Stephanie Schwartz
Originally a geographer interested in agroecology and global development, Stephanie Schwartz began her journalism career at Bloomberg News in Zurich, covering technology companies. She went on to freelance for Swiss newspapers and magazines, teach economic geography and write episodic fiction. In recent years, much of her work has been long features about topics ranging from aerospace engineering to art and gourmet foods.
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Stephanie Schwartz
Ian Voelzel, Westlake Animal Hospital's medical director, demonstrates veterinary telemedicine for the author's dog, Mateo. (Stephanie Schwartz)
It all started with an idea about Carfax reports, but for horses.
Steven Carter and Price Fallin had a friend who spent a lot of money on a high-performance horse, and it turned out that before the sale, the seller had medicated the horse to hide some problems. The group thought it would be good to have health records before a horse purchase—and in 2015, they founded Horse Facts.
<p>Carter said that as part of this business, he and Fallin spent a lot of time in equine veterinary practices. There they observed that many people were traveling great distances, even across several states, to take their horse to the vet. The two partners then created an equine <a data-linked-post="2645619144" href="https://austonia.com/telemedicine-offers-health-care-at-a-social-distance" target="_blank">telemedicine</a> product. And word spread.</p><p>"Through pure luck, some small animal vets found my phone number," said Carter, "and they would call, and literally every call they would say, 'Are these the horse guys?'"</p><p>Carter and Fallin renamed their business TeleVet in 2016, and they went on to serve mostly small-animal vets, along with a few large-animal vets and one vet that does telemedicine for 50,000 pigs. </p><p>In January, about 100 veterinary practices used TeleVet. As the <a data-linked-post="2645676614" href="https://austonia.com/Coronavirus/what-austin-needs-to-know-about-hospitals-ventilators-and-the-citys-new-surge-plan-2645676614" target="_blank">coronavirus pandemic</a> hit the U.S., that number rose quickly to over 1,000 practices. The company recently announced it is offering veterinary practices a free month of service during the pandemic.</p><p>TeleVet's system allows veterinarians to interact with animal owners through video, texts and phone calls. States set guidelines for veterinary telemedicine, and Texas requires that a veterinarian have an established relationship with an animal before treating it, which means having previously examined that pet in person. </p><p>Carter said that an increase in veterinary telemedicine was poised to happen, even before the pandemic.</p><p>"I think the veterinary practices as a whole knew that telemedicine was something on the radar," he said, "but they often thought they would put it off for a year or two."</p><p>Due to the rapid increase in demand, TeleVet is accelerating planned expansions to its platform. To bring in the necessary resources, the startup is raising more funding, after closing a $2 million seed round in January. </p><p>Ian Voelzel, veterinarian and medical director of Westlake Animal Hospital, said that he had been considering telemedicine before the coronavirus pandemic, but not all vets at the clinic were on board. Now the practice is using both TeleVet and curbside service to continue to treat its patients. </p><p>It is working well, allowing the staff to feel safe about coming to the practice for procedures that must be done in-house, such as a recent surgery on a cat's broken leg. Which is not to say that there are no challenges to veterinary telemedicine.</p><p>"Our patients don't talk," Voelzel said. "We are trying to get the information through the owner—a third party, basically."</p><p>He expects telemedicine to be a part of the clinic's practice even when social distancing requirements have relaxed. Voelzel said the platform is great for checkups after an operation, as well as a triage to determine whether an animal needs to be seen in the clinic.</p><p>There is a limit, however. Voelzel said that manipulating the limb of an injured animal, for example, can produce a dangerous reaction. Dogs with ear infections can also be very protective. There is an art, and sometimes the involvement of sedatives, to being able to examine an animal. </p><p>"Some things we can't train the owner to do," he said.</p>
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Chris Savittiere
Chris Savittiere's staff has made thousands of masks. (Chris Savittiere)
For ten years, Chris Savittiere supplied upscale restaurants and hotels in Austin and around the country with aprons, uniforms and leather goods. To start, the self-taught designer converted his Austin house into a sewing studio. A couple of years ago, he opened a shop on Austin's east side for his business, Savilino.
