One of the hardest hit industries during the COVID-19 crisis has to be the tourism industry.

By that I mean airlines, cruise ships, railway, hotels, etc. etc.

Is anyone out there taking any major vacations?

Over on CNN.com I found this article, by Simret Aklilu, concerning the famous Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, which is about to shut down…

New York’s Roosevelt Hotel to close after nearly 100 years due to the coronavirus pandemic

The Hotel first opened in 1924 and is a famous New York landmark but, because of such low demand for rooms -and if you don’t rent rooms, you don’t make money- it will “permanently close its doors this year,” according to a spokesman for the Hotel.

At the risk of completely spoiling the article, they further state that beyond shutting down, they have no other plans for what to do with the Hotel.

I assume -a dangerous thing to do!- that maybe they just want to cut down on all expenses to keep the property operating at a loss and hope that in the new year and when a vaccine for COVID-19 is developed they will be able to re-open. Then again, I’ve read elsewhere for many years this Hotel has been viewed as low quality with small rooms (makes sense, given the original building was made so long ago).

It is located in a prime spot, however, and one wonders if the owners will ultimately sell.

It also makes me wonder, though, how things are going for Disney and Universal and their parks.

Disney World and Universal in Florida, I understand, are open but have very minimal crowds, while the parks in California are closed. I believe some of the parks in other countries are open as well, but I suspect they too are facing pretty anemic crowds.

After some seven months since COVID-19 became a big issue here in the United States, we continue to do… not much of anything, it seems.

At first there was a shut down, but because the administration was never clear as to what to do to prevent transmission, it was up to the states to determine their own paths.

That has proven to be insanity.

We are north of 200,000 people dead, with the possibility of another 20,000 dead by the end of this year, and whole industries -and all the employees desperate to keep their jobs- are hurting.

The upcoming closure of the Roosevelt Hotel is but one symptom of the much larger problem.

A problem whose solution doesn’t seem to be coming very soon.