Daily Briefing – 202

Post: Dec. 1, 2020

COVID and Cluster Update

Governor Cuomo held a press briefing call yesterday morning providing an overview of New York’s COVID-19 tracking data from Monday, November 30th.

Tracking data for the Clusters and the rest of the State are below.

Clusters: 6.20%
Rockland yellow zone: 4.52%
Westchester yellow-zones (Peekskill 9.55, Ossining 10.03, Tarrytown 5.55, Yonkers 4.75 New Rochelle 6.51, Port Chester 8.54)
Orange Yellow Zones – (Newburgh 7.30, Middletown 5.28)
Statewide: 4.96%
Mid-Hudson Region: 4.72%
Statewide excluding clusters: 4.40%
Statewide hospitalizations: 3,774 (718 in ICU)
Transmission Rate (R0): 1.11

Here are some useful websites:

Cuomo Announces Winter Plan to Combat COVID-19 Surge

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced New York’s plan for combating COVID-19 this winter. Over the past week, Governor Cuomo and the state’s COVID Task Force has worked in consultation with global public health experts, local governments and other stakeholders to ensure that the plan builds off the lessons learned during the past nine months to anticipate and prepare for an expected increase in COVID cases and hospitalizations over the Holiday season.

Specifically, the winter plan consists of five targeted strategies focused on mitigating the spread of the virus and bolstering New York State hospital preparedness including:

Continue and Strengthen New York’s Targeted Micro-Cluster Strategy while Managing Hospital Capacity to Enhance and Equalize Care;
Increase and Balance Testing Resources and Availability;
Keep Schools Open Safely;
Prevent Viral Spread from Small Gatherings; and
Operationalize an Equitable and Safe Vaccination Program

Read the Governor’s press release

Stimulus Update: What the Bipartisan Senators’ $900 Billion Package Does and Doesn’t Include

Yesterday a bipartisan group of senators unveiled a stimulus package in the $900 billion ballpark.

The bipartisan package proposed by senators including Republicans Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, and Democrats Joe Manchin and Mark Warner, would come in around $908 billion. That is well below the $2.2 trillion price tag sought by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, while far greater than the $500 billion packages voted on this fall by Senate Republicans, though the specifics of the deal are subject to change.

See what details are known and read more at Fortune

Fed Chair Powell Calls Economic Outlook ‘Extraordinarily Uncertain’ – Stresses Importance of lending programs

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell emphasized the importance of the lending programs it has deployed during the coronavirus pandemic, telling senators in testimony delivered Tuesday that they’ve been integral in keeping the economic fallout from being worse.

Many of the key programs that the central bank has used since March are expiring at the end of the year, and the Fed will be forced to return the funding that supports them.

OECD Lifts Economic Outlook Sees China Driving Global Recovery

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) expects the global economy to build momentum over the coming two years, with real gross domestic product (GDP) growth projected to reach pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2021. In its latest economic outlook, the OECD said it expects the global economy to contract 4.2% this year. That reflects an upward revision from an estimate made in September that pointed to a 4.5% fall in real GDP. Looking ahead, the group said worldwide economic growth would average 4% over the next two years. It expects real GDP growth to hit 4.2% in 2021 — trimmed from a September forecast of 5% — and 3.7% in 2022

It said China was expected to account for over one-third of world economic growth in 2021, while the contribution of Europe and North America “will remain smaller than their weight in the world economy.”

Joe Biden Fills Out His Economic Team

President-elect Joe Biden fleshed out his economic team. He confirmed his nomination of Janet Yellen, a former head of the Federal Reserve, as his treasury secretary. He wants Wally Adeyemo to be her deputy and Neera Tanden the director of the Office of Management and Budget. All are considered moderates. However, Mr Biden also selected several more-progressive economic advisers.

Mr. Biden’s selections include outspoken advocates for aggressive fiscal stimulus to help return the economy quickly to its pre-pandemic health, a cause that could run into resistance in a closely divided Congress. The advisers are also known for advocating expanded government spending they say would boost the economy’s long-term potential, in areas that are liberal priorities such as education, infrastructure and the green economy, and policy changes aimed at narrowing racial disparities in the economy.

ISM index falls to 57.5% in November from 59.3%

The Institute for Supply Management said its manufacturing index fell to 57.5% in November from a 21-month high of 59.3% in the prior month. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had forecast the index to total 58%.

Although readings over 50% indicate growth, companies encountered more struggles in November with worker absenteeism, temporary plant closures, and an inability to fill open jobs. The index for new orders slipped to 65.1% from a 16-year high of 67.9% in October. The production gauge dipped to 60.8% from 63.0%. Employment was the biggest negative. The employment index fell back into negative territory, dropping to 48.4% from 53.2%.

Lessons Learned: 2020, COVID-19 and the Future of Manufacturing

The totality of the changes 2020 required will be studied in textbooks for years. It was a unique high-stakes, high-speed innovation race, the likes of which the world has rarely experienced. Some of these changes will likely prove to be temporary, though others—particularly around the technological and automation implementations it included—have already begun to reshape the industry in permanent ways.

To help understand these changes, IndustryWeek pulled together an elite panel of manufacturing executives and experts for the closing keynote of the Manufacturing & Technology Virtual conference. The panel keynote, “The Future of Manufacturing,” takes a look back at the full 2020 experience and then ahead at the future it will create from a wide range of perspectives—from robotics and 3D printing to supply chain and smart manufacturing, and everything in between.

Johns Hopkins Report: 13 Million Cases

The US reported 12,999,624 cases on November 27, and it is likely that the US would have surpassed 13 million cases a day earlier, if not for delayed reporting over the Thanksgiving holiday.

It appears as though the national daily incidence may have passed an inflection point in mid-November. Prior to Thanksgiving, the daily incidence in a number of states—including Illinois, Iowa, North and South Dakota, and Wisconsin, all of which exhibited very high incidence during the current surge—began to taper off. However, with the interruptions to COVID-19 reporting and the varying trends at the state level, it could be a little more difficult to anticipate daily incidence trends over the next week or so. Regardless of what the daily incidence trend looks like in the wake of Thanksgiving, COVID-19 mortality in the US will likely continue to increase due to consistent and sharp increases in daily incidence over the past several weeks.

Our Blog