TIA Daily COVID-19 Update: May 12th

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 May 12. As a reminder, you can find all the latest information, resources, guidance, and news from TIA’s COVID-19 Response Center.

FEDERAL UPDATE:

The U.S. House of Representatives released their text for the next COVID-19 relief package. The package includes combining aid to state and local governments with direct cash payments to individuals, expanded unemployment insurance and food stamp spending as well as a list of progressive priorities like funds for voting by mail and the troubled U.S. Postal Service. There appears to be no language tied directly to the owner-operator issue, which is great news.

There is a section of price gouging that essentially puts safeguards in place for action to be taken if there are situations occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are several factors including looking back on the price of a good or service prior to January 31, 2020. This could be a slippery slope for a lot of businesses, because they don’t define “excessive”. Furthermore, the definition of goods and services are pretty limited to food, medical supplies and delivery services. It will be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission.

LUNCH & LEARN UPDATE:

If you were unable to attend this afternoon Virtual Lunch & Learn What Does Carrier Capacity Look Like Now & Over the Next 3-6 Months? make sure to check out the recording on-demand. This is a can’t miss webinar! Special thanks to Descartes for their sponsorship.

NOËL PERRY UPDATE:

The U.S. has had three consecutive days of substantial reductions in week-to-week numbers. We had the usual uptick in Monday death counts; but they were still well below a week ago. On the moving average basis, they are almost 500 daily deaths below the peak. At the current rate of decline the U.S. will reach recovery status in a month, having totaled 112,000 deaths. That is twice what we thought would occur back in April, but about half of the lowest official forecasts of that time. We can now see that this contagion has been a bad one, but not to the catastrophic level originally feared – and for which the sequestration orders were justified.

By comparison, the 1918 pandemic caused 650,000 U.S. deaths, most of which occurred in a second wave. We won’t know about that risk with COVID 19 until this time next year. Except – to understand that such follow on, severe contagions are rare.

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

Continuing our Navy theme, here’s Connie Boswell with “Bell Bottom Trousers.”