I noticed that the census bureau is preparing a new round of questions, called "pulse" surveys, and explained on their website, to research the effects of the Coronavirus situation. There are two types, a home survey and a small business survey. Museums and tourist railroads may see the survey arriving in May.

I reviewed the questions, which revolve around the effect that the Coronavirus emergency has had on business activity. A couple of omissions to the business survey struck me as being rather odd. One is that there is no question asking if your business had ceased operation for other reasons, before the emergency. It seems like they might want to know that to separate out the true reason for lack of business activity, or failure to resume activity, when the emergency ends. Another is that there is no question asking whether the ongoing risk of exposure to the virus will keep the business closed when the emergency ends. There are a number of small businesses, mainly owned by older people, that are not going to reopen simply because their continuation is no longer justified in the revised environment. Keeping them going is not worth the risk for owners who would be retiring shortly.

Anyway, these are scheduled to be sent out soon. Just letting you know what they are in the event that your organization gets one.

PC

In my museum’s case, the timing of the COVID-19 first wave probably was an advantage. Our tourism season winds down in April and is pretty much done by May and doesn’t really start up again until September. Only folks you’ll find here in the summer months are locals and a few insane tourists. Hotel rates dip as the temperature rises and many attractions cut their hours of operation during normal summers anyways. Our new case rates seem to be leveling off, so hopefully we’ll be able to get our volunteers back to work in a few weeks.