This is Exchanges at Goldman Sachs and I'm Alice and Nathan a senior strategist in Goldman Sachs research.

In this episode, we're going to discuss the Delta variant

and how the fast-spreading virus is affecting

the path of reopening and economic growth more broadly. To do that, I'm sitting down with my

colleagues in research, Terrence Flynn in our health care group, and Dan

Struven from our economics team. We'll first turn to Terrence Flynn, who

covers the US

biopharmer sector in G.S. research for his thoughts on the

Delta variant and vaccines. Terrence, welcome to the program.

Thanks so much, Allison. Really appreciate the invite. So the Delta variant seems to be driving yet another wave of

coronavirus cases obviously the news is dominated by the spread of it so just just to start, why is the Delta variant so

worrisome? Sure, so as most people know by now the virus changes over time and

you know there have been a number of these different variants that have arisen over the course of the pandemic

Delta is obviously the latest one and the thing about Delta is it's more transmissible so it basically has the ability to

spread much more rapidly.

And so, for example, when a person's infected with Delta,

they can infect a greater number of people

than a person who is infected with one of the earlier

strains of the virus. for this reason it's why

it's become the predominant strain around the globe. This also means that you could

become infected during a shorter period of exposure and so that really relates to the fact that delta

leads to higher levels of virus in people.

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