Coronavirus Cases Are Accelerating Across U.S. Covid-19 cases are accelerating around the country, reaching new daily highs in states including Texas and Arizona and spurring concerns about prospects for an economic and social revival.
Thirty-three states, from Oklahoma to South Carolina and Washington, had a seven-day average of new cases on Tuesday that was higher than their average during the past two weeks, according to a Journal analysis of Johns Hopkins University data. That was the situation in 21 states at the start of the month, so the data reflect recent increases in new cases. (…)
The recent case increases have already started to delay some plans to reopen economies. (…)
Public health officials say the new coronavirus that causes Covid-19 will likely continue to spread across the U.S. in rolling, uneven waves, as municipalities adopt disparate approaches to business closures, testing strategies, tracing close contacts of infected people and mitigation measures such as mask-wearing. (…)
Public health officials warned that a rise in infections among young people, who often experience milder disease, could in turn lead to the virus being transmitted to more-vulnerable populations. (…)
“There’s no question that the uptick we’re seeing in parts of the U.S. is a real epidemiological uptick,” said Caroline Buckee, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, at a media briefing. (…)
Public health experts say hospitalizations typically lag behind increases in cases because it takes time for the disease to progress after people first start showing symptoms. Hospitalizations broadly have been on the decline in recent months, but are now trending upward in at least 14 states, including California, Nevada and Alabama, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data compiled by the Covid Tracking Project. (…) (WSJ)
These are up-to-date values for Rt, a key measure of how fast the virus is growing. It’s the average number of people who become infected by an infectious person. If Rt is above 1.0, the virus will spread quickly. When Rt is below 1.0, the virus will stop spreading.
(RT Live)
The pandemic is getting dramatically worse in almost every corner of the U.S., Axios health care editor Sam Baker and visual journalist Andrew Witherspoon report.
Companies Agonize Over Reopening Timetables as Covid-19 Spreads Apple and Walt Disney are among businesses grappling with whether to close, stay open or find some in-between as the number of cases of Covid-19 increases in dozens of states.11
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New York Delays Reopening of Malls, Movie Theaters, Gyms
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140,000 Businesses Listed on Yelp Are Still Closed
New York City Weighs Layoffs to Ease Large Budget Shortfall
Coping With Covid-19 Flare-ups are inevitable but new lockdowns aren’t the answer.
(…) More spread was inevitable once states started to relax their lockdowns, and they are going to continue until a vaccine exists. But they also need to be put in context. New York City had about 12 times more Covid-19 patients per capita in intensive-care units at the peak of its hospital surge in April than California does today, six times more than Miami-Dade, five times more than Arizona, and four times more than Harris County.
(…) the good news is that the hospitalized cases now are younger and on average less severe. The chief operating officer of Tenet Healthcare, which runs hospitals in Sun Belt states, told investors last week that “the length of stay on [recent] cases is lower, the resource consumption is lower.”
Most hot spots currently have ample health-care capacity, though some hospitals are stretched. (…)
Public-health officials worry about an exponential rise in cases—that’s their job. But political leaders have to consider overall public and economic health, and locking down again doesn’t seem justified by the evidence. (…)
In any case, the health, social and economic cost of shutting the economy again are too high. Twenty-one million Americans are unemployed. Countless businesses and livelihoods have been destroyed. Rhode Island reported this week that drug overdose deaths spiked 22% in the first three months of this year. (…)
States, the feds and private businesses will need more testing, and states and Washington may have to surge capacity for hospitals. Governors, mayors, business and religious leaders and even President Trump can talk realistically about the continuing risks and measures to reduce the spread. Large gatherings will have to be limited, and young people should protect their elders. It will be a long haul, but America has managed through worse.
The Pandemic’s Worst-Case Scenario Is Unfolding in Brazil Overflowing hospitals. Widespread corruption. And a chloroquine-obsessed populist in charge.
Leadership matters:
- A new modeling predicts the virus will kill 180,000 Americans by October.
- A resurgence in cases in 11 European countries, if left unchecked, could overwhelm health services, said Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization’s regional director. The weekly number of cases are increasing again, with about 20,000 new confirmations daily, he said.
- Germany’s coronavirus infection rate fell to the lowest in almost three weeks, easing concerns that local outbreaks would prompt a resurgence of the pandemic.
