TIA Daily COVID-19 Update: April 16th

As TIA continues to monitor the situation surrounding COVID-19 and it’s impact on the 3PL and transportation industries, here is your Daily Update for April 16. As a reminder, you can find all the latest information, resources, guidance, and news from TIA’s COVID-19 Response Center.

FEDERAL UPDATE:
President Trump celebrated America’s truckers today at the White House. We all join the President in thanking the drivers for their role during the COVID-19 crisis. We also celebrate TIA Members that keep the trucks loaded and the allied industry that keeps them moving.

TIA sent a letter to the leaders of Congress urging them to appropriate more money to the Paycheck Protection Program. The SBA reports that they have loaned out the original $350 billion and there are thousands of loans waiting in the queue. TIA is urging members to call their Members of Congress to take action to save American business.

The Department of Defense has imposed a mask requirement for individuals entering U.S. military installations. Canada has also imposed a mask requirement for drivers crossing into Canada from the U.S.

NOËL PERRY UPDATE:
The U.S. and a handful of countries in Western Europe had significant increases in new cases and new deaths. I will be watching this closely to see if my suspicion about weekly counting patterns holds. The graph in Exhibit 2 shows Spain’s experience over the last four weeks. In three of those weeks, Spain had increases on Wednesdays, indicating they clean up their numbers mid-week.

The U.S. has a similar if less precise pattern. What is good about this week is that Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are all below the values from a week prior. The obvious negative in the U.S. numbers is the length of time between the peak day and the beginning of a sustained drop in new cases.

MISCELLANEOUS UPDATES:
Check out today’s Yahoo! Finance interview with TIA Member and XPO Logistics CEO Brad Jacobs, who discussed how the transport industry is handling COVID-19. Brad says he is bearish in the short term, bullish on the near term, and very bullish on the long term.

We’ll be back tomorrow with COVID-19 updates and information that came through overnight.

Since parts of the U.S. had snow yesterday, here’s Claude Thornhill and his orchestra with “Snowfall.”