Coronavirus Special Report
February 13-19, 2021
February 13-19, 2021
Read all about it! More than 476,000 480,000 485,000 490,000 495,000 Americans have died, but the new-case number is slowly falling. There was a Valentine's Day/President's Day boomlet in flying. The government backs off plans to demand negative tests before domestic flights. Nasty winter storms snarl flying nationwide and basically grounds Texas. Travel industry financial numbers remain startlingly bad. And more. Read from the bottom for context.
Coronavirus Update: Friday, February 19, 2021
U.S. life expectancy has dropped by a year due to the Covid pandemic. The details are here. Read it before, well, you know ... Here are today's other developments:
The dead zone There were 69,228 new Coronavirus cases in the United States on Thursday, says Johns Hopkins. The death toll: 2,558. The new-case totals have plunged since the beginning of the year, but that death toll remains brutally, distressingly high Monday, Thursday, whatever The TSA says that 914,823 people passed through airport checkpoints on Thursday. That's 38.7% of 2020 volume, exactly the same as Monday. The other Texas problem Lodging revenue in Texas in 2020 dropped by more than $5 billion, or roughly 41% below 2019. Statewide occupancy fell to an average of 46%, the lowest in more than 30 years. Worst hit: Austin, the state capital, a trendy tourist draw and home of the South by Southwest festival. Austin's hotel revenue dropped by 55%. Figures were compiled by Source Strategies Inc., a Texas-based hotel research firm. Worse than it looks Eurocontrol, which handles the continent's air traffic control, has more bad news: It's worse than it looks. The agency says Europe flights are off by two-thirds, but passenger counts are down by more than 80%. Slim city Fat Tuesday and the parade-less Carnival in New Orleans didn't do much for the city's hotel occupancy. Hoteliers there thought occupancy could reach 60%. It ended up in the 20-25% range. Nola.com has the details. Coronavirus Update: Thursday, February 18, 2021
The Florida man, Gov. Ron DeSantis, threatens to relocate vaccines away from any area that complains about his highly political management. The New York man, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is being investigated for his actions surrounding the state's nursing-home deaths. Here are today's other developments: Those distressing deaths There were 70,188 new Coronavirus cases in the United States on Wednesday, says Johns Hopkins. The death toll: 2,459. Although the new-case number has plunged dramatically, the daily death toll remains distressingly high. Wednesday wake-up The TSA says that 773,422 people passed through airport checkpoints on Wednesday. That's 36.3% of 2020 volume, the best Wednesday performance since early January. Austin alone Austin Bergstrom Airport handled 6,472,579 passengers in 2020, down 62.7% compared to 2020. It's also the first time in a decade that traffic fell at the airport. ¡Ay, caramba! Aeromexico, the leading carrier in Mexico, said its 2020 revenue fell 58.4%. Passenger traffic fell 61% on 50% less capacity than 2019. Hong Kong Disneyland reopens tomorrow. It's the third time that the park is opening since the first Coronavirus-related closure. It has most recently been closed since December 2. Geneva humbled Swiss International will operate only 20 flights a week from Geneva until the end of March. The flights connect to Swiss's Zurich hub and Frankfurt, primary hub of Lufthansa, Swiss's owner. Coronavirus Update: Wednesday, February 17, 2021
New York City, last year's epicenter of the virus, is slowly returning to something like normal. Starting Monday, the subways will close between 2am and 4am instead of between 1am and 5am. Overnight closures, the first planned night closing in the city's history, started last May. Here are today's other developments: Genuine progress There were 62,398 new Coronavirus cases in the United States on Tuesday, says Johns Hopkins. The death toll: 1,756. Although medical experts worry about the spread of more-communicable variants, the numbers are, finally, trending in the right direction. Also, 4.59% of the U.S. population has now been fully vaccinated. After the "gold" rush The TSA says 738,825 people passed through airport checkpoints on Tuesday. That's 33.7% of 2020 volume, lower than last Tuesday's performance. It also marks the end of the Valentine's Day/President's Day "rush" that pushed daily traffic over the 40% mark. Texas, messed with ... Storms, freakishly low temperatures and the lack of power continue to plague Texas flying. Two-thirds or more of the flights at the four Dallas and Houston airports have been cancelled today. Austin-Bergstrom Airport opened at 1pm, but the South Terminal will remain closed through Thursday. San Antonio airport opened at 2pm. Nationwide, nearly 2,500 flights have been cancelled, according to FlightAware.com. Beyond belief Cathay Pacific, the flag carrier of Hong Kong, carried only 30,410 passengers in the entire month of January. That's a decrease of more than 99% compared to January, 2020--and fewer than 1,000 customers a day. Hilton horrors Hilton Hotels said net loss for 2020 was $720 million. RevPAR (revenue per available room), a key indicator of lodging health, fell 56.7% for the entire year. The cupboard is bare in Brussels Only 283,000 passengers passed through Brussels Airport in January, down 84% from last year. Coronavirus Update: Tuesday, February 16, 2021