- Australia has posted its biggest one-day spike in coronavirus cases in two months, heightening concerns the nation may be entering a second wave of infections that could jeopardize a further easing of lockdown restrictions.
PANDENOMICS
IMF Downgrades Already-Glum Economic Outlook Due to Coronavirus Crisis Lending institution says global economy will shrink 4.9% this year, compared with April estimate of 3%
(…) In contrast to the Great Depression from which the world struggled to recover for a decade, the IMF expects the global economy to grow next year, and said that on a monthly basis, many countries may have passed the worst. (…)
Among the hardest hit economies are the U.S., which is forecast to shrink 8% this year. The IMF estimates the euro-area economy will contract by 10.2%, Brazil by 9.1%, Mexico by 10.5%, and the U.K. by 10.2%. China is expected to be the only major economy to expand in 2020, but even their growth is forecast to be just 1%. (…)
Goldman Sachs sees real world GDP down 3.4% this year. U.S.: -4.2%. E.U.: -9.4%. China: +3.0%.
BTW, as John Mauldin explains
Economists use the word “recovery” to define a rebound from the previous time period. So if there was a 30% drop, a 10% increase would, for an economist, be a “recovery.” But in the real world, it still means you are 20% below where you started.
Hmmm…John, the math actually is that you are 23% below where you started.
“We don’t have a word for being in a depressed economy that’s growing,” says Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. (Axios)
The Oxford Economics activity tracker shows the US recovery slowing. (The Daily Shot)
The consensus among economists is now that we’ll see a “reverse radical” recovery. Think of a backwards square-root sign, where there’s a sharp drop, a relatively small bounce back, and then a long period of subpar growth. (Axios)
Coronavirus Costs Canada a Triple-A Rating Canada has become the first triple-A-rated sovereign entity to lose its rating because of the economic downturn and the extraordinary fiscal response triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.
(…) The move by Fitch “serves a message that Canada is not fiscally immune, and that governments will have plenty of work to do after the pandemic and necessary support measures come to pass,” he said. (…)
Fitch said it expects Canada’s fiscal response to the new coronavirus will lead to a rise in Canada’s general government debt—which incorporates the federal and provincial governments—to 115.1% of GDP in 2020, up from 88.3% of GDP in 2019. Fitch said the median rate among double-A-rated countries is projected to be at 42.3% for 2020. (…)
Bloomberg:
“Covid-19 impact on G-7 economies has been quite similar to each other while monetary and fiscal stimulus have also been quite similar and proportionate,” said Imran Chaudhry, a senior portfolio manager at Fiera Capital Corp. “It’ll be interesting to see what Fitch does for other sovereign names such as Australia, Germany and most importantly the U.S.”
In fact, Canada is the 25th country to have its sovereign rating downgraded by Fitch since March — more than the previous total for any full year dating back to 1994, Fitch analysts tell Axios.
- Additionally, 30% of the world’s sovereign countries were on negative ratings watch as of June 2 and Fitch has taken some form of negative rating action on around 50% of rated sovereigns.
According to Bloomberg, 30% of jobs lost from February to May are the result of a
“reallocation” shock, which means those jobs could be gone for good. (via Mauldin Economics)
Royal Mail Plc said it will cut around 2,000 management posts in a bid to streamline the business after the coronavirus outbreak accelerated a decline in letter volumes.
An early view of post-COVID-19 discretionary spending in Asia
Between April 28 and May 10, 2020, we [McKinsey] surveyed more than 3,600 consumers across 91 cities about their pre- and midpandemic purchases and postpandemic plans in a broad range of categories, including apparel, personal electronics, domestic appliances, and vehicles.
Soybean Prices Rally as China Ramps Up Buying China has ramped up its purchases of U.S. soybeans recently, sparking a rebound in prices and making the crop profitable again for U.S. farmers after the coronavirus pandemic had slammed demand.
SENTIMENT WATCH
The favorite U.S. stocks of retail investors have outperformed the S&P 500 by a large margin since March lows. (Image: BCA Research via Isabel.net)
FYI from Axios:
N.Y. Times/Siena swing-state polls out this morning show a slaughter:
- Joe Biden beats President Trump by 11 points in Michigan … 11 points in Wisconsin … 10 points in Pennsylvania … 9 points in N.C. … 7 points in Arizona … 6 points in Florida.
- Why it matters: Trump won all six of those states in 2016.