Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.

Paragraph: "Major industries in Wisconsin have sustained significant economic losses during the coronavirus pandemic, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the tourism sector. Wisconsin plays host to about 112 million tourists in a year, according to the WorldAtlas website, and 2019 was ""a record setting year, and the largest year for Wisconsin in at least a decade"" said Wisconsin Secretary of Tourism-designee Sara Meaney. However, the loss of revenue in 2020 is massive, she said. In a May 24, 2020, appearance on the WISN-TV (Channel 12) show ""UpFront,"" she said, ""Unemployment in our state in general is at about a quarter of our population. It’s actually over 50% of travel and tourism-related jobs that are now facing unemployment."" Meaney went on to say that just in the weeks since the pandemic hit, the state has lost more than a billion dollars in tourism dollars. ""Since the week ending March 14, Wisconsin actually saw a drop in tourism spending compared to last year of $1.7 billion,"" she said. Wisconsin’s tourism industry should come back a bit this summer. Some northern resorts have opened and state campgrounds reopened June 10, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. But that tourism recovery could be an uphill climb if Meaney is correct that year-over-year weekly travel spending in the state has dropped $1.7 billion since March. Let’s take a look. Craig Trost, Wisconsin Department of Tourism communications director, pointed PolitiFact Wisconsin to the U.S. Travel Association, which commissioned a study by Tourism Economics, the firm the department uses for its economic impact data. The U.S. Travel Association is a national, non-profit organization representing the travel industry, with various sectors — including transportation, lodging, retail, recreation, leisure and entertainment and food service, meetings and trade shows. Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics, in an email to PolitiFact Wisconsin, explained that the analysis is based on a combination of factors: daily hotel data (nights and revenue) from STR, a research company that tracks the hospitality industry; flight data (seats and passengers) from Airline Data Inc. and the Transportation Security Administration; and drive travel data (outside 50 mile radius) from Arrivalist based on mobile device data. Trost said the week ending March 14 was significant because that is when COVID-19 began significantly impacting tourism spending. ""Since the beginning of March, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in over $176 billion in losses for the U.S. travel economy,"" the report states. According to the report, Wisconsin’s  year-over-year net change in weekly travel spending from the week ending March 28 to the week ending May 16 was down about $200 million each week. When going back earlier in March, the report notes losses for the week ending March 14 at $17 million and the week ending March 21 of $50 million. That brings the total to $1.775 billion. Romy Snyder, CEO/President of the Wisconsin Dells Visitor and Convention Bureau, said it will take time to correctly analyze and know the  financial impact of COVID-19 on Wisconsin Dells. ""We do know the loss of visitors has been detrimental to the local tourism economy,"" Snyder said in an email. ""According to 2019 numbers, the spring and summer seasons account for 66% of direct visitor spending in Wisconsin Dells."" Snyder said area businesses are ready to welcome visitors. ""Wisconsin Dells’ businesses are working to accommodate current visitors to the area in a safe manner by increasing sanitation procedures and limiting capacities and hours of operation,"" Snyder said. ""We know Wisconsin Dells has strong brand awareness in the Midwest, which will help our area when people are ready to travel and are looking for an accessible vacation destination with a diversity of activities."" Jon Jarosh of Destination Door County said area businesses have been getting ready and opening up. ""Everybody has a little different protocol in terms of what they’re going to allow at their particular business,"" Jarosh said on the same ""UpFront"" program where Meaney appeared via remote. ""We’re asking our visitors and residents that are out and about to just respect the individual businesses and what they are asking for. But by and large most businesses are going to be asking that their customers do wear a face covering of some sort and also just practice social distancing guidelines."" A major Dells attraction, Noah’s Ark water park, set its opening date for June 20, the first day of summer. The water park plans a number of precautions in line with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those precautions include social distancing and limiting capacity not only in the park itself but also on specific attractions and in buildings. The park is requiring guests to RSVP for the day they want to visit, and visitors must buy tickets in advance online. Walk-up tickets will not be sold. Meaney said the state’s tourism losses have topped $1.7 billion since March. Data from weekly studies commissioned by the U.S. Travel Association, an organization with over 1,100 members nationwide, found that beginning the week ending March 14, when the COVID-19 crisis first began to significantly impact tourism spending, Wisconsin was down $17 million compared to a year earlier. The drop in year-over-year travel spending in the state mounted weekly, with the latest available report reporting a drop of $214 million for the week ending May 16. That brings the state tourism sector drop to $1.775 billion since the week ending March 14. Claim: “Since the week ending March 14, Wisconsin actually saw a drop in tourism spending compared to last year of $1.7 billion.”
Decrease in tourism dollars became apparent the week of March 14, with a year-over-year drop of $17 million. Year-over-year decreases continued to mount, with drops of about $200 million per week statewide. A study commissioned by the U.S. Travel Association found year-over-year decreases totaled $1.775 billion from March 14 to May 16.

