Here's Why Covid Hospitalizations And Deaths Are About To Plunge

Addressing one of the more pressing topics to emerge from the current wave of covid infections, in a report published this morning Goldman's John Marshall says that fears of overcrowded hospitals are overblown and predicts that "the first wave of vaccinations has the potential to have a significant impact on total US COVID-19 related hospitalizations." More importantly, after modeling the impact of the vaccine rollout, he expects that covid-linked hospitalizations in the next month will tumble, dropping to virtually zero by the end of January.... or in a "lucky coincidence", just after inauguration day.

As the Goldman analyst notes, "while vaccination of the broad population will have important implications for the overall number of cases and limiting ongoing community spread, the targeted roll-out of vaccinations to high-risk individuals is likely to have a rapid effect on key hospitalization metrics."

According to Goldman, hospital utilization has been a key factor driving reopening sentiment, with campaigns to flatten the curve in March/April having the stated goal of reducing the potential for the pandemic to overwhelm the hospital system. As such, "the rise in hospitalizations in recent weeks has increased discussions of whether additional restrictions/closures are appropriate and has coincided with sideways trading in stocks levered to the reopening of the economy over the past nine trading days."