COVID-19 Has Sickened the U.S. Economy… Will It Get Healthy?

There is no way to overshadow the human toll COVID-19 has taken on Americans.

As of this writing, more than 4.3 million people in the U.S. have tested positive for the virus. The actual number is probably much higher. And some 150,000 Americans have died during the pandemic.

If things were improving, perhaps we could take solace in that fact. But they continue to worsen.

And while nothing is more important than our health, there is another victim of the coronavirus. That’s the U.S. economy.

$16 Trillion in Losses?

Over the next 10 years, the U.S. economy could lose $16 trillion. That’s an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.

The reasons are obvious. Many companies have gone out of businesses. Others have had to cut staff and hours of availability.

Many citizens are holding back on spending. Either because they’ve lost jobs or are afraid their income will soon take a hit.

There is a general consensus that this virus is not going away anytime soon. And that impacts business investments.

Not-So-Friendly Skies

One of the industries particularly hard hit is travel. Specifically, airlines. Thousands of flights have been cancelled due to travelers choosing to stay home. Or drive to their destinations.

Airlines and airports are doing everything they can to convince people it’s safe to fly. They require facemasks for staff and passengers. And have imposed new cleaning procedures.

They also insist on social distancing during flight boarding and block middle seats. Robots are cleaning terminal floors. And passengers’ temperatures are being taken.

Even people who are not concerned about flying during the pandemic must consider the fact that they may have to quarantine for 14 days at their destination. And the announcement that thousands of TSA agents have tested positive for COVID-19 didn’t help.  

Surges Limit Group Gatherings

Another industry that has suffered during the pandemic is the restaurant business. Many of these establishments had to halt in-store dining for a couple of months.

Some of them attempted to partially compensate with carryout orders. And eventually with outdoor dining options. If they had the space. But the struggle continues as the virus surges again in many places.

Every business dependent upon people gathering in groups is hurting right now. Either because lawmakers have shut them down or because people are shying away from them.

These include hotels, theaters, concert halls and convention centers. Plus sports venues, museums, theme parks and zoos. As well as gyms, cruise ships, casinos and clubs.

Economy Entwined With Virus

Reopening the economy had to happen at some point. But many people are now questioning if some states reopened too soon and too quickly.

Nearly one-half of the 50 states have paused or reversed their reopening as a result of health concerns.

Joe Brusuelas is the chief economist at RSM International. It’s a network of accounting firms. Here’s what he said about the situation.

“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.”

Retail Stores Closing

A number of big box retailers have shut down some of their stores. And reduced hours at other locations. Including 200 Target stores.

Walmart and CVS have done the same. Recent protests and riots caused some companies to scale back deliveries in certain areas.

Some struggling businesses have opted for the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program.

It is designed to keep workers at small businesses employed. But if the work goes away due to consumer caution, there’s nothing for those employees to do.

Near Future Looks Bleak

So, what does the future look like for the U.S. economy? The unsatisfactory answer is that nobody knows. But right now it’s not looking good.

Restaurants that were starting to recover after the reopening are now faltering again. Reservations are down 100 percent compared to a year ago.

The retail rebound has slowed as well. Nearly 25 percent of small businesses in the U.S. have closed. Overall spending is crawling. And first-time unemployment benefit applications are rising.

Economists at Bank of America wrote this chilling statement to their clients last week. “It is clear that the path of the economic recovery cannot be disentangled from the path of the virus.”

Pinning Hopes on a Vaccine

Scott Kirby is the United Airlines CEO. He said his airline does not “expect to get anywhere close to normal until there’s a vaccine that’s been widely distributed to a large portion of the population.” 

If that’s true, the wait could be a long one. Lazard, an asset management company, conducted a recent poll.

It revealed that 73 percent of healthcare industry leaders estimate a vaccine won’t be widely available until at least the second half of 2021.

As I’ve said before, the race to get through this pandemic is a marathon, not a sprint. Please take care of yourselves.

Add Food Bars to Your Stash

One of the ways to do that is making sure you have plenty of long-lasting food in your stockpile.

An increasingly popular favorite at 4Patriots is our Emergency Food Bar Kits. They taste like shortbread cookies and won’t leave you thirsty.

These food bars require no cooking, water or heat. They will last for five years without refrigeration. And withstand temperatures from 40 degrees below to 300 degrees above, Fahrenheit.

Packed with flavor and nutrition, these compact and lightweight bars are ready to eat when you’re hungry.

