On Friday, July 23rd, I spoke with two veteran economists who have been following developments closely since the start of the pandemic. They both expressed optimism that the Delta variant wouldn’t derail the recovery, but they also expressed some serious concern, especially if the spread of the variant persists into the fall. Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told me that he and his colleagues are still expecting a “very strong second half of the year.” More specifically, they are predicting that G.D.P. will expand at an annualized rate of about six per cent, and total employment will rise by more than five hundred thousand a month, on average. For the variant to have a major impact on G.D.P. and employment, Zandi said, businesses would have to close down again and people would need to go back to sheltering in place, both of which he considers very unlikely.

Moody’s Analytics has constructed a “Back-to-Normal Index,” which tracks real-time economic data, such as restaurant bookings, the number of people flying, and initial claims for unemployment benefits. At the national level, there is little sign that the variant is affecting these statistics, Zandi told me. However, the index has dropped in some hard-hit states, such as Florida, where case numbers are rising fast and the number of hospitalizations has returned to levels last seen in February. “Six or eight weeks ago, Florida had completely recovered from the pandemic: the index was back to one hundred,” Zandi said. “Now it’s moved back to the low nineties. That’s consistent with the idea that the Delta variant is having some impact.”

Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, pointed out that many of the states where the Delta variant is spreading rapidly are low in both population and G.D.P.