San Francisco Chronicle (November 18)
“Officials are concerned hospitals could be strained this winter as COVID-19 cases increase across the region ahead of Thanksgiving weekend.” In San Francisco infection rates have already “risen sharply in recent weeks…. With people expected to travel, gather with friends and spend more time indoors over the next few weeks… the region could soon head for another surge.”
Tags: COVID-19, Hospitals, Indoors, Infection rates, Officials, San Francisco, Strained, Surge, Thanksgiving, Travel, Winter
New York Times (November 4)
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell announced a tapering of stimulus programs, but he did not “lay the groundwork for higher rates.” That doesn’t mean “the era of near-zero rates will last anything close to as long as it did after the global financial crisis,” but if the current inflation surge “proves something other than temporary, Mr. Powell’s decision to stick to his guns” on interest rates “will loom as a missed moment to join other English-speaking countries in using monetary policy to try to stamp it out.”
Tags: Fed, Global financial crisis, Inflation, Interest, Monetary policy, Near-zero, Powell, Rates, Stimulus, Surge, Tapering
The Economist (October 9)
“Spending has come roaring back, as governments have stimulated the economy and consumers let rip. The surge in demand is so powerful that supply is struggling to keep up. Lorry drivers are getting signing bonuses, an armada of container ships is anchored off California waiting for ports to clear and energy prices are spiralling upwards. As rising inflation spooks investors, the gluts of the 2010s have given way to a shortage economy.”
Tags: Consumers, Container ships, Demand, Economy, Energy, Gluts, Governments, Inflation, Investors, Ports, Powerful, Roaring, Signing bonuses, Spending, Supply, Surge
Wall Street Journal (September 16)
“Transportation costs—typically a fraction of a finished product’s price—are emerging as another supply-chain hurdle, overwhelming some companies already paying more for raw materials and labor…. The Covid-19 pandemic has driven a long-lasting surge in transportation costs, putting pressure on many businesses already confronting higher wages and raw-material prices. Some CEOs are saying they expect elevated freight costs stretching into 2023.”
Tags: COVID-19, Hurdle, Labor, Overwhelming, Pandemic, Pressure, Product price, Raw materials, Supply chain, Surge, Transportation, Wages
Institutional Investor (August 23)
“With an influx of cash from nontraditional investors, average late-stage valuations could hit $1 billion this year, according to PitchBook,” which attributed the surge in “valuation growth to a positive economic outlook and cash influx from nontraditional investors, including mutual funds, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, and corporate venture capitalists.”
Tags: $1 billion, Cash, Economic outlook, Hedge funds, Influx, Investors, Late-stage valuations, Mutual funds, Nontraditional, PitchBook, Sovereign wealth funds, Surge, VC
San Francisco Chronicle (August 13)
“The wildly infectious delta variant that has raged across the world and forced the United States into a fourth—and in some places unprecedented—surge has reshaped the coronavirus pandemic into a plague that may take many more years to come to an end.”
Tags: Coronavirus, Delta, Infectious, Pandemic, Plague, Raged, Surge, U.S., Unprecedented, Variant
Houston Chronicle (August 4)
COVID-19 is striking Texas with a vengeance. Every region is expected to “face surges larger than anything seen so far.” The Houston area is expected to break the hospitalization record on Sunday and “the previous record for ICU patients—947 set July 18, 2020—is predicted to be broken Aug. 15.” But “even more alarming,” the surge will “keep climbing sharply,” with 2,000 ICU patients expected at the end of August.
Tags: COVID-19, Hospitalization, Houston, ICU patients, Record, Surge, Texas, Vengeance
San Francisco Chronicle (July 14)
“With nearly half of California residents still not fully immunized against COVID-19 and the highly infectious delta variant in wide circulation, the state could be facing a surge up to two-thirds the size of last summer’s wave of infection despite generally high vaccination rates.” Any new surge will likely prove “far less deadly and disruptive than what the state endured over the winter when more than 22,000 Californians died between Thanksgiving and the end of January and the state was largely shut down for several months.”
Tags: California, COVID-19, Deadly, Delta variant, Disruptive, Immunized, Infectious, Shut down, Surge, Vaccination rates
Philadelphia Inquirer (July 6)
“Interviews with doctors and nurses in the Philadelphia region revealed a sense of relief over a waning pandemic leavened by fears that the virus could surge again. They use different terms to describe what almost a year and a half of being on the front lines of treating COVID-19 has done. Moral injury. Trauma. Burnout. PTSD.” Even now, these “drained health care workers must still maintain a busy schedule as hospitals face a glut of patients who had put off health care out of fears of contracting the virus.”
Tags: Burnout, Busy, COVID-19, Doctors, Drained, Fears, Front lines, Health care workers, Interviews, Nurses, Pandemic, Philadelphia, PTSD, Relief, Surge, Trauma
LA Times (April 29)
“All across India, a trail of death and misery is devastating a country whose leaders boasted of defeating the coronavirus just a few months ago. A surge of new cases fueled by the so-called double mutant variant of the coronavirus first discovered in India is now pushing the nation’s overburdened healthcare system toward collapse” and presenting “a cautionary tale for a world wanting to rush back to its rhythms.”
Tags: Boasted, Collapse, Coronavirus, Death, Defeating, Devastating, Double mutant, Healthcare, India, Leaders, Misery, Surge, Variant
