It won’t be fast as we reopen next year into endemic COVID. Via Goldman:
Economic activity: Our consumer spending tracker has declined moderately and now stands at 98.9% of the pre-virus level, down from an average of 101%in July. The softness in activity appears to be driven by renewed virus fears—53% of adults now ascribe at least moderate health risk to “normal” activities(vs. 28% in June)—and the decline in spending partly reflects a slowdown in some virus-sensitive services. Activity at restaurants has declined by 5% since the start of August, while TSA traveler throughput and hotel activity have been roughly flat over the last few weeks. Measures of consumer sentiment declined from July to August, though our Twitter economic sentiment index fell by less than the University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment.
Virus spread: The coronavirus situation deteriorated over the last month: daily new cases increased from 31k to 134k (7dma) and daily fatalities have tripled. Hospitalizations have increased nationwide and are close to the winter peak in the South. 60% of the population has now received their first dose of the vaccine. However, the daily pace of new doses administered is just 0.7mn(7dma, from a peak of 3.4mn) and survey-based measures indicate that onlyabout 75-80% of adults are already vaccinated or intend to get vaccinated.
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David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
