By Gina Lee

Investing.com – The dollar was down on Wednesday morning in Asia, while the . Investors’ risk appetite increased over indications that the omicron COVID-19 variant is less severe, even though existing vaccines cannot afford full protection.

At 11:41 ET (4:41 GMT), The Index that monitors the greenback against various currencies fell 0.2% to 95.150 (0.23% lower than at 4:41 GMT).

This pair increased by 0.277% to 0.7137. The pair also increased by 0.10 percent to 0.6795

Both the pair dropped 0.04%, to 113.52.

While the pair edged down 0.8% at 6.3543, it edged up 0.12% at 1.3257.

GlaxoSmithKline PLC(LON:) announced Tuesday that their antibody-based COVID-19 therapy was effective against all variants of the Omicron variant. The company is also co-developing sotrovimab. Vir Biotechnology Inc . (NASDAQ:)

Ray Attrill, National Australia Bank’s head of FX strategy, stated in a note that “Markets continue traveling with a lot of optimism that Omicron won’t have the severity of previous variants in terms health outcomes,”

The note said that this has put risk assets markets in an “ebullient spirit”, which lifted stocks and commodities as well, along with riskier currency-linked currencies such as the Australian and Canadian dollar.

Australian dollars are up by 1.71% versus the greenback this week. This is its best performance for three months. The Australian dollar has rallied against the Japanese yen by 2.28% and is heading towards its highest week since October 2021.

The Canadian dollar was trading at C$1.2645 in comparison to its U.S counterpart. This is close to a C$1.2635 overnight high.

Alex Sigal, head of research at Africa Health Research Institute, warned Tuesday however that the Pfizer Inc.

Along with the, the – a central bank decision will be made by the later part of the day. Next week will see the passing of their policies by the, the and the.

Investors await U.S. inflation data and Chinese statistics. The price and indexes for China will be released on Thursday. They are followed by the United States one day later.

Further evidence of a tighter labor marketplace is expected in the U.S. later this day. The odds of a faster Fed asset tapering would rise, which in turn could boost the greenback. The possibility of a quarter-point rate rise by June 2022 is fully anticipated in the money markets.