--- title: The Great American COVID-19 Reopening, in 5 Charts description: From air travel to searches for the word 'reservation,' it's clear that the U.S. is through with the pandemic. canonical: https://time.com/6072373/covid-19-data-reopening/ author: Chris Wilson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-06-09T19:07:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T10:01:05.778Z article:section: Health og:title: The Great American Reopening, in 5 Charts og:description: From air travel to searches for the word 'reservation,' it's clear that the U.S. is through with the pandemic og:url: https://time.com/6072373/covid-19-data-reopening/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Great American Reopening, in 5 Charts twitter:description: From air travel to searches for the word 'reservation,' it's clear that the U.S. is through with the pandemic twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # The Great American Reopening, in 5 Charts > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Chris Wilson](https://time.com/author/chris-wilson/)  ## Chris Wilson Jun 9, 2021 7:07 PM UTC  by [Chris Wilson](https://time.com/author/chris-wilson/)  ## Chris Wilson Jun 9, 2021 7:07 PM UTC Even a moderately observant [UFO](https://time.com/6071397/ufo-study/) monitoring the United States would have noticed, in late March of 2020, that something was seriously amiss. Why are there suddenly so many fewer planes to dodge? What happened to all the cars? Why is it so dark at night? The COVID-19 pandemic has affected just about every meter of culture and industry except, [possibly](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00924-6), the weather. The charts below demonstrate its multifaceted impact, shown against the backdrop of reported COVID-19 cases in the U.S., scaled to fit the range of values in whatever is being graphed. Let’s start with travel, which, while not yet fully back to normal, is clearly on its way there: Unfortunately, the novel coronavirus also took a toll on employment—and the [nature of how we work, when employed](https://time.com/collection/live-well/5900753/rethinking-work-covid-19/)—that resembles transportation figures: That devastation was also felt in entertainment, as movie theaters shuttered and reopened in limited capacity. In the interim, there was a yawning increase in American’s appetite for streaming entertainment at home. Compare box office returns to Google searches for “Netflix,” one of several streaming services that saw a voracious growth in demand. (Google search trends are counted as a percentage of the peak value for a given time span, which in this case was the week of March 22, 2020.) We could go on. Google searches for “gym” or “reservation” reflect the national mood toward the pandemic, and a wide swath of other economic indicators trace a similar pattern as the employment numbers. But as one can plainly see, the metrics that took a severe hit at the beginning of the pandemic are presently on the road to recovery, albeit some faster than others. Whether that persists will hinge on whether the [decline in cases and deaths](https://time.com/5800901/coronavirus-map/) persists as businesses rapidly reopen for summer crowds. Meanwhile, interest in Netflix remains strong. _Correction, June 14, 2021: The graph of employment figures in this article was original scaled to thousands of individuals, not total individuals. 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