Then, as restaurants and hotels were hit by coronavirus concerns and regulations, the business disappeared overnight.
<p>"I laid off my staff," he said, "and asked if they would stick around for a couple of days and make some masks and see what happens. I said, 'It's either going to be a big dud because no one is going to wear one or it will keep us afloat for a while.'"</p><p>The first week they had enough work to keep people going. Then, in the first days of April, they made it onto the news one night, and the Centers for Disease Control issued the recommendation that <a data-linked-post="2645716285" href="https://austonia.com/Coronavirus/austin-coronavirus" target="_blank">people wear a cloth mask in public</a>. </p><p>"And it just blew up," he said. "Immediately, we hired more people."</p><p>Savilino was suddenly receiving about 3,000 mask orders per day. Savittiere says the business has produced over 12,000 cloth masks, and that about 9,000 more are currently being made. </p><p>He is building "a small army of home sewers." So far, he has about 17, with more coming on board every day. He provides curbside pickup of the materials the sewers need. </p><p>Inside the shop, wearing masks and sanitizing frequently, is an eclectic team. A hairstylist is handling the phone, while another is in charge of orders. An old bartender buddy of Savittiere's, who is also an actor, is managing the shipping area. Lighting people are cutting fabric.</p><p>"It's a ragtag group of people," he says. "Everyone is just really dedicated."</p><p>Some of his customers are previous clients, who are still trying to stay in business, such as restaurants offering take-out service. Other orders are coming from the public as people call, write to him on Instagram, contact him on Facebook and text. To manage the process, he sends them all to the company's website. </p><p>He has donated masks to the ARCH, an Austin resource center for the homeless, and says that when he is ramped up and able to fill existing orders, he will begin to donate masks to other organizations. He has also made it possible for the public to use his website to commission masks for donation. </p><p>For now, he is navigating various bottlenecks in the supply chain, working to reduce the current 10-to-14-day wait for masks. He thinks his team will be caught up in about a week, and then able to fill orders more quickly. </p><p>At some point, when people are able to return to restaurants and hotels, he will have to face the question of whether to go back to his previous business. He is concerned that as these clients face harder times, custom goods may be one of the first things they cut. He also says that he is having a change of heart. </p><p>"I'm feeling more of a responsibility to the community and things that benefit the public," he says. "I feel there's a cultural shift that's going to happen after this."</p>
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Charlie L. Harper III
Our photographer captured Austin residents around town on the day after the mayor announced he would require fabric face coverings in public. (Charlie L. Harper III)
The day after the city of Austin extended its stay-at-home order, adding that members of the public will be required to wear fabric face coverings in public places, Austin-Travis County Interim Health Authority Dr. Mark Escott said that masks will be a way of life in Austin for quite a while in response to the coronavirus epidemic.
"The requirement for facial coverings is likely to be a longstanding requirement," he said at a virtual press conference today. "Nobody expects that this thing is going to go away."
