Contact tracers at a contact tracing facility in Houston, Texas, June 25. The number of restaurant reservations provided evidence that despite lifting lockdown orders, states like Texas, Florida and Arizona re-opened too quickly. — AP
The age of coronavirus has presented investors, analysts, journalists and researchers with two data problems. First, traditional government numbers such as unemployment and gross domestic product growth only come out once a month or once a quarter, making it hard to spot fast-changing trends as they occur. Second, the pandemic produces a lot of unusual economic effects that make traditional numbers harder to interpret.
For example, the large number of workers who were sent home but who still received paychecks caused some confusion about whether official unemployment numbers were accurate. And the spread of Covid-19 itself is a crucial factor in economic performance, but federal government agencies have been peculiarly slow to collect good data on key indicators such as hospitalisation and testing.
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