Weekly update on US COVID-19: We have a long way to go. Cases per day are averaging over 60,000 and Hospitalizations are growing rapidly.
Given that cases starting increases and then, after two weeks, hospitalizations started increasing, and now deaths are starting to increase we have a long way in this cycle until we have a long way to go until we probably see a roll back of restrictions in many states.
This is a negative for growth in Q3. I expected GDP estimates to start coming in.
The U.S. Census has been doing flash surveys every week since April on Employment. The data so far this month suggests the economy has lost 2.6mm jobs.
The data is delayed about 8 days but, as noted a week or so ago, this is to be expected because restaurant data had been dropping. Here’s the updated graph between restaurant traffic and Employment.
The good news is that next week the restaurant data suggests either no or a smaller drop in jobs.
With that said, 2.5mm jobs is huge and will increase unemployment by almost 2% next month.