<p>Escott said that the peak of COVID-19 cases in Austin will depend on how well residents adhere to the requirements in the stay-at-home order, and that city officials are trying to buy time to acquire more testing equipment, personal protective equipment and contact-tracing capabilities.</p><p>He said that things could go back to normal when there is an effective treatment and vaccine in place. In the meantime, a population comfortable with wearing masks could make it possible to gradually relax restrictions.<br/></p><p>Austin Mayor Steve Adler said today at the press conference that masks were not necessary for outdoor activities such as jogging or walking, as long as the individual is either alone or with members of their household. The covering can also be removed while eating or drinking.</p><p>The fabric face coverings are not meant to protect the individual wearing the mask, but rather those nearby, in case the individual has an asymptomatic COVID-19 infection. The masks are not a replacement for maintaining a physical distance, officials have said.</p><p>In <a href="http://www.mayoradler.com/got-a-minute-6/" target="_blank">his April 6 "Got a Minute?" video</a> post, Adler demonstrated two ways to make a mask from t-shirt material, with no sewing, in less than a minute.</p><p>It has been difficult to find masks at Austin stores, but there are hundreds of videos on YouTube showing how to make your own. On the local social networking platform NextDoor, many neighbors post that they are making masks for the community, often providing them at no cost. Etsy, an e-commerce site focused on handcrafted items, has over 350,000 listings for "masks."</p><p>Adler calls it a moral requirement to protect workers such as store clerks. </p><p>Kasey Pfaff, an employee at an Austin Home Depot, said that before this new facial covering order, she found herself reacting a little differently to customers walking into the store wearing a mask and those who were not wearing one. She is glad that customers should now all be wearing masks.</p><p>"It makes us feel like people are doing their jobs," she said. "They're protecting us." </p><p>Pfaff has an autoimmune condition that puts her at a higher risk of COVID-19 complications. She also needs to avoid bringing the coronavirus home to her roommate or over to her elderly mother's house. </p><p>She has been wearing a mask and gloves herself, and she knows it is not always easy. Her glasses fog up, and they fall off when she bends over. Sometimes she has to talk on the phone at work, and that is hard while wearing a mask. Yet she considers the mask mandate important both now and as Austin moves through other phases of the crisis. </p><p>"I see it just as much as a reassurance about the future," she said. "That everyone is doing this is a signal that Austin is trying to get back on its feet."</p>
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Charlie L. Harper III
Photos by Charlie L. Harper III
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Charlie L. Harper III
Jon Hockenyos projects that unemployment numbers will drop again by the end of September. (Charlie L. Harper III)
Jon Hockenyos, the economic advisor who earlier this week told the Austin City Council that job losses in the Austin metro area could total over 261,000, says that most of the people losing those jobs will probably be reemployed by the end of September.
<p>He expects the height of unemployment to be the month of May, with jobs beginning to pick up again in June. If 261,000 positions were lost, it would represent 25.4% of jobs in Austin before the coronavirus pandemic. Actual unemployment would be slightly higher than 25.4% because over 2% of the Austin job force was already unemployed before any coronavirus-related job losses took place.</p><p>Hockenyos does not expect employment by September 30 to fully match pre-crisis levels.</p><p>"I think we are going to see a little bit of permanent job loss," he says, without giving a specific forecast. "You will see some companies closing."</p><p>In the April 7 presentation, Hockenyos, who is the president of the economic development consultancy TXP, grouped occupations into categories and estimated a percentage of potential job loss for each. </p><p>He expects to see the greatest losses in occupations related to food preparation and service; cleaning and maintenance of buildings and grounds; and sales, with projected losses of 81%, 61% and 56%, respectively. </p><p>On the other end of the spectrum, he forecasts that computer and mathematical occupations; education, training and library occupations; and farming, fishing and forestry occupations will see no net job losses. </p><p>In his calculations, Hockenyos looked at factors such as whether occupations were essential to public health or safety, whether they involved work that could be done off-site, and whether they were salaried. </p><p>He also considered how close workers needed to be to others as they did their job. </p><p>Hockenyos points out that there are many unknowns. He says he finds it realistic to base estimates on a gradual return to jobs beginning in June, but many factors will ultimately affect the availability of jobs. </p><p>"If there is a second wave, things will change," he says. "If there is a cure, things will change. This is a process. You have to keep checking in."<br/></p>
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Michael Dell remains at the top of the list of local billionaires. (Hartmann Studios)
Forbes has released its annual list of the world's billionaires, and eight Austin-area billionaires have made the cut. The wealth used for the list reflects net worth as of March 18.
Michael Dell remains the richest man in town, with a Forbes-list net worth of $22.9 billion. His wealth is down from $32.3 in September of last year. He is ranked as the 33rd richest person in the world.
