While the Southwestern US cement markets of California, Arizona and Nevada were immune to the COVID-19 pandemic, subsequent broken supply chains, rising inflation and climate change may still considerably affect their health. By Rob Roy, ROI Economic Consulting, USA.
The arrival of COVID-19 in 2020 compressed a major global economic depression to within 60 days instead of years. Thanks mainly to unprecedented, massive fiscal stimulus from countries across the world, economic catastrophe was averted. However, the cost in COVID-19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths was tragic. As of 12 March 2022 there have been nearly 457m cases and 6m deaths worldwide from COVID-19. In the USA alone, there have been 79.4m cases and 966,200 deaths in this period, of which the US Southwest suffered its fair share.
Since US construction was predominantly exempt from pandemic restrictions throughout 2020 and 2021, the activities of the various building materials industries were largely unaffected economically despite the disruption to their workforces. This was apparent in Southwest cement demand.
