Florida governor to ease coronavirus restrictions

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Wednesday decided to reveal his plan for dialing down the restrictions on businesses in his state, after data showed the U.S. economy has collapsed 4.8% in the first quarter due to the shutdowns in order to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

According to Commerce Department data, the U.S. economy slipped at its sharpest pace since the 2007-2009 Great Recession due to the reasons of social-distancing and stay-at-home orders, marking the end of the longest expansion in U.S. history.

Usually, Economists define a recession as at least two months of negative progression in a row.

“The economy is in free fall, we could be approaching something much worse than a deep recession. It’s premature to talk about a recovery at this moment, we are going to be seeing a lot of bankruptcies for small and medium sized businesses,” stated Sung Won Sohn, a business economics professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

The current pandemic has put millions of Americans out of jobs as the lockdowns went into effect, and states and cities facing potential economic disaster have taken the responsibility to decide when and how to ease restrictions, based on their individual circumstances.

(Reference: Reuters)