Green line is the unemployment rate in every state of the country. Red line is the financial health of universities, restaurants, airlines, and every small business. Sinkender roter und steigender grüner Pfeil symbolisieren das Auf und Ab des Aktienmarktes by Marco Verch is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
With extremely short notice, governors of Arizona and Tennessee extended the lockdown and economic shutdown in their states. California governor orders beaches closed in the county with lowest infection rate, leaving open beaches in county with three times higher rate.
Meanwhile, many other states are trying to allow their economies to re-start.
Arizona extends lockdown
4/29/20 – Fox 10 Phoenix – Gov. Doug Ducey extends Arizona’s stay-at-home order to May 15 – The shutdown and lock-in for Arizona was scheduled to expire in one day as the governor extended the economic catastrophe by 15 more days.
On May 4, retail stores can start curb-side deliveries. On May 8, they can actually have customers in the store.
It is possible, maybe, that restaurants can have customers dine-in on May 12. Maybe.
The economic development director in Phoenix estimates one out of four small businesses will never open their doors again. They will be gone. Estimate is six years to recover all the lost jobs.
Tennessee extends lockdown, after theaters and restaurants are already geared up to reopen
4/28/20 – Facebook comment – COVID-19 Update – Tennessee governor just backtracked on allowing counties to decide whether and how to allow the local economies to start functioning.
On Friday restaurants, bars, gyms, bowling alleys, stores, and theaters could open.
So, the businesses in this particular county, which is a tourist destination, brought staff back on board, restocked the stores, spruced up the theaters, and started rehearsals.
And then…
Just a few days before reopening, the bars, bowling alleys, and theaters were told they may not open. So who will travel to a tourist spot when there is nothing to do other than have dinner? Probably nobody.
The theaters and bars and bowling alleys and other tourist destinations just wasted all the money to get staff back and get ready.
It is an easy guess that a substantial portion of those businesses will fail since many of them probably just used up their last cash.
The governor killed a lot of businesses.
Beaches ordered closed in Orange County California, but not San Diego or Ventura counties
4/30/20 – Daily Bulletin – Gov. Newsom orders hard close of beaches in Orange County – Reports the night before in multiple outlets asserted that the governor was going to close all beaches in the state on Thursday. Instead, he only ordered the beaches in Orange County closed.
Before the order, lots of people went to the beaches last weekend in Ventura, Orange, and San Diego counties after temperature had been in the 90s for several days before.
Take your pick on photos you wish to look at. Those taken horizontally with a long view might suggest people were not far apart. Upon closer examination, you can see family units were close together but it looked like there was anywhere from 6 to 15 feet between family units. Presumably people living in the same residence are not obligated to keep 6’ distance from each other.
Photos published in recent days which taken from overhead drones show people on Huntington Beach last Thursday were generally keeping 10 or 30 feet between family units.
Orange County beaches were ordered closed. Not San Diego. Not Ventura.
Officials in Orange County asserted the governor was
making punitive policy
driven by
“a few misleading pictures.”
For perspective, let’s look at the infection rates by county. I’ve been tracking infections and deaths for several So Cal counties since mid-March. Combine that with population count allows calculation of cases per 100,000 people, which is apparently the usual way to track such data.
Infection rates per 100,000 as of 4/30:
- 251 – San Diego
- 229 – Los Angeles
- 166 – Riverside
- 95 – San Bernardino
- 75 – Orange
Obviously there aren’t any beaches in Riverside or San Bernardino counties. Of three counties with beaches (LA, Orange, Ventura), LA beaches were already closed. Which other county gets closed? The one with lowest infection rate.
Which county is allowed to have citizens visit the beaches? The one with highest infection rate.
Compared to Orange County (75/100k), the infection rate is 3.3 times higher in San Diego County (251/100K).
Many states are trying to revive their economies
4/28/20 – Daily Mail – Ohio, Missouri and Iowa are latest states to lift coronavirus restrictions as 83 million American begin to see normality return after weeks of shutdown – Thursday, 4/29, marked the end of the sixth week of shutdown in California.
Governor of Ohio announced the state will start to reopen on Friday, 5/1.
Missouri has already announced 5/4 is the start of removing the state from the deep freezer.
Other states who have already started to let the economy function include:
- Texas – the stay-at-home order expires completely on 4/30
- South Carolina
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Tennessee
- Georgia
- Oklahoma
- Alaska
- Colorado
- Montana
That makes 12 states that have decided to let people slowly start to work so they can try to climb their way out of their financial hole.
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