reopen

As noted many times by the media (and me) COVID-19 cases are on the rise in the US. The question is: Does it matter?

Here’s restaurant traffic for the most impacted states – FL, CA, NC, SC, TX, and AZ. Note TX only cut capacity a day or two ago. Blue is day value and Orange is 7-day average. (Note this is from opentable and only for restaurants that HAVE reopened.)

Two things you can see. First, is Father’s Day was a great day for restaurants (and maybe a bad thing for the virus spread).

But more importantly, you can see the recovery has paused and perhaps started to reverse.

It doesn’t matter if we officially shutdown again or not. People will modify their behavior with case data getting worse.

The U.S. had a new record of COVID-19 cases today. CA, TX, FL, among others had record high new cases. The percentage of positive tests is up too. This is not a testing issue. With NY and NJ finally reopening, this is a very important time for the virus and the economy.

The question is what does it take to reclose? The Governor doesn’t seem in a rush here in California.