<p>Robert Smith, co-founder, chairman and CEO of the private equity and venture capital firm Vista Equity Partners ranked 330th with $5 billion, while co-founder and Vista president Brian Sheth came in at rank 945 with $2.2 billion. </p><p>Bert "Tito" Beveridge, who founded Tito's Handmade Vodka, is at No. 616 with $3.7 billion. Fellow spirits maker John Paul DeJoria, who founded Patrón Spirits Co. and co-founded the hair care company John Paul Mitchell Systems, is No. 648 with $3.1 billion.</p><p>Thai Lee, co-founder and CEO of the IT provider SHI International is at No. 680 with $3 billion. Joe Liemandt, the founder of ESW Capital, an investment firm that buys software companies, shares that position.</p><p>David Booth, co-founder and executive chairman of Dimensional Fund Advisors, is ranked 1,513 in the world, with $1.6 billion.</p><p>The coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing market shifts have led to a drop in many fortunes. Forbes says it counted 2,095 billionaires, 226 fewer than this time last year. It also says that 51% of the billionaires who remain on the list have less wealth than last year. </p><p>The markets are volatile at the moment, and as of the close of the market yesterday, the Forbes website reports Michael Dell's net worth to be $27.2 billion, a considerable jump from the $22.9 on March 18.<br/><em><br/></em></p><p><em><br/></em></p>
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Texas Advanced Computing Center
The Frontera supercomputer of the Texas Advanced Computing Center at UT-Austin is ranked No. 5 fastest in the world and No. 1 for academic systems, according to the November 2019 Top500 rankings. (TACC)
Welcome to Austonia, a new, locally owned news company here to report on news, business, and politics in Austin, Texas. Like what you see? Sign up for our daily newsletter to get our latest stories in your inbox.
In early March, when experimental scientists released an important batch of information about the coronavirus, biophysicist Rommie Amaro sent an email to Dan Stanzione at Austin's Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC). She asked for time on Frontera, the fifth most powerful supercomputer in the world.
<p>She and a team from her computational biology lab at the University of California, San Diego, together with scientists from other labs, were creating a model of the virus. Their goals included simulating its movements, which would provide information about how the virus interacted with human cells and provide structural insights for drug development.</p><p>Amaro and her team previously modeled and analyzed an influenza virus. The project, which was finished in 2019, took six years. Now, amid a global pandemic, they were hoping to create the coronavirus model in a matter of weeks. This could only be possible with collaboration in the global community and the use of one of the world's most powerful supercomputers. So she contacted Stanzione, TACC's executive director.</p><p>"It took me one email to Dan Stanzione," she says. "He said, 'I know what you guys do. Just go for it.' It turned out to be so critical for this work. It's unprecedented and impressive."</p><p>As researchers race to provide important information about the coronavirus and its spread, organizations from the federal government, industry and academia have come together to quickly get researchers free access to supercomputers. They joined forces to create the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium, which carries out a daily review of requests for computing capacity. When Amaro was modeling influenza, it took her a year to get her proposal for supercomputer time funded. </p><p>TACC is a member of the consortium. The Austin center is part of the University of Texas-Austin and is funded by the National Science Foundation. It has more than 10 supercomputers, and Frontera is the fastest academic computer in the world. </p><p>"We are supporting over 20 projects now that are in some way dealing with the coronavirus response," says Stanzione, "for probably a few hundred researchers around the country."</p><p>Some projects come in through the daily review process, while others have been green-lit even more quickly, using a discretionary process similar to that used in emergencies such as a hurricane threat in the Gulf of Mexico. The researchers now receiving this immediate approval are usually those who have worked with the center before. They are able to use elements of past projects to approach the new coronavirus threat. </p><p>"Existing capacity matters a lot," he says. "Software has been built. There are data sets you can use. The projects where we are already pushing out results that are helping come from existing relationships."</p><p>The supercomputers at TACC have hundreds of thousands of processors networked in such a way that the transmission time between the processors is extremely low. This allows for large, intricate calculations to be done. Stanzione says that in order to simulate the coronavirus over time, processors need to communicate with each other within fractions of a femtosecond, which is a millionth of a billionth of a second. </p><p>Amaro and her team, along with several groups from other labs, will create a three-dimensional model of the outside of the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, as well as a simulation of its movements. This should give information about how it interacts with human cells and provide insights for drug and vaccine development. The researchers expect the model to contain about 200 million atoms.</p><p>So far, the team has built a three-dimensional model of the spike proteins (which are the red "knobs" seen on coronavirus images), the tether that connects the spikes to the membrane on the outside of the virus, and some of that membrane. They have also been able to model the sugar-like molecules found on the proteins, which may be camouflaging the virus from our immune system.</p><p>The team will now apply the laws of physics to model how the virus moves.</p><p>"You have to have to understand how it is moving in order to understand its function," she says.</p><p>Amaro says that simulations of other viruses have revealed hidden aspects of the coronavirus, such as drug targets, that could not be seen experimentally. Simulation data such as hers is used to augment data collected in experimental labs around the world. It is part of a fast-moving, global effort to conquer coronavirus. </p><p>"The sharing and collaboration has been surprising and incredible," says Amaro.</p>
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photo by Stephanie Schwartz
"It all hits you so hard and so fast," Wu Chow owner Stuart Thomajan said. (Stephanie Schwartz)
Austin's Salt Lick restaurant got its start in 1967, when Thurman Roberts and his wife Hisako chose item number 14—sell barbecue— from their list of 54 ways to possibly make a living in the small town of Driftwood. Thurman built a barbecue pit and began selling meat on weekends.
