More and more Fed officials have stated that there are reasons to accelerate the withdrawal of monetary support in the context of rising inflation, echoing Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech earlier this week. "If the committee decides to complete the reduction earlier than originally expected in June, I will definitely support it," Federal Reserve Governor Randal Quarles said in response to a host's question after giving a farewell speech on Thursday. He will step down later this month. In a congressional hearing held this week, Powell stated that Fed officials should consider speeding up the reduction at the next meeting. He warned that the new mutant strain poses risks to employment and inflation prospects, and the risk of high inflation pressure is clearly rising.

After experiencing a sharp decline in the previous week due to seasonal adjustments, the number of first-time jobless claims in the United States last week increased less than expected. According to data released by the US Department of Labor on Thursday, in the week ending November 27, the number of people claiming unemployment benefits for the first time totaled 222,000, an increase of 28,000 from the previous week. The median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg is 240,000. The slower-than-expected growth indicates that the labor market continues to make progress. At the same time, the influence of seasonal factors may continue into next year, which makes it more difficult to interpret the data.

OPEC+ agreed to continue its January production increase plan, and hinted that once the omicron strain poses a clearer risk to demand, they may re-discuss the production decision at any time. Several unnamed representatives said that OPEC+ agreed on Thursday to add 400,000 barrels of crude oil to the global market as planned in January. However, they have also left a "back door", that is, if the market changes, they can temporarily adjust the output policy. This move highlights the resurgence of the epidemic and the US-led action to put oil reserves on the oil market to face more uncertainty. The draft communiqué stated that “the current session is still in progress, and we will continue to monitor the market closely, and make adjustments when necessary” until the further development of the epidemic is to be observed.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member countries increased production in November by far exceeding the requirements of the resumption plan. One member member overcame the interference in production, and the other member exceeded the production limit. According to a Bloomberg survey, OPEC member countries increased their daily crude oil production by 350,000 barrels last month, nearly 40% more than the quota stipulated in the resumption plan. Part of the increase was due to the recovery of Nigeria’s production and the excessive increase in Iraq’s production. In November, increasing supply became easier for OPEC. The survey showed that the output of its 13 member states had the largest increase since July, reaching a total of 28 million barrels per day.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a stopgap spending bill allowing the government to continue to operate after Friday. The bill sent it to the Senate, but some Republican senators threatened to block the bill to oppose the federal government's mandatory vaccination and virus testing. The result of the House of Representatives vote on Thursday was 221-212, which is basically in line with party boundaries, because the Republican leader of the House of Representatives urged fellow congressmen to vote against it. This bill will provide funding for the US government at current levels until February 18, giving the two parties more time to complete the full-year funding negotiations. But this provisional appropriations bill may not be passed so quickly in the Senate, which may result in a short suspension of the federal government during the weekend.

According to research on the infection situation in South Africa since the beginning of the new crown epidemic, the risk of being reinfected by the mutant strain omicron is three times that of any previous strain. Juliet Pulliam of the South African Epidemiological Modeling and Analysis Center and Harry Moultrie of the National Center for Infectious Diseases said that this finding provides evidence that omicron "can avoid immunity from previous infections." The two authors wrote in an email statement that this study is based on data collected from the South African health system from March 2020 to November 27, 2021 about 2.8 million confirmed cases of new crown. Among them, 35,670 cases were suspected of re-infection. They wrote: "Our most urgent task at present is to quantify the degree to which omicron escapes natural immunity and vaccine immunity, and its spread and severity relative to other mutant strains."

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