Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day one thirty
Speaker 1: five since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Today's main story.
Speaker 1: A few places in the US are still relatively unscathed
Speaker 1: by the virus, but they haven't been able to escape
Speaker 1: the economic devastation. Nowhere is that clear than in the
Speaker 1: lobster towns of rural Maine. But first, here's what happened
Speaker 1: in virus students today. Houston joined Dallas and other Texas
Speaker 1: school systems in delaying the start of the school year
Speaker 1: because of the surge of coronavirus cases in the state.
Speaker 1: President Donald Trump canceled the planned Republican Convention events in Jacksonville, Florida,
Speaker 1: another state where cases are raging. The World Health Organization's
Speaker 1: chief scientist, Dr Sonia Swamy Nathan said the world needs
Speaker 1: to gear up against the virus for the next year
Speaker 1: and a half because it will take time to develop
Speaker 1: a vaccine. She urged countries to develop public health measures
Speaker 1: to combat the virus until a vaccine is developed. While
Speaker 1: twenty four candidates are in clinical trials, the success rate
Speaker 1: of an experimental vaccine is normally just ten, which is
Speaker 1: why it's better to have many in development. She also
Speaker 1: said it's possible that no vaccine will work and the
Speaker 1: world should consider that scenario. And finally, Austria tightened up
Speaker 1: mass requirements because of a new surge of rhinovirus cases.
Speaker 1: The rhinovirus, a cause for the common cold, is unrelated
Speaker 1: to the coronavirus, but it spread signals that people are
Speaker 1: not following social distancing in hygiene rules closely. Rhinovirus cases
Speaker 1: had been curbed during the country's lockdown. And now for
Speaker 1: today's main story, the rural town of Stonington, Maine, has
Speaker 1: barely been touched by the novel coronavirus, with cases numbering
Speaker 1: in the tents, but its economic health is another matter.
Speaker 1: The fallout from COVID nineteen is devastating the town's lobster
Speaker 1: workers and the lobster business statewide. Lobster is a huge
Speaker 1: business in Maine, and what's happening in tiny Stonington is
Speaker 1: in a way a smaller version of the whole US economy,
Speaker 1: as may dupri has more on the side. This up
Speaker 1: sitting on the rail and a lobster wants to walk
Speaker 1: out land on my floor. If I'm a lobster I'm
Speaker 1: entering through here, and then the baits sitting right here,
Speaker 1: and then at some point they'll go there. Why am
Speaker 1: I crawling back there? Just because said, look at something new.
Speaker 1: This is what catches them. This is called the kitchen,
Speaker 1: and this is and this is the and they just
Speaker 1: like they just want to go explore and move a
Speaker 1: little bit, so they go back. They keep going in
Speaker 1: and then it's harder for them to get out of
Speaker 1: that section than it is this. And will all these
Speaker 1: traps be in the water eventually? That's me standing outside
Speaker 1: Blaine and Jinny Olsen's house in Stonington, Maine, as they
Speaker 1: explain how a lobster trap works. I probably couldn't have
Speaker 1: found more appropriate instructors. Blaine and Jinny have been married
Speaker 1: for twenty five years and work side by side on
Speaker 1: their boat Virginia. Don Blaine has been lobster fishing the
Speaker 1: cold Atlantic quaters here since he was fourteen years old.
Speaker 1: He's now fifty three and has a tidy white mustache
Speaker 1: and a bigger belly than he did pre quarantine. Jinny
Speaker 1: is forty six and a fourth generation lobster fisher. Their
Speaker 1: two year old son, Devon, used to lobster too. But
Speaker 1: he's been smart vision he took a job bout McCloy.
Speaker 1: I hope. I don't know what's gonna happen. Blame that
Speaker 1: uncertainty on the novel coronavirus. But it's not that the
Speaker 1: virus itself has hit hard here in this corner of
Speaker 1: rural downeas Maine. In fact, it's barely touched. The public
Speaker 1: health Hancock County had reported just twenty one cases and
Speaker 1: one death as of earlier this week. Instead, it's the
Speaker 1: area's economic health that's hurting. The fallout from COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: threatens a historically bad year for the Olsen's and the
Speaker 1: rest of the state's lobster industry, And in Maine, lobsters
Speaker 1: are a big deal, so it has a ripple effect
Speaker 1: throughout the whole community. When lobster was god a bad year.
