Indeed, new case counts in the U.S. have surpassed 150,000 per day on a rolling seven-day average basis and despite more than half of the population being vaccinated, hospitalizations with the virus have also skyrocketed during August, approaching 100,000 per day for the first time since late January. And with back-to-school season upon us, the risk that the virus spreads further cannot be ruled out.
Office vacancy rates have understandably remained subdued as a result. We can see from data out of Kastle Systems International LLC, which measures the number of employees who swipe security cards to enter offices in 10 key metro areas in the U.S., that we are a long way from where we were in early 2020. Its Back-to-Work Barometer for late August shows that traffic remains 50 per cent to 80 per cent below where it was in March 2020.