<p>A few months later, Thurmann and his sons added a screen porch for customers. The Roberts family business went on to become an Austin-area institution, and the family added restaurants in Round Rock and at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.</p><p>Two weeks ago, the Salt Lick restaurants shut their dining rooms and switched to take-out-only service after Austin officials ordered closures to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.</p><p>Thurman's son Scott Roberts, who now runs the business, says it is the toughest challenge they have faced.</p><p>"We've been through oil embargoes in the '70s," he says. "We've been through recessions. But nothing compares to not being able to actually open up."</p><p>Roberts believes the Salt Lick restaurants will make it through the crisis, but he thinks many other restaurants will not be that fortunate. <br/><br/>"It is a shame, because it's not because of what they were doing," he says. "They were viable businesses when this started."<br/><br/>The $2.2 trillion federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which was signed on Friday and is the single largest economic relief package in U.S. history, will include support for restaurants. Restaurant owners as well as their lawyers, accountants, bankers and insurers have been scrambling to understand the financial support offered to individual restaurants.<br/><br/>The bill will provide significant aid. The question is whether it will come quickly enough for restaurants to both support their employees and keep the infrastructure that will allow them to reopen when it is considered safe. <br/><br/>"It's going to help, no question," says Salt Lick Chief Financial Officer Silver Garza.<br/><br/>He says that after days of trying to interpret conflicting information from various sources, the Small Business Administration (SBA) released guidance and an application yesterday, making his path clearer.<br/><br/>"I'm a little more optimistic than I was earlier in the week," he says. "Now it's a function of: let's get it in and see how long it takes them to process it."<br/><br/>Garza says time is key. Restaurant owners need to make the next payroll. <br/><br/>The SBA will work with banks, which will collect information from owners and get the money to them. <br/><br/>Garza is glad he will be able to apply through the company's bank. He said he has been trying to apply on the SBA site for a $10,000 bridge loan, and the site has been overloaded at all times of day, including late at night. <br/><br/>Emily Williams Knight, CEO of the Texas Restaurant Association, says she has concerns about the SBA being able to process all of the loan requests. Overall, however, she says the bill is "a very aggressive step to get money into the hands of our restaurants."<br/><br/>Restaurant owners will be able to borrow up to 250% of the average monthly payroll cost they had in 2019, up to a maximum of $10 million. Loan money used for payroll, rent, mortgage interest and utilities over an eight-week period will not need to be paid back. The remaining amount can be paid back over the next 10 years, at an interest rate of not more than 4%.<br/><br/>Businesses that have had to close or have had sales drop more than 50% will have the option of taking a tax credit instead, which would cover 50% of employee salaries, up to $10,000 per employee. <br/><br/>Knight agrees that rapid payment is vital.<br/><br/>"We've had so many restaurants already close," she says.<br/><br/>Stuart Thomajan, partner in three Austin restaurants, has spent long days trying to work out his best move. He says he is getting emails about CARES from every lawyer, accountant and insurer in his business circles. <br/><br/>He closed his dine-in services at Swift's Attic, Wu Chow and Guild just before it became mandated and then stopped take-out service when he decided it, too, posed unacceptable health risks. He expects to be able to reopen, though he has concerns about lingering risks associated with gathering in groups as well as possible requirements for physical distancing between customers. For now, he has furloughed his employees. <br/><br/>"It's shattering," he says, adding that he sees his staff almost as family. "I have employees that have been with me for 10 years, eight years, six years."<br/><br/>He says keeping employees on the payroll would be possible if he knew how long it would take to receive money. The drop in revenue has been immediate for restaurant owners, leaving a gaping hole. <br/><br/>"It all hits you so hard and so fast," he says. "The speed at which this happens is mind-boggling."</p>
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Scott David Gordon/Johnson's Backyard Garden
Customers wait in line for Johnson's Backyard Garden produce, social distancing from each other. (Scott David Gordon/Johnson's Backyard Garden)
About two years ago, Sam Lillie studied his neighbors' backyards on Google Maps, looking for signs that they were growing food. If he could see planting rows in the image, he would knock on the neighbor's door and ask whether they were interested in selling some of their crop.
