Welcome to Thoughts in the Market.

I'm Andrew Sheetz, Chief Cross-Asset Stragist for Morgan Stanley Research.

And I'm Matthew Harrison, Equity Research Analyst covering biotechnology.

And on part one of this podcast, we'll be discussing the outlook for the Delta variant

and the impact on markets in the economy.

It's Thursday, July 29th at 4pm in London, and it's 11am in New York.

So at the last time we spoke, concern over the COVID-19 Delta variant was largely centered

on areas outside the US, particularly Europe and Asia, but now we're seeing spikes in a number

of US states and a lot of conversation over the unvaccinated.

Before we get into some of your forecasts and the outlook, maybe just a good way to step

back is to think of a scenario where if there weren't vaccinations, how serious does the

Delta variant look relative to prior outbreaks, how can we put it in context?

Thanks for the question, Andrew.

I think there are two factors which are important to consider.

The first is the rate of rise of new cases.

It is much steeper with Delta than with previous infection waves.

You were able to see that in how quickly new cases evolved in India, in its wave, in

the UK, in its wave, and you're seeing the same thing in the US, though that slope is

a bit more shallow until you remove the effect of vaccination and then it becomes quite

parabolic.

The second thing is obviously the total number of cases that you're seeing in here, that's

where vaccines are having a more significant impact.

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