Go here to claim your Emergency Food Bar Kits

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Comments

Matt - September 21, 2020
I stock a small supply of emergency food and essentials because I live in an earthquake zone. Last night 11:38 pm a magnitude 4.5 earthquake startled 10 million people from LA county to San Diego County. How many of us are ready for the next natural disaster? My son lives in Tornado Ally and he built a safe room in his home. My brother lives in the path of Hurricane Sally so he jammed in his ready RV and headed for higher/safer ground. Something more ominous is already moving toward a neighborhood near you. A human tsunami. It has happened in the past. Its happening right now in cities across the USA. And no doubt it can flash-up in an instant in the future from anybody with any kind of a grievance. The police can’t help you because they must obey the politicians whom you and I voted for in the last election. Speaking of elections—no matter who is elected President of the USA one party seems bent toward and is determined to be your tyrant and take your savings and your guns so you cannot protect yourself from your own government. We can see that happening right now even though the media has stopped reporting the riots. Some of these politicians are saying, “Its not my fault!” But what are they doing really to stop the riots? They know they change people’s perceptions if media blocks reporting the truth about the riots. No News must mean no riots, right? There is another party, however, that is glad for Americans to be independent and self reliant and capable of caring for themselves and defending themselves and the American way of life. The news media have proven they can’t be trusted as reliable. Did you know that antifa and BLM rioters are continuing destructive protests 115 days in Portland? Why has the media minimally reported that fact even though Mr. Reinoehl killed a man in a pro-Trump prayer rally and he unashamedly admitted his action in an interview. Okay, so now what? I suggest that one party seems determined to disrupt the economy and make you and me suffer every inconvenience; electrical power failures, shortages of food, water, fuel, housing and transportation. Far worse is a shortage of safety from the criminals who want to take what is yours—your lives, your food supply and your stuff. And in the process blame the opposition. If that picture is objectionable then consider who wants to de-fund your local law enforcement and who wants to maintain law and order by supporting America’s local law enforcement. Vote accordingly.

Meanwhile, prepare, stay alert and be a hard target.
Matt

Estella M Powers - August 10, 2020

I love the food I get from4Patriot and most of the solar things I been stocking up for me n my family , one thing is I’m sorry I don’t Realy like the green powder shakes but many of your items are very good . The meats are Wounderful and very easy to make meals . Thank you 4Patriots for your Wounderful foods .

Dean Halleck - August 6, 2020

- I apologise ahead of time for this reply , I have some health issues and am not a very good writer. My response to your email that you have sent out about the Covid-19 situation is that —

