A Quick Recovery
Periodically we get an update from the folks at Wallet Hub, the personal finance web site, on various surveys and data aggregations they’ve done.
This week, they’ve released their survey of states that are recovering the quickest from COVID-19, comparing the 50 states and District of Columbia across 18 key metrics. Iowa ranked fourth overall in the survey in terms of quickest recovery from COVID.
On the medical front, we’re 6th best in terms of share of hospitals with staff shortages…and we’re 9th best in share of hospitals with supply shortages. How vaccine mandates will impact staffing remains to be determined.
We are 9th best in terms of number of average daily restaurant visits…so we’re happy to get back out in public for a meal. And in comparing Real Gross Domestic Product now vs. pre-COVID levels, we’re 9th best…because we were productive before, and stayed productive even when certain segments of society were under lockdown. That affected us less in Iowa, and leads to not showing up as well in economic categories.
For example, we’re only 27th best in comparing state unemployment to pre-COVID levels…but that’s because it was great before, and never got bad in comparison with some states.
And we’re apparently taking advantage of the hot real estate market…we’re tenth best in real estate active listings now, vs. pre-COVID.
And we’re slightly above the median in share of population fully vaccinated (23rd best), share of vaccine supply used (19th best), COVID death rate (17th best), and COVID hospitalization rate (21st best).
So it’s certainly not over…but it’s pretty good here, and never got as bad as elsewhere.
