Pandemic dashboard; Florida woos the wealthy; SPAC Dream; Skiing
1) I continue to closely follow the pandemic, sending lengthy e-mails to my coronavirus e-mail list roughly once a week. If you'd like to receive them, simply send a blank e-mail to: cv-subscribe@mailer.kasecapital.com.
Below is an excerpt from the e-mail I sent to my readers yesterday (you can read the entire e-mail here)...
The news regarding the pandemic continues to be excellent...
Here are the latest data for testing, cases (down 75% since the peak a month ago), hospitalizations (down 39%), and deaths (down 70%, though the seven-day average is only down 12%) (source):
The positivity rate is also falling rapidly – down by nearly half from 13.6% a month ago to 7.2% today (source):
(If you click the source links above, you can see all of this data by state, plus here are the data for New York City.)
Lastly, as I noted in yesterday's e-mail, over the past seven days we've averaged 1.5 million doses of the vaccine administered per day... and on Saturday, the U.S. had its first day of more than 2 million doses (source)!
As a result, we have administered 13.1 doses per 100 people (since some people have received two doses, I estimate that 10% of Americans have received at least one dose of a vaccine) (source):
We continue to be among the world leaders in vaccinating our population, trailing only the U.K. among major countries (source):
2) A big pandemic trend that my colleague Berna Barshay and I have both written about is the exodus – especially of wealthy folks – from cities like San Francisco and New York.
The question is: Once we're all vaccinated, will they return? This New York Times article casts doubt on that... Join Us in Miami! Love, Masters of the Universe. Excerpt:
As tech leaders have decamped from San Francisco and Wall Street titans from New York, many have spread across the country to locations with sun, lower taxes, and – preferably – more relaxed lockdowns. Coming from places run by progressive governments that were sometimes openly antagonistic toward local elites, many were thrilled to move to towns that seemed to want them more.
Some chose Austin, Texas. Others gravitated to Boulder, Colo. But perhaps the most vocal faction came to Miami.
"It was a lightning-in-the-bottle moment," said Mr. Suarez, 43, who became mayor in 2017. "For them to hear an elected official saying, 'Hey, we want you, hey, we appreciate you' – I didn't realize what a sensitive moment it was in terms of how people felt they were being treated by the governments where they lived."
Dozens of big names have arrived.
Speaking of Florida trying to woo people, this ad popped up on my phone recently:
3) From Berna's Empire Financial Daily yesterday:
This morning, hedge-fund investor and SPAC sponsor Bill Ackman tweeted out the music video for a rap song waxing poetic about the golden age of SPACs. You can watch it here... It's hilarious!
P.S. If you're not getting her free e-mails, you're really missing out. They're filled with tremendous insight. You can sign up for them here.
4) My analyst Kevin DeCamp and I went skiing at Mt. Sunapee on Sunday, and we're at Okemo today:
Here's a video Kevin took of me tree skiing.
Best regards,
Whitney