fact is:
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, has risen by just under 3% since the end of last month. The dollar’s surge against the euro has been especially emphatic, at just below 3.5%.
us media claimed:
The dollar’s strength is largely being “driven by demand for so-called safe-haven assets”, the Wall Street Journal said. Reuters was even more emphatic: “Dollar reclaims safe-haven mantle,” read one headline, among many similar ones.
brussels thinktank instead points out:
The US, a major oil and gas producer, has seen its currency surge as its export prices have risen, driven by the war’s negative impact on the world’s energy supply. Europe, conversely, is a net importer of fossil fuels, pushing the euro lower.
Most damaging for the ‘safe haven’ narrative is, however, the fact that US Treasury yields have actually risen since the start of the war. This is the exact opposite of what a genuine flight to safety would produce, as stronger demand for US debt would push Treasury prices up and yields down.
Flu and corona are both “common cold type” viruses defeating resistance in some way. For coronaviruses that method is stopping the body from building effective resistance by all means possible, so that is why vaccines tend to not work too well.
For the flu it’s the many variations and its tendency to change further and need new antibodies.
So I don’t think a specific flu strain is hard to make a very effective vaccine for, but ofc this doesn’t yet solve the flu problem.
The immense speed at which mRNA vaccines can be developed might improve that in the future, where this here could be one of many steps to get regulatory approval for blanket mrna and actually be permitted to change them at that pace.
In principle mRNA should let you crank you vaccines for new diseases/flu-strains in under a week. If this can fully stop the flu?.. I doubt it. Whatever does solve it will probably make use of this tech though.