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Restaurant reservations are waning. The rebound in air travel is leveling off. And foot traffic at stores is dwindling once again. There is mounting evidence that America's fragile economic recovery is already stalling as the number of coronavirus infections and deaths spike.
Real-time economic indicators bottomed out in May as stay-at-home orders were lifted and many Americans felt safe enough to start visiting shopping centers, restaurants and even airports.
That gave hope, perhaps prematurely, of a rapid V-shaped recovery for the United States from the historic collapse caused by the pandemic.
But there is now a growing sense that the recovery is losing steam as coronavirus infections surge in California, Texas, Florida and other Sun Belt states.
"The premature reopening of the U.S. economy has resulted in an intensification of the pandemic, which is now causing growth in the economy to slow," Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM International, wrote in a note to clients Tuesday.
The stall of the fragile recovery comes as Congress debates whether the economy needs more stimulus — and if so, how much to provide. The $600 weekly enhanced unemployment benefits expire this month unless lawmakers take action.
Economists say there is nothing to debate: The recovery is faltering.
"Back in January, my column for Marketwatch detailed the massive danger that jumbo mortgages posed for U.S. mortgage and housing markets. After months of actions to counter the impact of COVID 19, the potential jumbo mortgage disaster is clearer than ever."
National laboratories are struggling to keep pace as demand for coronavirus testing grows. Florida processed almost 60,000 tests each day this week, which has more than doubled what the state was seeing this time in June.
In this episode, Tampa Bay Times reporter Margo Snipe shares a first-hand look at the highs and lows of getting tested for coronavirus after possible exposure to the virus. Reporter Lane DeGregory also shares an interview with a Tampa Bay lab director who breaks down all the complex testing lingo and might make you reconsider taking that test.
Guests appearing in this episode include Maura Pieretti of BayCare Laboratories and Nichelle Threadgill of Community Health Centers of Pinellas.
A new round of stimulus checks could come as soon as next month under CARES II, the second stimulus check package being worked on by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, according to Mnuchin.
“Our proposal is the exact same provision as last time,” the treasury secretary told reporters on Thursday, according to Fortune.
KEY POINTS
Republicans are expected to release a coronavirus relief plan next week and have unveiled major parts of the bill even as they struggle to come to a consensus on what it should include.
The legislation is set to include a temporary, reduced extension of enhanced unemployment insurance, another round of direct payments, liability protections for businesses and doctors and $105 billion in school funding.
Democrats, who are calling on Republicans to release a bill quickly as financial lifelines expire, are set to push the GOP to change several major provisions including unemployment insurance and aid to state and local governments.
Congress faces pressure to pass more legislation in the coming days to combat the damage from a raging outbreak. States will stop paying out the $600 per week enhanced federal unemployment benefit at the end of the week.
Last edited by wondermint2; 07-24-2020 at 01:37 PM..
As the economic fallout of the pandemic continues to unfold, banks are rushing to close credit card accounts or slash credit limits to curb their risk.
One in 4 Americans with credit cards said they had an account involuntarily shut down from mid-May to mid-July, while 1 in 3 said their credit limit was reduced, according to a new report from CompareCards.com that surveyed 1,003 credit cardholders.
The pullback by credit card issuers is occurring more frequently than in 2008 during the Great Recession, when 1 in 6 cardholders reported reduced limits or involuntary account closures, according to a 2010 study by Phoenix Synergistics, a market research firm for financial services companies.
“This is, in a lot of ways, a much bigger issue today than it was in the Great Recession,” Schulz said. “It makes sense that banks are taking an even harder line with lending because there's so much that they don't know, and they're so nervous about risk.”
Location: Sarasota/ Bradenton - University Pkwy area
4,612 posts, read 7,529,570 times
Reputation: 6026
Interesting story from Palm Beach county:
The CBS12 News I-Team uncovered several examples in Medical Examiner reports of people counted as a COVID death who did not die of COVID......
The I-Team found eight cases in which a person was counted as a COVID death, but did not have COVID listed as a cause of contributing cause of death.
Included in the total were:
A 60-year-old man who died from a gun shot wound to the head.
A 90-year-old man who fell and died from complications of a hip fracture.
A 77-year-old woman who died of Parkinson’s disease.
Then there are stories such as this one in which the FL Dept of Health admitted to leaving off over 1000 negative test results from their reports:
A record number of deaths were also reported yesterday, but already some are questioning the reporting as those were not one day totals but instead included additional deaths that had occurred within the past 30 days that were now being included in the totals.
Over the weekend, Florida made international headlines when it reported a shocking number of positive COVID-19 test results: More than 15,000 in a single day. But it turns out that report contained numbers gathered over several days by a single laboratory.
And before a certain person jumps all over my post, let me state that I am not questioning whether we are in a pandemic or not (we are), or that numbers have spiked in FL over the past few weeks (they have). I do however have questions about what criteria is being used to determine someone died from coronavirus, are negative test results being massively under reported, are daily totals truly daily totals and what is being done to correct these kinds of errors in reporting.
State and local officials are making serious decisions that impact FL residents based on these reports -- shouldn't we at least have confidence that the test results being reported are accurate?
COVID-19 patients with mild symptoms may still develop chronic illness related to the disease, a new CDC report found.
More than a third of patients surveyed said they hadn't returned to their usual state of health two to three weeks after they were tested.
That included nearly 20% of young, previously healthy respondents.
