On Monday, economic recovery in Hawaiʻi was discussed by members of the House Select Committee on COVID-19 Economic and Financial Preparedness.
UHERO’s Executive Director, Carl S. Bonham, Ph.D., discussed the latest UHERO State Forecast Update during the virtual meeting. The forecast predicts another delay in economic recovery. “Everything is pushed back roughly six months because of the surge in cases on Oʻahu, because of the additional shutdown, because of the postponement of reopening to tourism,” Bonham said. “And so rather than having a relatively robust bounce-back in 2021, it doesn’t start back up until the second half of 2021 when – in our baseline forecast of tourism – recovery is quite a bit stronger under a maintained assumption that by the second half of 2021 a vaccine will become more widely available.”