Speaker 1: The biggest problem is lack of demand. Most consumers eat
Speaker 1: the crustaceans at restaurants and a board cruise ships, and those,
Speaker 1: of course have been shuttered for months and slow to
Speaker 1: reopen when they do. Infection prevention protocols have cut capacity
Speaker 1: at processing plants where workers pick out meat destined for
Speaker 1: lobster rolls, and lobster stew, and the drop in air
Speaker 1: traffic has snarled the logistics of shipping live creatures. The
Speaker 1: result is that lobster fishers like the Ulsan's are getting
Speaker 1: paid to pittance for their catch. The doc price was
Speaker 1: two dollars and fifty cents a pound last week for
Speaker 1: soft shell lobsters here. That's about half what it was
Speaker 1: a year ago and makes it virtually impossible to earn
Speaker 1: a profit by catching lobster. Hopes for recovery anytime soon
Speaker 1: are dim in the summertime, on average at cassis to
Speaker 1: dollars a pound, you get a catch to crate some
Speaker 1: lobsters just to pay a build h and then after
Speaker 1: that we stopped making money. Last summer was terrible. We
Speaker 1: had we averaged fifty five that our price was four
Speaker 1: dollars and up. That helped last year price, but this
Speaker 1: year has been be a different story. You don't have
Speaker 1: the tourism market, you don't have the exports because of
Speaker 1: the tariffs and COVID, and you don't have the processes
Speaker 1: because of COVID, and then i'll mixes together and equals
Speaker 1: what a low price devastating. The low price lobstering is
Speaker 1: America's most lucrative marine fishery, and Stonington, Maine, is the
Speaker 1: capitol of American Lobster comes from Maine, and more so
Speaker 1: than anywhere else Maine, lobster comes from the waters around Stonington.
Speaker 1: Lobsterman in this county hauled almost a third of the
Speaker 1: one d one million pounds landed statewide last year, worth
Speaker 1: four hundred and eighty five million dollars. The industry has
Speaker 1: been trying to mitigate the economic damage of low prices
Speaker 1: and low demand. One technique is simply don't fish or
Speaker 1: fish a lot less to prevent abundant supply from causing
Speaker 1: further price declines. Take a drive around Stonington's in the
Speaker 1: nearby town of Darisle, and you see a lot of
Speaker 1: lobster traps stacked dry in people's yards. In a typical year,
Speaker 1: those traps would be sitting on the bottom of the
Speaker 1: ocean floor by now, you know, usually when we go
Speaker 1: to set. But there's a bunch of traps already in
Speaker 1: an area where we sat, and right now it's still
Speaker 1: pretty open. It's just like today. When I went out
Speaker 1: to the cow, I was expecting to see a ton
Speaker 1: of trap okay, and that wasn't those big boats. They
Speaker 1: can't make it. Okay, okay, they got three men plus
Speaker 1: a captain. When the lobster industry suffers, the pain ripples
Speaker 1: throughout the local economy. The Olsen's won't hire carpenters to
Speaker 1: remodel their kitchen or in us to new lobster traps.
Speaker 1: This year, they didn't even refresh their booies with day
Speaker 1: globe paint. They opted to buy regular paint instead because
Speaker 1: it was cheaper. So it means that you don't go
Speaker 1: out to eat. It means that you don't buy a
Speaker 1: bunch of new clothes this year. Like we wanted to
Speaker 1: get more new traps this year, that won't happen. So
Speaker 1: anything that is not a necessity will not happen this year.
Speaker 1: This year will be a bare bones municipal services here
Speaker 1: run on lobster revenue. If our lobster industry ceases to exist,
Speaker 1: then this town really there won't be no school, there
Speaker 1: won't be no town office, won't be no road troup.
Speaker 1: What's happening in the lobster industry is a microcosm of
Speaker 1: what's happening in the global economy. In the age of
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen at least the meat still tastes good. Okay,
Speaker 1: feel you'll eat these all nights to If we have
Speaker 1: any left overall, we'll have tomorrow and I'll just have
Speaker 1: a nice That was as Ma Dupre. And that's it
Speaker 1: for our show today. For coverage of the outbreak from
Speaker 1: one bureaus around the world, visit bloomberg dot com slash
Speaker 1: coronavirus and if you like the show, please leave us
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Speaker 1: It's the best way to help more listeners find our
Speaker 1: global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is produced by Toph
Speaker 1: foreheads Jordan Gaspoure, Magnus Henrickson, and mat Loura Carlson. Today's
Speaker 1: main story was reported by Esme Dupre, original music by
Speaker 1: Leo Sidrin. Our editors are Rick Shine and Francesca Levi.
Speaker 1: Francesca Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: H