The entire Cape Cod community has faced unprecedented challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. The timing of closures and reopening phases during the busy summer season, and the seasonality of many of our local businesses made them extremely vulnerable to the pandemic, resulting in significant financial losses. In the face of these challenges, we saw our communities persevere, develop new and innovative ways of operating within health and safety standards, respond as guidelines changed, and pursue resources and technical assistance necessary for continued success. We also saw our municipalities adapt to support businesses and organizations that are so critical to the economic vitality of our region.
The Commission partnered with the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce and collected data from local businesses to better understand the evolution of COVID-19 impacts. This data is allowing us to provide targeted business technical assistance, foster collaborations with regional partners, and amplify our ability to support a resilient Cape Cod economy into the future.
The Cape Cod COVID-19 Data Dashboard served as a resource to better understand impacts of the pandemic and will serve as the foundation for a new and updated Stats Cape Cod. This robust data center will allow for continued understanding and analysis of the demographics and economy of our region, and their evolution post-pandemic.
While we are all looking forward to putting the COVID-19 pandemic behind us, we can leverage all that we learned over the course of the past year. As we head into summer 2021, we look forward to supporting the Cape community as we continue to navigate ongoing challenges .
-Kristy Senatori, Cape Cod Commission Executive Director