Fig 2. Evolution of the pandemic-driven uncertainty and market indices.

(A) The dotted line is a one-week moving average of the index. The figure indicates that starting from the last week of February 2020, pandemic-driven uncertainty skyrocketed to record values. The figure includes 7-day-a-week observations. (B) The solid bold red line is Baker et al.’s daily index of uncertainty due to infectious diseases [46]. This uncertainty measure considers the frequency of U.S. newspaper articles that include terms related to economy, risk, financial market, uncertainty and epidemic. The uncertainty index observations correspond with the trading days on the stock exchange. The correlation between this form of uncertainty and variations in returns is 0.46 (t-stat = 4.66). Overall, the message of the figure is that high levels of uncertainty do not bode well for a quick recovery in the hospitality sector.