Vital updates:

• Yesterday, MPs in the House of Commons passed Bill C-20, including the improved CEWS discussed yesterday, which was announced on Friday last week. The Senate must now study the bill before it can be implemented.
• The Government of Ontario has clarified that when restaurants re-open on Friday, there will be no restrictions as to the occupancy other than that required to implement physical distancing. Public health officials suggest that patrons be seated at all times unless entering, exiting, travelling to and from the washroom, or paying, and that restaurants maintain a client log with a name and contact information for one person, minimum, in each party along with the date, check in and check out times, and table number, and be prepared to provide this to public health officials upon request for the purposes of contact tracing. Contact tracing is the key to containing the outbreak, preventing a new wave of infection and a return to a more restrictive lockdown. Businesses should consider refusing service to those who will not provide their contact information.
• BCD has released an economic outlook (PDF link) examining the broad economic picture in Canada and the United States. Key highlights include:
  • COVID-19 precipitated the sharpest economic slowdown on record, with a drop in GDP of 11.6% since February posted only two months later.
  • The economic impact has not been evenly distributed. Accommodation and food service businesses have lost an average of 63.7% in GDP since February, while finance and insurance has only lost 1.6%. The average was 18.2%. No industry recorded any GDP gain in that time period.
  • The economic recovery is already underway, with unemployment significantly down and employment up from the worst of the crisis. That being said, there is still a long way to go.
  • Ontario suffered the sharpest downturn, with a greater percentage of lost jobs and GDP than the country as a whole.
  • Food products and chemical manufacturing are predicted to make the fastest recovery. The end of lockdowns also saw a resurgence in construction activity and manufacturing employment.

Reading recommendations:

• How Canada compares to other countries on COVID-19 cases and deaths, Raluca Bejan & Kristina Nikolova, The Conversation
• How To Make Indoor Air Safer, Kaleigh Rogers, FiveThirtyEight
• Research: A Method for Overcoming Implicit Bias When Considering Job Candidates, Zhiyu Feng, Yukun Liu, Zhen Wang and Krishna Savani, Harvard Business Review