The British pound closed above $1.39 for the first time in nearly three years on Monday. Needless to say, the rationale for financial moves is, um, unclear. Here are today's other developments: A moment of medical calm There were 53,883 new Coronavirus cases in the United States on Monday, says Johns Hopkins. The death toll: "only" 941. The boomlet deflates The TSA says 967,693 people passed through airport checkpoints on Monday. That's 38.7% of 2020 volume, lower than last Monday's performance. Ice, ice baby The ice storm and low temperatures that smashed through the nation's heartland continue to snarl flights, especially to/from Texas. San Antonio and Austin/Bergstrom airports remain closed. Houston/Intercontinental and Houston/Hobby are closed until 4pm. The two Dallas airports (DFW and Love) are operating at reduced capacity. According to FlightAware.com, there were 3,904 cancellations nationwide yesterday and at least 2,700 so far today. Surviving Sturgis The Dakotas were battered by the virus after last summer's inexplicable decision to allow the massive Sturgis motorcycle rally. But both states have righted the ship and are leaders in vaccine distribution. NBC News has the details. Curfew chaos After several giddy days of skating on frozen canals for the first time in several years, Dutch citizens were unhappy with the continuing national nightly curfew. To their rescue came the Dutch courts, which ordered the government to immediately lift the curfew. The court decision early on Tuesday local time came after violent demonstrations earlier this month. A Dutch appeals court later today apparently stayed the lower court's order, however. Stay tuned. Austria says its lockdown--bars, restaurants, tourism, cultural and leisure facilities are closed--will continue until Easter in early April. Bars and restaurants are permitted to do takeaway service. Border battle Germany's decision to lock down its borders to parts of Austria and the Czech Republic caused chaos on Monday. As many as half the vehicles hoping to enter at land borders were turned away. Deutsche Welle's English-language service has the details.Coronavirus Update: Monday, February 15, 2021
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said it was premature for states to roll back mask mandates. "We are still at about 100,000 cases a day." That's "more than two and a half times what we saw over the summer" of 2020, she said yesterday on NBC's Meet the Press. Here are today's other developments: Blessed breather There were 64,938 new Coronavirus cases in the United States on Sunday, says Johns Hopkins. The death toll: 1,088. Weekend numbers are fragmentary and incomplete, but the new-case rate is the lowest since October. Boomlet Chronicles The TSA says 946,458 people passed through airport checkpoints on Sunday. That's 43.0% of 2020 volume, the fourth consecutive day north of 40% and the best run since the beginning of the year. Pay to play England and Scotland have begun mandatory quarantine programs for arrivals from many (England) or all (Scotland) nations. Costs can reach US$2,500 per arriving passenger. The BBC has some of the details. I think they're turning back the clock The Nikkei 225 index of Japanese stocks closed above 30,000 on Monday (local time) for the first time in 31 years. Mother Nature messes with Texas Around three million customers were without power as a winter storm crippled the Lone Star State. Plunging temperatures and other weather problems led Houston/Intercontinental Airport to remain closed for the morning. About 80% of today's flights were cancelled. In Dallas, Love Field suffered about 40% cancellations and it was north of 55% at Dallas/Fort Worth. Nationwide, more than 3,200 flights have been cancelled by noon Eastern time.Coronavirus Update: Sunday, February 14, 2021
A raging storm in the mid-section of the nation is taking its toll on the air-travel system. Around 2,200 flights have been cancelled. Worst hit: Dallas. About half the flights at DFW have been cancelled and about 60% at Dallas/Love have dumped. Here are today's other developments: Rays of hope There were 83,321 new Coronavirus cases in the United States on Saturday, says Johns Hopkins. The death toll: 3,361. Weekend numbers are fragmentary, but the new-case rate is back below 100,000. Another ray of hope: 4% of the nation is now fully vaccinated. Boomlet, continued The TSA says 900,696 people passed through airport checkpoints on Saturday. That's 45.7% of 2020 volume, almost exactly the same as yesterday. Auckland alert Auckland, the largest metropolitan area in New Zealand, was ordered into emergency three-day lockdown on Sunday (local time). Several cases of Coronavirus were detected. New Zealand, of course, is one of the few countries to essentially beat the virus. Canada has approved Air Canada's purchase of Air Transat. There were several restrictions, which the government calls "strict" and most observers find irrelevant. The ghost of pandemic past The West African nation of Guinea has declared an "epidemic situation" for an Ebola outbreak. The most recent outbreak started in 2013 in Guinea and killed nearly 12,000 people in the region by 2016.Coronavirus Update: Saturday, February 13, 2021
Despite public discussion by the new CDC chief and the new Transportation Secretary, the White House now says the Biden Administration has no plans to require negative tests before domestic flights. Reuters has the details. Here are today's other developments: Horrible, horrible, horrible There were 99,511 new Coronavirus cases in the United States on Friday, says Johns Hopkins. The death toll was 5,443. That last number is a new one-day record and no one even seems to be watching. Boomlet The TSA says 1,151,420 people passed through airport checkpoints on Friday. That's 45.9% of 2020 volume. It's the second consecutive day above a million and the best performance since the New Year's rush. Aloha oy A Minnesota couple didn't make it to their Hawaii vacation. Why? State officials did not accept a negative Covid test provided by the Mayo Clinic but did accept one from the Walgreens drug chain. KMSP Television in Minnesota has the details. Montana has lifted its mask mandate. Montana Governor Greg Gianforte made the decision yesterday after his predecessor, Steve Bullock, imposed it in July. Big, big number The travel industry lost US$1.3 trillion in revenue during 2020, according to numbers compiled by Statista.com.