Alright, We Stay Home: Now What?
No, this post is not going to be statistics of Covid-19 new cases, or deaths, or have we plateaued? type of post. No, I think we have seen plenty of them and personally speaking I am a bit saturated about it. I have learned everything there is to know about symptoms and preventive measures. I have also learned how I am doing the society a favor by staying inside. Yep, I learned in all, and I appreciate the information. I will abide by it.
At the same time, I see no danger in walking alone on the street without mask at 10 pm at night, there is not a single soul on my street. I feel no need to wear mask while driving my car. Today, I took my kids out to a boardwalk by the water, it was empty, none of us were wearing a mask. I felt good about it, and my kids enjoyed it. What I am trying to say, that I am not paranoid. I am ready for a road trip in summer.
Source
This morning I was doing some random twitter feed browsing for the recent Hive-Steem fiasco (no, not going to talk about it), and I came across the chart above. I normally do not read news much these days, but that article is a splendid piece of data analysis and representation. Recently I was talking to a friend regarding the economic impact of Lock down especially in countries that are dependent of tourism. That chart shows some of the most heavily impacted countries are Caribbean Island nations in terms of percentages, and Thailand & Philippines in terms of total number of tourism related job loss. Mind you, this is incomplete data, as it only goes to early May,
How's the United States Tourism
Bad. Personal experience: I am trying to rent a house for a short term rental over the summer. Most of the states, I am trying at the moment, homeowners are unable to provide a short-term rentals as the respective state governments do not allow it.
Personally we started staying home from March 15, which is around 4K in the chart above. Our family actually did have a cruise ship tour planned during that week, which is Spring Break in most of the United States school districts. We had to cancel it at the last moment. Looks like many people did the same. Basically, it is showing that all recreational activities are essentially shutdown.
Now What?
Well people in cities/towns are staying inside. Below is some of the transit data from some of the big cities, and we can see the alarming trend.
Source
The article above has a much more detailed chart of many major cities across all continents. The trend is humbling. We are already seeing the economic impact in almost every sector of the markets. There are 26 million job loss in the United States already, and quite a few of my friends have lost jobs, with basically no prospect of getting it back. There are talks about "working from home" permanently for a large majority of the work force, even in old industries. This will likely lead to a crash of the commercial real estate market globally.
Summer Vacation
Enough doom and gloom. I do want to finish this short post on a high note. Personally I haven't taken any vacation this year, and I am looking forward to a road trip, because air travel continue to be problematic. Also I just filled up my car with $1.50/gallon gasoline, time seems ripe for a long driving trip.
