Coronavirus Covid 19 and Marine Industry

Back to the industry. Specific to South Florida, the Palm Beach show is scheduled in two weeks. At this time they do plan to have the show. How much will attendance be down? And what about the SuperYacht Show Palm Beach, scheduled at the same time with as many as 30 boats? Not a good year to debut that show.

Just to see the impact that can be had on such an event, look at SXSW. This has become a huge annual event in Austin, TX with attendance of around 400,000. It was cancelled and 58 of the 175 person full time staff has already been let go. The organizers don't know if the show will continue or not as they depend on the show to then fund the time between shows and the planning of the next show. No money may mean no more shows.

Oh, HH Catamarans will not have their boat in Palm Beach due to inability to get it there from China.

Talking to local brokers, and perhaps those on line will chime in, but the ones I've talked to have had clients cancel trips in to look at boats.

A huge issue in the US is the lack of testing. The Director of the CDC stated that
state and local public health labs are underequipped and understaffed.

"The truth is we've not invested, we've underinvested in the public health labs," Redfield said at a House Appropriations hearing for the 2021 CDC budget.

“There's not enough equipment, there's not enough people, there's not enough internal capacity, there's no surge capacity,” Redfield added.

Only 4856 tests have been done to date. There are new pockets of virus forming, one being Westchester County, NY where the area around the city of New Rochelle is being quarantined with 108 new cases in one day.

Well, that's one way of not losing money.

Will the activity on our streets be fairly normal two weeks or a month from now or will our streets look largely deserted? If Fort Lauderdale and Antibes look deserted, that will be painful for the industry. I don't know how the yacht charter industry has been impacted so far, other than Italy and other countries closing borders to those from China and Italy.

Coachella just postponed. Another huge tourist event.

168 deaths in Italy in the past 24 hours, bringing the total there to 631 and escalating at an increasing pace. Now over 10,000 cases reported in Italy. Italy has the oldest population in Europe, has 7000-24,000 flu deaths a year out of around 1.3 million cases of flu, about a 9% incidence of flu and a death rate of 1.3% of those vs. 5% they appear to be running on Covid 19.

Scientists see Europe as the new epicenter, replacing China.

And boat builders in Italy are impacted. If not the employees catching it, then relatives and family and friends.

One thing that is relevant too is that the average age in Italy is 45.4. The nearest of any US state is Maine at 44.9, but Florida is 6th oldest and oldest large state by far at 42.2. That will impact our decision making. I had the privilege of a conference call with an extremely knowledgeable former official and found it very helpful in planning. One subject was school closings. Another, business closings. Well, with flu, we close schools as it kills young people. There's no evidence Covid 19 does that. So, the reason for any business closings will be to protect the elderly in our society, to limit the spread as the limited information shows that one person with Covid 19 passes it on to more people than one flu patient. While those of us still in our prime seem to be at relative low risk unless we have lung disease, we must protect elderly. Further, any elderly with lung disease are in extreme danger if infected.

The feeling I have right now is that the decisions must be made community by community. New Rochelle had to be locked down. It made sense. Strong measures in Italy did. Where we are today, there's no evidence we need to shut businesses or schools nationwide. However, if cases build in a community, then we may well need to in that area.

I don't think that decision can be made until closer to show date. Now, the Show will want to go on, collect their fees from the vendors. If like other shows, they'll start getting a lot of resistance as they get closer. SXSW and Coachella sure did. As a vendor, much likely depends on whether you think you'll get your money back. If not, you may feel you're better off showing than not. If you'll get it back, you likely want to ditch it.

Interesting side piece, SXSW had all sorts of insurance, reviewed by business people, attorney's, risk management. They had coverage for weather, for civil unrest, but no coverage for a Pandemic.

You mention the seniors, just imagine if it hit one of our huge senior communities, imagine one of our four Century Villages or Hallandale or Hollywood. There are also a lot of seniors who eat out every day. Don't let them out and they have to find other answers and the restaurant has no business.

The bigger the yacht, the older the typical owner and the further away they live.

I also see the first announced Publix employee to test positive. There will be more. Yet, we can't shut groceries down. Extra cleaning and sterilizing but there will remain risk.

I wish we had answers and I think that's what is most difficult for people, the unknown. However, as a business owner, I can't make any decisions yet. I have possible routes to take but can't decide until we're there. Walmart faced their first exposure today and made a bold move telling full time employees there would be another two weeks of sick leave if needed for this.

Instacart still requires grocery stores and still exposes the buyer to contact. Yes, delivery does reduce the exposure the elderly face.