- Much of what you have watched on the news is not true – government figures for infection and deaths are seeming to be very exaggerated , I have watched many doctors online , as well as Researchers/Scientist talk about this on Youtube and other websites …..and things are not being reported accurately…. This whole situation has really led to so much abuse of the truth, and led to many power abuses as well. It seems like it is an opportunity for those who are supposed to be our civil servants , to turn this situation to their advantage enacting many decrees / laws that they would never have done before -—————————— as an example of mis reporting I have seen where the Government has said specific Nursing homes that care for several thousand people at their various facilities have had 25% to 40% loss of life… Only to have the Nursing Home Administrators come online and say they don’t know where they got their information , they said that no one had talked to them about what their statistics were , and that NO One had died at any of their facilities in the time frame that they had mentioned.
My next door neighbor of 13 years has been a health care worker for more than 20 years , she runs Xray and MRI machines, and sends her diagnoses on to the doctors. She has told me that some doctors at the hospital where she works have told her confidentiality, that they have been under pressure by certain Government agencies to change cause of death on many people’s death certificates .
– One example of what was happening is - if they tested positive for covid 19 , but died of something else they are told to change the records to them having died of covid-19. One doctor claimed that he was even told to change his records to show the people as having died of covid-19 , even if they didn’t test positive for covid 19, and died of something completely unrelated! – you cannot trust our news agencies either as we once could, news that is by definition supposed to be fact based , and which it was the whole time we were growing up is now largely editorials – not the fact based News we once knew – So many stories are never fact checked now … and when it comes out that whatever they were reporting on was not a true story they never set the record straight anymore. Our country is changing so rapidly that it could make your head spin – our parents, and the people from the past wouldn’t believe you if told them that the country has a very real possibility of people actually voting for a socialist candidate ( almost a communist in their beliefs) – something that would have been laughed at and never have been a possibility in the past.
I am sure that the the hundreds of thousands of men and women who have died to give us our freedom today would be aghast at the state our country is in today. we are all have to share some of the blame …… – we let the government and other people raise and teach the majority of our children… And now that they are becoming voting adults , they have no idea of the principles that this country was founded upon , what the constitution actually says , or what the ramifications of what is going on will be for our freedom and our way of life in the future. They have not been taught anything about economics or how our system is - or was supposed to work. This next generation have not been taught real history either , and they are making decisions and voting for people that want to change our country into something our forefathers wouldn’t even recognise. We have allowed many of those freedoms that so many have died for slip away all in the name of comfort and protection from a few people that might do us harm.
Another major problem is it seems like everyone now feels that they are somehow entitled to money and programs that were never even considered in the several hundred year history of our country.
One last story , I was at the local gym – actually a YMCA and talking with several older guys there and a young guy who was just out of highschool came up to the work out station that we we at and we got to talking to him, eventually the group felt comfortable enough to start asking some questions to see what he had been taught in school, and see what he knew about our country and history in general , after a long conversation we learned that he had been taught that socialism and communism were good alternatives to our democratic Republic ……. and that there were so many evils that America was responsible for we were painted as the bad guys in many areas in the past, and he had no idea of many of the good things that America has done in the past. …… He said that he had also been taught that Stalin and Mao were good men and great leaders, and when we question him about what he knew of them we found that he had no idea of the 20 million or more people that Stalin had killed – ( likely a conservative number). He also and had no idea that Mao had killed 20 to 45 million people when he came into power…. this is some of what is going on in some of our schools these days, America is bad, and the bad guys are taught as good . They don’t seem to be teaching in a balanced way and our children – that is this new generation doesn’t know very much about the real history of this country or many other countries either. - There is a quote that says something like — " those that fail to know or understand the past are doomed to repeat it" – that is a very sobering thought , sometimes it makes me think we are headed for some dark times in the future - ( or maybe it would be more accurate to say they are headed for dark times in the future – we won’t be around to see how far this country might fall….
To wrap up my email , there is a story that is said to be true that happened during the time of the signing of the Declaration Of Independence ,the story goes that after all had signed their names to the Declaration of Independence Ben Franklin was seen leaving the building and a women came up to him and asked him " what have you given us Mr. Franklin?" – He is said to have replied to the women – " a Republic if you can keep it" -

Michael Scott - August 4, 2020

Even without covid, this will be a long winter. Covid has only added to the mess. We have lost crops, there are shortages throughout the system. Prepare now. May everyone be safe and healthy. GOD BLESS US ALL AND KEEP US SAFE.

Stephen R. Hosaflook - August 4, 2020

It’s really sad that this country, and so many people in it, have fallen for all of this unnecessary panic. While I admit the virus is real, I will not admit that it’s as bad as we’re being led to believe. I believe we’re being lied to and it saddens me that such a great company like Patriot Health Alliance seems to have fallen for this too. I have purchased many products from your company and hope to continue doing so. Please don’t side with those who have used this virus to scare Americans into their homes by telling them they’re going to die if they get this virus. That’ is simply not true, And, the numbers we are being given are also simply not true. I personally know of many cases that have been erroneously reported and many deaths attributed to this virus that are simply not true. Thank you for your great service to our country and please rethink your position on agreeing with the unnecessary panic,

Candace Reynolds - August 4, 2020

We reacted to late and reopened way to soon.

CHall - August 4, 2020

Unfortunately the fear factor is continuing to enslave the country. The numbers are inaccurate, the deaths are not being truthfully reported. This is not a pandemic, is it a tool in the hands of very unscrupulous leaders. If the majority of the public thought for themselves, did not worship at the altar of conventional unscientific medicine, were better educated about how the body, and understood viruses, and exactly how disinformation actually works, they would not have fallen for this complete lie.
There is a virus, there are those that have suffered and some have died especially when treated with a “known to fail” protocol and when deliberately exposed to the virus when put on C-19 wards
waiting an inaccurate, highly false positive test. The states did not open too soon. They should have never shut down to begin with.

Geri Hedberg - August 4, 2020

The message you sent today hit our country right on the nose.
There are so many people suffering because there is no money
for food.
The sad part is that us elderly people are staying home as not
to end up with the virus because we probably wouldn’t live through
it. The younger people don’t think about that and keep gathering in
large groups and start it over again. Thanks and keep up the good work.
Geri Hedberg

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