I mentioned before, And those are interesting companies that I think are winning great mindshare and great market cap at the moment. But perhaps the most interesting land grab opportunity is for the end points for those digital wallets, these sort of Amazon

dot com a digital assets. So when your gold is digital, your stocks are digital, your bonds of digital. Whereas though, where are those digital assets going to be held? And it's that wallet infrastructure that is the most interesting land grabs. So you've seen Facebook and Libra and Calibra trying to take take the advantage in that space. You've got the big exchanges like coin based and Finance and maybe bitfin x,

who are also quite strong in the wallet infrastructure. You've got native blockchain infrastructure companies like blockchain dot Com one of our partners, fantastic company, sixty million wallets already. And then you have newcomers like Samsung's who are putting hardware security devices in phones that can then act like digital wallets. So it could be a phone provider. And we've yet to see what other companies like Amazon, like Google may do in reaction to the moves that some of their

competitors are making. Hey Danny, just real quick twenty seconds. Do you need the big big banks, the JP Morgans in the world to come into this market? I think that this intermediate layer of banking services that are now emerging on Shane. You know, these are big proof of concept companies, but they're growing, you know, two billion dollar

status very quickly. Um. It seems to me that a lot of the traditional banks, the Morgan's Chases and so on, are quite far behind everybody's got an initiative, but they seem to be stalling and they seem to be quite far behind the rest of the pack. Yeah, certainly it seems to be the case. Danny Masters, thanks so much for joining us year. We always appreciate getting your thoughts

on all things crypto. Danny Masters, chairman coin Shares a group based in London, with some thoughts on the crypto market, and uh, it's a fast growing market. But you know, one of the questions is do you need the validation of some of these large global banks to really kind of propel that market forward or can they be driven simply by the technologies. Well, as we all think about how to best manage our day to day activities amid the pandemic, one of the areas that's really taken a

hit has been mass transportation. People just don't feel comfortable getting on subways and busses and so on. But a new report from n YU suggest that they met that may not be as big an issue as people may be thinking. Professor Mitchell Ross, I'm sorry, Mitchell Moss, Director of the Root and Center for Transportation Policy and Management, also the Henry Hart Rice Professor of Urban Policy, and Planning at n y U joins US Professor Moss, thanks

so much for joining us here. When I saw this report, it really piqued my interest because as someone like most New Yorkers, we arrived the subway multiple times every day, and the assumption was that was just a breeding ground for all types of viruses, including COVID. What did your

research tell you? So the study we have done shows that influenza debts, which is not the same as coronavirus, over a ten year period, have no relationship to mass transit ridership, and we believe since the spread of the virus has some similarities. This is a very important study because it confirms what has been reached in other areas of science, which is that it's sustained social interaction, which is the area of highest risk for the spread of

this coronavirus. So, when you say influenza deaths, what about influenza hospitalizations or just contracting influenza? Were you able to get data on that? Well, we relied on death because there's one thing it's very high to do is to hide a body and the diagnosis. We didn't really go for the kind of number of diagnosis of influenza, which as you know, can be quite common, especially among older people,

but influenza death is a very specific category. I think the key part which we want to highlight here is that the subway in New York especially, but also in Hong Kong and in Paris and in certain cases soul in Tokyo has been manageable. In other words, people are wearing masks in some places, they're cleaning the subway cars multiple times. In New York, the air it's filtered more often you know, in a subway car that it is

in most office buildings. So we believe, and it's very important here, that the subway, where most people don't talk to each other, they don't look at each other, they can't hear each other because the train wheels are so loud, they're focusing on their phones or their iPads, actually produces very atomistic behavior. People stick to themselves, and so the actual subway ride is not the source we believe of

the virus compared to other settings. And how do we know this, Well, look in at the state of New York. Buffalo has an infection rate three times higher than the city of New York. Buffalo is not a major subway city. They have a bus system. Los Angeles and southern California, which is having a vast surge, as you know of cases,

is an automobile city. In fact, people cannot figure out how l A could have so many cases, given how low density some of the living is and how out doors it is, and so the virus spreads when people are together with each other for sustained periods of time, especially indoors. The subway tends to be a managed ride, tends to have very little interaction, and the air itself there it's filtered so often that it tends to present less of a risk than in many cases. I would

like going to the Oval Office. I mean, we have a chart in the media and the number of people who have been with the President who have contracted the virus. We think the subway car is safer than in the Oval Office. Yeah, but I wouldn't have wanted to ride in a subway car with the President at that time either. Well. I think that what we've seen is that the initial

pandemic was so concentrated in New York. The people said it must be due to mass transit, And now we see if you look at a map of the US. You know, you know, there are states in the Upper Midwest where they wouldn't know a subway car from a limousine because in fact, you know, they're really driving trucks and the factors in South Dakota and North Dakota and some of those states have had serious outbreaks from a

motorcycle rally. So what we would argue is that our research shows that mass transit by itself is not really tied to the spread of virus. Now, over time, we're going to learn more about the coronavirus. But wait, professor, can I just can I just clarify? Are you basing that on the fact that the people who died from influenza across the country didn't increase in areas for the renomas transit? Is that? Is that? No? I think, well,

there's a great question. I appreciate. Remember this is a study of collective death, so it's no one individual case. But we haven't looked at where there were you know, influenza deaths and where there were mass transit systems, and this is over a hundred cities that there's no relationship to between mass transit use and the death from influenza.

So we really can't talk about anyone individual. We can say that the ridership of mass transit does not connect in any form to the youth to the death by influenza, right, because it's people's immune system and it's how they react, and it's how influenza influences one person versus another person. Wouldn't that be the same for COVID? Well, I think this is a great question for which you know, our knowledge of COVID is one year old. You know, last spring,

everybody though it with surfaces. Now we're finding out it's much more air, so I think you know, and every human being, I think it's your point out is affected by the COVID very differently. If they ask any of the emergency room doctors, they will be the first to tell you that patients experience the virus and their different

parts of their systems. Sometimes it's breathing, sometimes it's hard, you know, it's very It affects people so differently that I'm not sure we can make a judgment and stuff. You know, how actually people are going to be affected by any one particular a bout of the virus because their own composition, remember their age, their underlying conditions affect how it affects them. So, professor, just the next thirty seconds, Um, have you discussed this with the city and what's the

as mt A had any response to the study. Well, the m t A has taken a very aggressive approach to having masks being required, and the ridership shows wearing the I think the mt is very familiar with the study because they have actually been very aggressive not only enforcing the mass requirement but in sanitizing. That's why the stations are closed at night and the cars are cleaned,

and so they're doing what they can do. Now. They've had a lot of loss of death of some of them people who work in the transit union, because they have been in vulnerable situations where they're interacting with people. But I think what's amazing is that the m t A has recognized this is why they've aggressively spend a lot of money and the continuity including stations and the cars the mask requirement that has been the best example

of their success. The the amount of use of the mask is greater than that on the sidewalks of New York City. Yeah, it's fascinating. We have to thank you for us or I hope you come back. I would love to continue to chat with you as this progressive professor. Mitchell Mass, Director of the n y U Rooten Center for Transportation and Policy Management. Thanks for listening to the

Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple, Old Podcasts, or whatever a podcast platform you prefer. I'm Bonnie Quinn. I'm on Twitter at Bonnie Quinn, and I'm Paul Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio