TMS Ep55: Vaccine hoarding, Meena Ganesh, markets and plant-based meat

Just as we thought that we were out of the woods, the threat of a new Covid-19 variant, Omicron, has started looming large over the global economy, which is still in the doldrums. Not just the vulnerabilities of economies, the pandemic has also laid bare the vaccine inequality between the rich and the poor nations. While the developed nations are rushing to give booster shots, the poor countries are grappling to vaccinate their population. We look at the factors that have contributed to the current crisis.
 
Covid-19 hit all the sectors badly. But there was one industry which witnessed good growth during the pandemic – the healthcare sector. The last two years have been transformative for the home healthcare industry in India too, believes Meena Ganesh, co-founder and chairperson of Portea. In an interview with Business Standard’s Krishna Veera Vanamali, she says her focus is on developing a strong tech ecosystem to manage patients with chronic diseases and taking hospital-like services into the home. 
  
We can now avail hospital-like healthcare and personalised services right at our homes. And Covid-concerns are not over. Market participants are reading into the developments surrounding the Omicron variant of Covid-19. Not surprisingly, pharma stocks have caught investor fancy.
Meanwhile, US Fed chair Jerome Powell has said, it’s time to stop using the word “transitory” to describe inflation. This could possibly mean more pain in store for consumption-related companies. Against these contrasting outlooks, there are sectors that can prove to be beneficial for investors amid the current volatility.

In a volatile market, it’s best to pick stocks that enjoy strong balance sheets and favourable risk-reward set-up.
The lockdown had slowed down our overall consumption in the recent past, but there’s apparently no dip in the consumption of meat. In fact, we are eating more meat than ever. The amount that per person consumes has tripled in the last 50 years. But people across the world are also becoming more conscious of its negative impact on the environment. Several companies and local eateries have come up with plant-based substitutes which they claim are ethical and as relishing as the non-vegetarian dishes are. find out about plant-based meat and much more in this podcast. 

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