In fact, I should write the “anti-public health measures stance”… The CDC yesterday issued an overall forecast of 8/16.
source: CDC, accessed August 19, 2021.
The CDC’s central forecast is that the weekly new death toll for the week of September 11 in Florida is 1461, with an interquartile range of (1249, 1739). The New York Times reported that as of August 19, the 7-day moving average was 138.1, or the total 7-day moving average was 967.Although due attention has been given to the overwhelmed nature of the hospital system, especially the availability of ICUs, the death toll has risen fast enough so that The Florida government has asked FEMA to provide morgue trucks.
Florida employment data for July has not yet been released, but in any case, these data will apply to the second week of this month, which is mainly in the period before the delta surge. The latest quantitative reading I know about the Florida economy is Baumeister et al.Weekly economic conditions index, discussed in This post, As shown below (data as of July 31st):
figure 1: Baumeister et al. The weekly economic status indicators for the United States (black) and Florida (red) are the percentage deviations from the national annualized trend growth rate. The NBER recession date is gray, from early February to the end of April. source: Weekly state-level economic status, Visit 8/6, NBER.
These indicators indicate that the recovery will continue until the end of July, albeit at a slower pace. It is difficult to find more recent quantitative evidence.I watch Google Mobile Florida Report The period ending on August 15th.
source: Google Mobile Reporting Data, Retail and entertainment components, accessed August 19, 2021.
There seems to be a big drop at the end of the sample, not related to holidays (the previous trough is related to July 4). However, it is not yet clear whether this decline is long-lasting or a sufficient signal to indicate a decline in overall economic activity. Therefore, we need to wait and see how many Covid-19-related deaths will be before risk aversion reduces economic activity related to high-touch services or Governor DeSantis changes his views on appropriate public health measures.
CDC’s Florida profile is here.
