The Fed’s Jackson Hole change shows the Delta variant’s ability to distort plans

WASHINGTON, Aug 23 (Reuters) – Health officials in Teton County, Wyoming, announced last Thursday what was partly an administrative change, changing a five-point local index to assess COVID-19 risk by a scale of four points used by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But that change quickly pushed the county into the CDC’s highest risk category and changed the Federal Reserve’s plans to hold its Jackson Hole central banking conference as a face-to-face event for violating local health guidelines. In one day, the US central bank had canceled the part of the face-to-face conference at the local mountain station. Read more

The annual symposium, hosted by the Kansas City Fed, will still be held online and the fundraiser will be the same. Academic research papers will be presented and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will deliver a webcast speech on Friday.

However, last week’s sequence of events shows the day-to-day recalibration of what is and is not safe during the current rise of US COVID-19, which feeds on the Delta variant of the virus. highly contagious. The Fed’s reaction to a county government’s communication options served as a prime example of how the pace of economic recovery is changing.

The decision certainly lessened the risks to public health. The guest list for the Fed’s Jackson Hole event had already been halved from the typical one-year crowd of about 150 people, vaccination against COVID-19 was mandatory and masks were needed at the ‘interior. The cancellation eliminated trips and two days of face-to-face sessions, meals and receptions, as well as a lot of sidebar meetings.

It also meant dozens of canceled plane trips, car rentals and hotel rooms for attendees, their relatives or guests, a press entourage and others, and refunds of the $ 1,100 conference fee.

That happened even though nothing had changed much between the beginning of the week, when Fed officials nailed the last-minute plans, and on Friday afternoon, when Kansas City Fed officials they called off the face-to-face meeting “because of the recently elevated COVID -19 level of health risk in Teton County, Wyoming.”

Per capita case rates had continued to rise, but the dramatic rise in Teton County infections had begun in mid-July and was well underway in early August.

What was different was the scale used by county officials to assess the risk. In the simplified CDC index, Teton County was now at the red level or higher. In fact, the Atlanta-based health agency moved the county’s risk level to “high” on July 22, according to its Teton County online data. Local targeting for this level of risk discouraged meetings outside of closest family members.

“MANY CANCELLATIONS”

The Kansas City Fed had said in May, when it announced it would return to a face-to-face conference after moving the annual meeting online last year, that it would “adhere to all health and safety guidelines that were in place in the time of the program “.

A Kansas City Fed official said the regional bank has been overseeing the Teton County Department of Health website and made the decision to announce the change after markets close Friday based on the change of state.

According to the county’s previous index, which included a broader set of considerations, such as hospital admissions, supplies of protective equipment and the availability of evidence, the level of risk would also have changed last week from moderate to high. , said Jodie Pond, health director.

However, local guidelines for this level of risk under the previous system did not recommend family-only meetings, a suggestion reserved for the county’s highest “critical” risk stage.

“There have been a lot of event cancellations and that was not our goal, to cancel events if they could be done safely,” Pond said of the recent change. “I don’t want to guess an event organizer because I’ll always make the wrong cancellation, make the wrong precaution … I’d say it’s probably okay – no one asked us – if people masked themselves inside and left require vaccination “.

Reports by Howard Schneider; Edited by Dan Burns and Paul Simao

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