The next variant of Covid-19 seems to, like the Delta variant, have started in South Africa.  The speculation that it is a variant that has begun with HIV positive individuals – but right now what caused it is less important.  What we need to know is whether or not the current vaccines will be effective against it, or if we are all going to get a new version of the vaccine in another 6 to 9 months’ time once one is formulated and produced in sufficient quantities to be available here.

It may well be that we have to live with versions of Covid-19 for many years and it is no wonder that the share price of one of the Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers, Moderna, went up with 20% on Friday alone.  The Chief Executive of that company speculated that it was unlikely that the current vaccine would work against Omicron. 

One thing is for certain, it is going to spread around the rest of the world and stopping the flights might buy other countries more time, but the truth of the matter is it is already too late and it is only a matter of days before every country starts having Omicron cases show up.

We really are beginning to see a combination of unfortunate things increasing the price of petrol. At lot of attention is given to the 31% of the petrol price that is in taxes, some of which gives us the valuable benefit of the Road Accident Fund, but that is not the main cause of the cost of petrol.  The main cause is the rising price of oil and it is rising at the same time that the Rand is weakening against the Dollar.  It means that the price the country is paying to bring it in is increasing, and as long as the price of oil keeps going up and the Rand keeps weakening, there will be little or no mercy!  In fact, right now the Rand is trading at a weaker rate than the average for the last month, which was R14,81.  That means, all things being equal, we might very well be looking at another petrol price increase next month, despite the shock of this month’s increase.  R19,64 a litre is extremely expensive – and it looks certain that we could be paying R20,00 soon if things don’t improve. 

Quite coincidentally, just ahead of the elections, the Department of Mineral Sources and Energy, who used to publish the changing petrol price on a daily basis, decided that they will only update it twice a month in future, once at mid-month and the other at month-end with an improved press release.  One can thus no longer look up the daily basic fuel price and speculate as to what increase will happen at the end of the month.