Final Thoughts

Like many of you, I resisted having to wear a mask. It seems so un-American.

The reality on the ground has altered my thinking. I still do not like a mask (my glasses fog up when I wear it inside a grocery store) but I understand why it is necessary.

Our lives have been radically altered by COVID-19. However, the amount of disruption may well depend on where you live in the country, and how well your family, town, county or state has managed social distancing/wearing of masks in order to control the number of infections of the coronavirus.

I am sitting here in Florida about 80 miles north of Miami. During the first few months of the pandemic (late February, March, April and into mid-May) the area I was in was isolated enough from hot spots like Miami that we felt safe.

However, a contagious virus that cannot be seen or controlled only needs one carrier, and we are seeing that in Florida and around the country.

The governor of Florida opened the state around Memorial Day as cases were continuing to expand around the state. The beaches are open, restaurants are open, bars are open, gyms are open. The result is the state is now setting new records for the number of infections every day. We topped 5,500 new cases yesterday, and the state total (which is in question as being under reported) stands at 114,000+ cases.

There was a record number of new cases across the United States yesterday – 36,880 (2.3 million). The U.S. has 4 percent of the world’s population and we have 20 percent of the world’s cases and deaths.

The CDC (www.cdc.gov) released new information today as to who is at risk for dying from COVID-19. They expanded those at risk which you can find here.I will tell you one thing we are finding in Florida, young people are getting the virus, and some of them are dying.

My worry now is less about our decision to take our conference virtual (which was obviously the right choice), but what the business landscape will look like on Aug. 24 when we kick off the SMU Virtual Steel Summit Conference?

There are a lot of moving pieces, including a presidential election, which will come into play by the time of our conference. We will be perfectly situated to tap into the 20+ industry executives, economists and consultants who will speak as to what companies should be doing over the remainder of 2020 and looking into 2021. We will provide economic scenarios and forecasts. This year information is going to be critical, and we will have the experts.

Plus, you will have a unique networking experience while in the SMU Virtual Steel Summit platform. We will have more on this in the coming days, including a webinar(s) on the conference to give you a better feel as to how this is going to work, and why you and your company need to attend.

To learn more about the conference (including what companies are registered) click here.

To register for the conference, click here.

Next week we will host Ryerson’s President & CEO Eddie Lehner during the SMU Community Chat. I spoke with Eddie yesterday, and I think he will have some interesting things to share with our SMU community. The webinar is free to anyone who wishes to join us. You can register by clicking here, or you can go to our website (www.SteelMarketUpdate.com) and click on the SMU Community Chat tab, and then the SMU Community Chat Webinar tab in the dropdown screen. There you can find registration for our next webinar, and recordings and PowerPoint presentations from previous webinars.

If you have any questions about renewing your membership, upgrading to Premium or adding more people (highly encouraged), becoming a new subscriber to our services, or just have questions about SMU, please contact Paige Mayhair at 724-720-1012 or Paige@SteelMarketUpdate.com

As always, your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.

John Packard, President & CEO