Not long before, Lillie had attended a town hall meeting in his small Washington State community and learned that residents were having trouble obtaining local food. He figured there was a way to fix this, and he set about connecting buyers with small local growers. He says that within three months, he had delivered about 300 pounds of food on his bicycle.
He then set out to create a digital platform. Austin's MassChallenge startup accelerator accepted him, so he moved to Texas and created Vinder, an app that connects individuals who want to buy produce with local farmers in Austin and about 100 other cities.
<p>In recent weeks, as anxious Austin customers have been emptying grocery store shelves, demand for produce through Vinder has skyrocketed. In response to the coronavirus crisis, Lillie and his team have taken over delivery service, which used to be a transaction solely between the buyer and the seller, and worked to reduce all delivery fees to $1.</p><p>"The response has been massive," he says. Orders began to spike last Monday and over the following 72 hours, they matched what the app would usually handle in three months. </p><p>Vinder is one of many channels that were either smaller or nonexistent before the current crisis, and are now transforming the way Austinites get their food. <br/><br/>Johnson's Backyard Garden is an organic farm that began in East Austin, then moved to 186 acres in Garfield, Texas. The farm has a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, and members receive a box of seasonal fruits and vegetables every week. Over the past weeks, demand for the boxes has increased so rapidly that the farm had to stop accepting new members and create a waiting list, which now contains hundreds of names.</p><p>"This is something that we've never had to do in the history of the farm," says marketing manager Ada Broussard. "The size of the CSA doubled in a two-and-a-half week span." </p><p>She says that in order to deliver more food, several logistical elements must be sorted out, such as adding routes and hiring new drivers. Being able to ship more produce also means hiring more farm workers, which has classically been tough to do. This is a tough time of the year for small farmers to be adjusting to new demands.<br/><br/>"Farmers are already working 70-plus hours to get things in the ground to accommodate their current production model," she says.<br/><br/>On the other side of the spectrum, some distributors and restaurants have inventories of produce they are scrambling to sell before the food goes bad. The regional distributor Brothers Produce of Austin was fully stocked, with more produce on the way to them, when Travis County ordered restaurants to close dine-in service beginning March 17th. The distributor has begun selling fruit and vegetable boxes through Vinder, as well as setting up box drop-off points around the city and selling produce from its warehouse. </p><p>"It's an experiment," says James Bos, CEO and co-owner of Brothers Produce of Austin. "We're just trying everything we can to move product, keep people fed and keep our employees."<br/><br/>The company is expanding its box delivery system, Bos says, choosing sites almost at random or reacting to customers who organize a site in their neighborhood. The warehouse retail hours are evolving and best viewed on Facebook. It is a process of constant change and adjustment at a company that has had very established systems.<br/><br/>"We have an assembly line set up," says Bos. "We are rolling boxes down the line and packing them up. Who would think we would get to that?"<br/><br/>Last week, Brothers also began selling fruit and vegetable boxes through Vinder. The connection between the two companies was made through the friend of a friend. <br/><br/>"I like that everything is becoming creative—looking for new ways to move produce and help people," says Bos, who adds that he hopes some of the new sales channels remain a part of his business. "We don't know what the normal will be."</p>
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