Latest news on new COVID-19 variant

New reports on the South African strain of the coronavirus:

• Studies on the efficacy of current Pfizer vaccines should be available within 2 weeks
• It takes about 100 days to adapt the vaccine to a new variant (Pfizer)
• European Union points out that the new virus variant is a cause for concern
• European Commission is considering banning travel to and from countries where the new variant has been detected (some of these countries already canceled several flights to EU)
• The German Minister of Health points to the seriousness of the current situation
• Vaccine manufacturers' share prices rose sharply, stock indexes attempt to rebound, gold erased half of today's gains

As you can see, Friday's session, which was supposed to be boring due to low volatility, turned out to be completely different. We certainly won't get all the answers today, however it seems that the initial market reaction may have been exaggerated.