The vaccine is from Pfizer and BioNTech.
The girl is named Jennalynn Fung.
The emergence of a new COVID-19 variant sent investors fleeing riskier assets, driving the South African rand to a one-year low and lifting gold and other safe-havens.
In early European trading, the futures for the Dow Jones fell by about 900 points for a 2.5% drop. S&P 500 futures were down 2%. The start of trading later in the day is suggested by the time of the edt. Financial markets will trade on a shortened basis Friday after being closed for Thanksgiving Day.
Scientists in South Africa said they had detected a new variant of COVID-19 that could prove to be transmissible.
Scientists told reporters at a news conference that the variant has a "very unusual constellation of mutations" that may affect the body's immune response.
The UK banned flights from six African countries. Europe was the focus of concern as COVID-19 cases surged, leading to restrictions in Austria, Italy and other countries.
With alarm bells ringing over the impact to the economy from another highly contagious variant, investors flocked to safe-haven assets. The Swiss Franc jumped against the dollar, up 0.7% on the day, while gold rose 1.2% to $1,805 an ounce.
The strategists at online broker IG said in a daily note that a new and potentially dangerous variant of COVID had prompted a wave of risk aversion.
Tech stocks have remained less affected by the heavy losses expected across the indices.
The South African rand fell 2% to its lowest against the dollar in a year, while the benchmark 10-year South African government bonds shot up by 26 basis points to 9.99%, the highest since May 2020. South African bonds are more volatile than US Treasurys, but this was the biggest one-day rise since March.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 2.8%, Tokyo's Nikkei fell 2.5%, and the Chinese stock market fell 0.6%.
At this point, little is known. "We shouldn't jump to conclusions, but there is clearly a lot of concern about this one, so we shouldn't jump to conclusions."
No one in the markets will have a clue as to which way this will go.
The first few minutes of trading saw European stocks plummet, with the Stoxx 50 dropping 3.6%, the FTSE 100 in London down 3.5%, and the German DAX falling 3.9%.
There were measures of investor nervousness that went up. The index of volatility jumped almost 13%.
Business Insider has an original article.
