By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Asia Pacific stocks were mostly down on Monday morning. Markets were calm even though.

Japan’s inched up 0.04% by 9:05 PM ET (2:05 AM GMT) and South Korea’s was down 0.32%.

Australia’s average was 7279.30.

Hong Kong’s edged down 0.11%.

China’s was down 0.42% while the inched up 0.02%. Peking University research showed that China could see a huge increase in COVID-19-related cases if it reopens similarly to the U.S.

U.S. shares rose and the benchmark rose over 1.50%. These movements suggest that markets have cooled after riskier assets plummeted on Friday due to COVID-19 discovery.

Angelique Coetzee is the chair of South African Medical Association. Angelique and South African Health Expert Angelique both suggested that mild symptoms are being reported by this omicron strain. However, the World Health Organization cautioned that it will take time to assess the strain and has classified it as a “variant of concern”.

Moderna Paul Burton, chief medical officer at Inc. (NASDAQ) said that a new shot could be made for the strain in 2022.

The question of whether the omicron epidemic is a short-term hiccup or more significant blow to an already fragile economic recovery, which is under threat from tighter monetar policy, is still up for debate.

“We really need some more answers to figure out the impact on growth. Risk assets are pricing in uncertainty,” TD Securities global head of rates strategy Priya Misra told Bloomberg.

Others were less optimistic.

“Markets have traded through all previous COVID-19 variants and just touched all-time highs. My expectation is we will do the same for this one,” Tribeca Investment Partners Pty. portfolio manager Jun Bei Liu told Bloomberg.

Last week, investors shifted the date for the first 25-basis point rate rise by the U.S. Federal Reserve from June 2022 to July. Raphael Bostic of Fed Bank of Atlanta said the new COVID-19 version had no economic risk and that he would consider accelerating asset taping to lower rising inflation.