After undergoing years of stock market decline as reporting and awareness about the COVID-19 pandemic subsided, major vaccine stocks received a major, if grim, boost in early 2025.
Specifically, researchers have been tracking with growing concern the ill-documented spread of new H5N1 (Avian Influenza or Bird Flu) variants, with some even warning that the U.S. has completely lost track of the illness by late 2024.
Indeed, multiple health experts have spoken about insufficient tracking of contagion, with many cases becoming known only thanks to the presence of antibodies, meaning it was impossible to determine the avenue of the illness’ spread and if it had already made a human-to-human jump.
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A grim Bird Flu development propels vaccine stock rally
By December 7, the sequence of events led to its first confirmed fatality in the U.S. when a patient hospitalized over a severe Bird Flu infection died in a hospital in Louisiana.
In turn, with the growing fears of another pandemic – or at least another major public health crisis – investors appear to have flocked back to the firms involved with developing and producing vaccines.
By press time on January 8, NovaVax (NASDAQ: NVAX) and Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA) appeared the biggest winners, having risen 29.50% and 11.63% in the last 5 days, and 10.86% and 11.65% in the last 24 hours, respectively.
Other similar firms have also done well. BioNTech (NASDAQ: BNTX) is also up a substantial 10.64% in the last 5 days and 5.55% in the last 24 hours.
Even Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), the company that arguably took the biggest public relations hit during the main phase of the previous pandemic, managed a 1.33% gain in the last week of trading.
Bird Flu: An investor’s puzzle and a public health nightmare
While the strategic bets on vaccine stocks appear logical given their likely increased funding as the Bird Flu is shaping up to be a severe crisis, the situation might not be as straightforward as expected.
The numerous missteps during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as a focus on the fatality rate – which is neither high nor the main danger posed by the virus – as well as inadequate and frequently bombastic coverage of the vaccines, did much to erode trust in otherwise standard public health measures and gave a third wind to the anti-vax movement which can trace its roots to deeply fraudulent ‘research’ conducted by Andrew Wakefield at the turn of the century.
Such circumstances could severely restrict funding available to the vaccine-making companies, hamper research, and undermine the response to the possible crisis as they have already, based on December 2024 reports, led to the U.S.’ uncharacteristically poor tracking of the virus.
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