Thoughts From The Road {Part III}

I pity public health officials right now.  Here they are legitimately concerned with an increase in Covid cases, particularly an uptick in a more contagious variant known as B.1.1.7.  Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm was all over the Sunday news shows discussing this.  CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky spoke about this in very stark terms last week, even warning Americans that they faced "impending doom" as case counts rise.  At home, public health officials are again talking about restrictions and business closures in suburban Cook County as case counts rise.  The tone and actions from medical and political authorities sounds no different than any time in the past year, but this time the public doesn't seem to care.   Airports are packed, resorts are booked and restaurants are turning away business.  I noted last week that Covid may not be done with Americans, but Americans are done with Covid.  People are still wearing masks from what I can tell but they are increasingly demanding their lives back.  I am not debating whether or not this is what should be happening.  I'm stating what the facts on the ground are showing. 

You can also see this in the economic data that keeps coming out.  916,000 job were added in March.  That's the best count since last August.  The stock market is responding today to that job number on Friday.  Stocks have already anticipated a reopening in 2021.  I think the market is coming to grips with something I've been saying for weeks now that US economic growth is going to be much better than current estimates indicate.  The major part of the Covid economy crisis has lasted about a year and it's almost as if the last 12 months of peoples lives have been erased.  All the things that didn't happen in 2020 from weddings to trips are getting folded into 2021.  The economy was in pretty good shape prior to the crisis and all those stimulus checks are certainly burning holes in peoples pockets.  They saved the first few rounds of government money but I'm pretty sure they'll spend this current windfall.  Be prepared for those really good economic numbers in the coming months.

Finally they're playing baseball again!  This time there's fans in the stands!  Baseball will always mean for me the coming of better weather and this year I believe better times.

"The one constant through all the years Ray has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again, but baseball has marked the time. This field, this game is a part of our past Ray. It reminds us of all once was good and could be again."-James Earl Jones as Terence Mann in "Field of Dreams."

Also an early Happy Birthday to RJE as you practice before the Supreme Bar.  Down here you would have been 89.  God bless and miss you. 

PS.  There may not be a column next week.  We're returning to Chicago over the weekend and I'm also scheduled to get my 2nd dose of the vaccine.  Will depend on how I feel.