Very few of us have a mental model for the macro conditions that we are living through right now. We have been through economic downturns, but most of us haven't lived through a pandemic. I am an optimist and I know that we will get through this and normalcy will return. But one of the questions that we're all asking ourselves right now is: What will "normalcy" look like on the backend?
Here is an interesting piece of evidence for the current shutdown:
https://twitter.com/biancoresearch/status/1240793859455700992?s=20
When I see pictures of our cities, like these from Italy, I can't help but think of the life that normally plays out in the streets. The conversations. The chance encounters. And even the smells. Some of that activity has moved to every single balcony in Italy and that is a beautiful thing. But it's no substitute for true street life. Thankfully, we know that public life will both return and prevail.
Along the way there will be changes. There are going to be winners and losers. Some companies are going to go bankrupt. And there will be adjustments that we have made that will invariably stick. Are we all going to video conference more? (The obvious one.) Will we all travel less? Will this macro event accelerate our transition to a knowledge-based digital economy? I'm sure it will. Also consider all of the new companies that are being started right at this very moment.
But as I said on Twitter today, we are social beings. That is one of the reasons why we choose to live in cities. And I am certain that isn't going away.
Photo by Kristijan Arsov on Unsplash
The Financial Times published the following chart last night. It shows the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases around the world, across the number of days since the 100th case in that particular country. The message here is that most western countries appear to be on a similar trajectory. (The grey dotted line represents a 33% daily increase.) Whereas in Asia, and in particular Hong Kong and Singapore, they have seemingly managed to slow the spread.
In 2017, the US restaurant industry generated about $560 billion in annual revenue. By comparison, the movie industry generates some $30 billion a year. Food, and eating out, is a big business.
A recent paper by Joel Waldgogel of the University of Minnesota has tried to estimate the "implicit cuisine trade" associated with this industry. To do this, he used restaurant data from TripAdvisor and sales figures from Euromonitor.
Domestic consumption of a foreign cuisine was considered an "import." And foreign consumption of a domestic cuisine was considered an "export." Here's what he discovered (graph from the Economist):
Very few of us have a mental model for the macro conditions that we are living through right now. We have been through economic downturns, but most of us haven't lived through a pandemic. I am an optimist and I know that we will get through this and normalcy will return. But one of the questions that we're all asking ourselves right now is: What will "normalcy" look like on the backend?
Here is an interesting piece of evidence for the current shutdown:
https://twitter.com/biancoresearch/status/1240793859455700992?s=20
When I see pictures of our cities, like these from Italy, I can't help but think of the life that normally plays out in the streets. The conversations. The chance encounters. And even the smells. Some of that activity has moved to every single balcony in Italy and that is a beautiful thing. But it's no substitute for true street life. Thankfully, we know that public life will both return and prevail.
Along the way there will be changes. There are going to be winners and losers. Some companies are going to go bankrupt. And there will be adjustments that we have made that will invariably stick. Are we all going to video conference more? (The obvious one.) Will we all travel less? Will this macro event accelerate our transition to a knowledge-based digital economy? I'm sure it will. Also consider all of the new companies that are being started right at this very moment.
But as I said on Twitter today, we are social beings. That is one of the reasons why we choose to live in cities. And I am certain that isn't going away.
Photo by Kristijan Arsov on Unsplash
The Financial Times published the following chart last night. It shows the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases around the world, across the number of days since the 100th case in that particular country. The message here is that most western countries appear to be on a similar trajectory. (The grey dotted line represents a 33% daily increase.) Whereas in Asia, and in particular Hong Kong and Singapore, they have seemingly managed to slow the spread.
In 2017, the US restaurant industry generated about $560 billion in annual revenue. By comparison, the movie industry generates some $30 billion a year. Food, and eating out, is a big business.
A recent paper by Joel Waldgogel of the University of Minnesota has tried to estimate the "implicit cuisine trade" associated with this industry. To do this, he used restaurant data from TripAdvisor and sales figures from Euromonitor.
Domestic consumption of a foreign cuisine was considered an "import." And foreign consumption of a domestic cuisine was considered an "export." Here's what he discovered (graph from the Economist):
Now, there are a number of possible explanations for the outliers; everything from stricter quarantine rules to more rigorous testing. There's also an argument that Hong Kong and Singapore were better prepared as a result of the SARS outbreak in 2002. (More on these explanations, here.) But the other factor at play seems to be climate.
A recent study (by Jingyuan Wang, Ke Tang, Kai Feng, and Weifeng Lv) has concluded that, like the flu, the transmission of COVID-19 appears to be significantly impacted by both air temperature and relative humidity. In their research, they looked at the reproductive number (R), or the severity of infectiousness, for all Chinese cities with more than 40 cases between January 21 to 23, 2020. (Large-scale government interventions began on January 24, 2020 and would have therefore skewed the numbers.)
What they found was that for every one degree Celsius increase in temperature and every one degree Celsius increase in relative humidity, the reproductive numbers drop by 0.0383 and 0.0224, respectively. Air temperature, in other words, has more of a positive impact on containing spread than relative humidity -- which feels right. That is also apparent when you look at the above charts. Take note of Korea, Iran, and Italy near the top left corner of the temperature chart.
If you'd like to download a full copy of the research paper, click here.
Italy is, by far, the biggest net "exporter." And the US is the biggest net "importer." If you exclude fast food, the US "deficit" balloons to approximately $140 billion.
I guess everybody does really love Italian food. For the full paper, click here.
Now, there are a number of possible explanations for the outliers; everything from stricter quarantine rules to more rigorous testing. There's also an argument that Hong Kong and Singapore were better prepared as a result of the SARS outbreak in 2002. (More on these explanations, here.) But the other factor at play seems to be climate.
A recent study (by Jingyuan Wang, Ke Tang, Kai Feng, and Weifeng Lv) has concluded that, like the flu, the transmission of COVID-19 appears to be significantly impacted by both air temperature and relative humidity. In their research, they looked at the reproductive number (R), or the severity of infectiousness, for all Chinese cities with more than 40 cases between January 21 to 23, 2020. (Large-scale government interventions began on January 24, 2020 and would have therefore skewed the numbers.)
What they found was that for every one degree Celsius increase in temperature and every one degree Celsius increase in relative humidity, the reproductive numbers drop by 0.0383 and 0.0224, respectively. Air temperature, in other words, has more of a positive impact on containing spread than relative humidity -- which feels right. That is also apparent when you look at the above charts. Take note of Korea, Iran, and Italy near the top left corner of the temperature chart.
If you'd like to download a full copy of the research paper, click here.
Italy is, by far, the biggest net "exporter." And the US is the biggest net "importer." If you exclude fast food, the US "deficit" balloons to approximately $140 billion.
I guess everybody does really love Italian food. For the full paper, click here.
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