LET’S GET BACK TO WORK: Wall Street Explains Why Despite A “Second Wave” In COVID Cases, Deaths Have Barely Budged.

Picking up on this point at a time when many countries in Europe are suffering from a second wave of covid infections (as shown in the chart above) DB’s Jim Reid writes that “in recent days and weeks, concern has risen that Europe could be at the beginning of a second wave of the pandemic.” He adds that just in his native UK “the number of confirmed cases rose by 2,988 yesterday, which was the largest daily increase since May 22.”

Yet noting the point brought up by Goldman above, Reid then counters that even as case numbers have risen, “hospitalizations and deaths have thankfully not.”

A key reason for this – as we first discussed in July in “The Under-40s Dilemma” – is that it’s now younger people who are more likely to get the virus.

As Reid points out, while most of this evidence has been anecdotal across the world the attached chart from Public Health England provides some telling statistics: back at the peak of the pandemic in late March, 61% of the confirmed cases were among those over 60. But they now make up just 11% of cases. For over 80 year olds it’s dropped from 28% to 3%. For those under 40 it’s the reverse picture with cases increasing from 14% to 67% of the total.

By and large, COVID doesn’t kill under-40s.