"The CDC surveyed more than 270 symptomatic adults who tested positive for the virus between April 15 and June 25 but didn't need to be hospitalized. More than a third of those patients said they hadn't returned to their usual state of health two to three weeks after they were tested. Among young, previously healthy respondents — people ages 18 to 34 — the share of patients who hadn't recovered was nearly 20%."
People who have had mild to moderate COVID-19 can come out of isolation after 10 days and don't need to be retested before going back to work, new CDC guidelines say.
Symptoms, not testing, are the guide. If patients had a fever, it needs to have been gone for at least 24 hours.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document, published Wednesday, says symptoms are a better gauge of how infectious someone is so they are "not kept unnecessarily isolated and excluded from work or other responsibilities."
The state agency that tracks COVID-19 hospitalization data gathers far more information than it shares with the public, including how many patients are suspected to have the disease but haven’t yet tested positive, how many are in intensive care beds and how many are on ventilators.
The Agency for Health Care Administration, or AHCA, also tells Florida hospitals in its data reporting guidelines dated April 19 to exclude from official COVID hospitalization numbers people who tested positive for the coronavirus but are being treated for other medical issues — even heart attacks and strokes, which are two conditions that can be associated with complications from the disease.
“There is so much granularity here that we could report on,” said Jason Salemi, an epidemiologist and professor at the University of South Florida, after reviewing the guidelines. “... What’s being made available to the public right now is woeful.”
Salemi, who closely tracks the state’s COVID numbers and has built his own dashboard to monitor trends, said keeping stroke and heart attack patients who have a secondary diagnosis of COVID out of the official statistics could “muddy the waters” of the true number of cases.
They are making millions of dollars after announcing positive developments, including support from the government, in their efforts to fight Covid-19. After such announcements, insiders from at least 11 companies — most of them smaller firms whose fortunes often hinge on the success or failure of a single drug — have sold shares worth well over $1 billion since March, according to figures compiled for The New York Times by Equilar, a data provider.
In some cases, company insiders are profiting from regularly scheduled compensation or automatic stock trades. But in other situations, senior officials appear to be pouncing on opportunities to cash out while their stock prices are sky high. And some companies have awarded stock options to executives shortly before market-moving announcements about their vaccine progress.
The sudden windfalls highlight the powerful financial incentives for company officials to generate positive headlines in the race for coronavirus vaccines and treatments, even if the drugs might never pan out.
Despite positive news this week regarding its COVID-19 vaccine, AstraZeneca shares dropped due to concerns about side effects and market competitiveness.
The news Monday regarding AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN)'s trial of coronavirus vaccine AZD1222 seemed to be the type of information that would push a stock's price up, not down.
Interim results from the phase 1/2 trial of the company's vaccine, which was developed in partnership with Oxford University, suggested that it drove antibody and T-cell immune responses against COVID-19 in each of the study's 1,077 participants.
AstraZeneca's stock rose initially on the news, jumping nearly $3 a share from Friday's close to $61.40 on Monday morning. However, when the market closed Tuesday, AstraZeneca stock had dropped to $58.07, and by Friday's closing bell, it was below $56.
Why? Analysts looked beyond the sunny picture of AstraZeneca's release, in which it said that the drug had "only minor side effects," to see exactly what that meant.
The study said the side effects included "pain, feeling feverish, chills, muscle ache, headache, and malaise." That doesn't sound minor, especially when you see that participants were given a gram of acetaminophen every six hours for 24 hours after the injection of the vaccine to reduce fever, headaches, or muscle aches. Of course, given a choice between getting COVID-19 or dealing with a headache and a little fever, most people would gladly choose the latter. However, the fact that the side effects were largely glossed over made some wonder whether researchers are being overly optimistic about the vaccine's outcome.
It’s easy to forget now but there was a time early on in the pandemic when the price of gold was in freefall.
It was a curious thing, what with the virus sparking a collapse in the global economy, and it would prove in time to be one of the great head-fakes in the recent history of financial markets. For the pandemic of 2020 would soon show itself to be the driving force behind one of the most ferocious rallies the gold market has ever seen. At the close of trading in New York on Friday, bullion had spiraled to $1,902.02 an ounce, some 30% higher than the low it hit in March and just 1% off a record high set back in 2011.
The virus has unleashed a torrent of forces that are conspiring to fuel relentless demand for the perceived safety from turmoil that gold provides. There’s the fear of further government-ordered lockdowns; and politicians’ decision to push through unprecedented stimulus packages; and central bankers’ decision to print money faster than they ever have before to finance that spending; and the plunge in inflation-adjusted bond yields into negative territory in the U.S.; and the dollar’s sudden decline against the euro and yen; and rising U.S.-China tensions.
The main driver behind gold’s latest rally “has been real rates that continue to plummet and don’t show signs of easing anytime soon,” Edward Moya, a senior market analyst at Oanda Corp., said by phone. Gold is also drawing investors “concerned that stagflation will win out and will likely warrant even further accommodation from the Fed.”
In the absence of medical grade personal protective equipment (PPE), many of us have turned to homemade cloth masks to help stop the spread of coronavirus. But increasingly, research has shown that not all masks are created equal, and some are downright ineffective. A new video case study produced by Australian researchers shows that in order for a homemade cloth mask to stop viral transmission, it needs to have at least two layers of fabric. In effect, if your mask has just one layer of fabric, you can safely bet that it simply doesn't work.
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