Shares were hit across the board on Friday as the WHO warned of a new COVID variant emerging out of South Africa.
The Dow Jones was down by 1000 points from record highs, losing 2.8%. Hard hits stocks were cruise ship lines Carnival Corp. and Royal Caribbean, as well as airline and hotel stocks.
Meanwhile pandemic favorites from the pharmaceutical and home entertainment industry were up, with conference call software company Zoom rising almost 9%.
The announcement of a new variant comes just as Europe is facing a surge with a record number of new cases, which has led to the EU calling for the suspension of air travel from African countries hit by the new variant.
Meanwhile developing countries seem to generating a much lower load of confirmed cases with Africa itself having only 28,000 confirmed cases in November compared to 1.5 million confirmed cases in Europe, according to WHO data.
By Staff
