TIA Daily COVID-19 Update: April 1st

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 1. As a reminder, you can find all the latest information, resources, guidance, and news from TIA’s COVID-19 Response Center.

FEDERAL UPDATE:
The Small Business Administration (SBA) announced today that lenders may begin processing SBA 7(a) forgivable loan applications under the Paycheck Protection Program on Friday, April 3, 2020. These loans are first come, first serve, so please do not hesitate to apply for the loan.

For additional information, please view TIA’s Paycheck Protection Program Guidance. TIA will also be hosting a Virtual Lunch & Learn next week on this subject, providing a walkthrough on applying for an SBA loan, so stay tuned for those details.

Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Administration Director Chris Krebs reported on the federal government’s effort to understand and map the critical components – including you – in the supply chain of essential goods.

LEGISLATIVE UPDATE:
On a call with the White House this afternoon, the Trump Administration reported on their efforts to get the $2 trillion relief package in the hands of American families, businesses, states, cities, tribal regions, schools, etc.

There is a lot of chatter around D.C. about Phase IV of the Coronavirus Relief Package, and the desire to make infrastructure part of the proposal. President Trump indicated yesterday in his COVID-19 update that he would like to see $2 trillion for infrastructure. Speaker Pelosi has followed suit, noting that she has asked her Committee Chairman of jurisdiction to begin drafting language with $760 billion over five years for infrastructure. Committees will start drafting the language next week, with the goal of taking up the language when the House returns on April 20th.

This is a critical time especially for the Highway Trust Fund (HTF), as it will become insolvent sooner as people are not driving, and thus not purchasing gas and the subsequent tax that is allocated towards HTF. ASHTO projects that states will lose between $30-$50 million in HTF dollars as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.

TIA UPDATE:
This week, TIA launched its new Virtual Lunch & Learn webinar series to provide information you can put to immediate use during this time of crisis. If you’re unable to attend live, webinars will also be available on-demand for viewing at your convenience.

Our first Virtual Lunch & Learn dealt with the recently expanded Family Medical Leave Act, which went into effect today and applies to business with fewer than 500 employees. If your business is 500 or fewer employees, you will need to provide them with this poster today.

In tomorrow’s webinar, Beth Carroll will lead the first of a two-part Virtual Lunch & Learn about changes you need to make to your compensation plans immediately.

NOËL PERRY’S DAILY COVID-19 UPDATE:
Be careful in interpreting “projections” for U.S. deaths to include the one I am reading from CNN right now, for 84,000 American deaths. We currently have 188,000 cases and 3,900 deaths domestically. Let’s conservatively say we reach inflection sometime in the next week and total 600,000 cases before reaching recovery. At the current death rate of 2.1%, that equals 11,000 deaths.

Such a “projection” is a conservative look at the actual statistics available so far. It produces numbers fundamentally smaller than many expert projections. To get to the CNN number (or others like it or larger), one must assume an acceleration of contagion or mortality rates that has occurred in no country over the more than two months of this crisis. If such an event shows in the numbers, I will inform you clearly and promptly. Until then, let’s care for the victims we have.

A mixed day, with a significant increase in the U.S. cases and deaths. We may well have to wait longer for inflection. Italy inflected at 35 days and Iran may have inflected today, at 36 days. The U.S. is at 25 days and counting. Europe was generally good except – for a bad day from France at a 3,202-cases increase. Six European countries including, Italy, have falling statistics – something none did a week ago.

Note that I have added Mexico to get a North America total. I have also added Singapore, a country who considers itself on the road to recovery and is relaxing restrictions on social activity. Sweden, which has also done that, has had increases in cases the last two days. You will also find totals for ‘Other’ countries, everybody but North American and Western Europe where the contagion is concentrated so far.

Barring some big change in trends, these stats show a very large difference in results between countries and regions. It has to be more than simply differences in enforcement policies.

MISCELLANEOUS:
DAT has released a Market Update in Response to COVID-19, which provides an analysis of supply and demand trends, rate trends, and future forecasting. Read the full update here.
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We’ll be back tomorrow with COVID-19 updates and information that came through overnight.

For this afternoon, please enjoy Tommy Dorsey’s “Opus One.”