Paragraph: Health authorities across Asia have been stepping up surveillance and other precautions to prevent a repeat of the disruptions and deaths during the 2003 SARS crisis, which caused $40 billion to $50 billion in losses from reduced travel and spending. The first cases of what has been identified as a novel coronavirus were linked to a seafood market in Wuhan, suggesting animal-to-human transmission, but it now is also thought to be spread between people. As of Wednesday, more than 500 people were confirmed infected and 17 had died from the illness, which can cause pneumonia and other severe respiratory symptoms. A retreat in financial markets on Tuesday was followed by a rebound on Wednesday, as investors snapped up bargains. Share benchmarks were mostly higher both in Asia, Europe  and the U.S. While the new virus appears much less dangerous than SARS, “the most significant Asia risk could lie ahead as the regional peak travel season takes hold, which could multiply the disease diffusion,” said Stephen Innes, chief Asian strategist for AxiCorp. “So, while the risk is returning to the market, the lights might not turn green until we move through the Lunar New Year travel season to better gauge the coronavirus dispersion.” The 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in China, along with cases of a deadly form of bird flu, resulted in widespread quarantine measures in many Chinese cities and in Hong Kong. More than 8,000 people fell sick and just under 800 people died, a mortality rate of under 10%. While the ordinary flu kills hundreds of thousands of people each year, such new diseases raise alarm due to the uncertainties over how deadly they might be and how they might spread. That’s especially true during the annual mass travel of the Lunar New Year festival, which begins this week. “The cost to the global economy can be quite staggering in negative GDP terms if this outbreak reaches epidemic proportions,” Innes said in a report. In China, health officials stepped up screening for fevers. “We ask the public to avoid crowds and minimize the public gatherings to reduce the possibility of cross infection,” Li Bin, deputy director of the National Health Commission, said Wednesday. As with SARS, the impact of the disease is likely to fall heaviest on specific industries, such as hotels and airlines, railways, casinos and other leisure businesses and retailers, analysts said. In a statement on its website Wednesday, Shanghai Disney Resort said it was operating normally but understood if some guests wished to change their travel plans. The park said it would let guests reschedule their visits or refund their money. China’s Civil Aviation Administration called on airlines to offer free refunds for tickets in or out of Wuhan. “If the pneumonia couldn’t be contained in the short term, we expect China’s retail sales, tourism, hotel & catering, travel activities likely to be hit, especially in the first and second quarters,” said Ning Zhang of UBS. Government efforts to offset the shock would help, but growth will likely rebound less than earlier forecast, Zhang said. The outbreak is a boon, meanwhile, for pharmaceutical companies and makers of protective masks and other medical gear. As of Jan. 17, the World Health Organization had not recommended any international restrictions on travel but urged local authorities to work with the travel industry to help prevent the disease from spreading while warning travelers who fall ill to seek medical attention. The illness is yet another blow for Hong Kong, whose economy is reeling from months of often violent anti-government protests. The wider concern is China, where the economy  grew at a 30-year low 6.1% annual pace in 2019. An interim trade pact between Beijing and Washington had raised hopes that some pressure from tensions between the two biggest economies might ease, and the latest data have showed signs of improved demand for exports. The virus outbreak raises the risk such optimism might be premature. “We expect increased downward pressure on China’s growth, particularly in the services sector,” said Ting Lu and other analysts at Nomura in Hong Kong, who based their projections on the spread of the SARS virus. The growing number of global travelers has contributed to the spread of various diseases in recent years, including Middle East respiratory syndrome, the Ebola and Zika viruses, the plague, measles and other highly contagious illnesses. The World Economic Forum estimates that pandemics — cross-border outbreaks like the flu that killed 50 million people a century ago — have the potential to cause an $570 billion in annual economic losses. The 2014-16 Ebola virus epidemic caused losses amounting to over $2.2 billion, according to the World Bank. That includes a 40% decrease in the number of working Liberians at the height of the crisis, lower exports and harvests, and costs for combating the disease. Apart from the human tragedy, such crises gobble up resources needed for other government spending, exacting a harsh toll on the poorest economies. In Africa, the loss of health care workers to Ebola resulted in thousands more deaths of mothers and babies, hindered work on other diseases such as preventing and treating malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, reduced vaccination rates and fewer surgeries, the World Bank said in a report. Many survivors, meanwhile, suffer from lingering effects of the illnesses and the powerful drugs used to save their lives, becoming more vulnerable to hunger and other risks. At the same time, increasingly sophisticated tools for collecting data and analyzing are aiding efforts to prepare for and cope with severe disease outbreaks. In 2016, the World Bank set up a $500 million rapid response insurance fund, working with the WHO and insurance companies, to combat pandemics in developing countries. The fund uses “cat bonds,” or catastrophe bonds, whose principal will be lost if the funds are needed to help deal with an outbreak. Private insurers have followed with products of their own meant to hedge against risks from such disasters. Claim: China virus outbreak may wallop economy, financial markets.
News that a new virus that has afflicted hundreds of people in central China can spread between humans has rattled financial markets and raised concern it might wallop the economy just as it might be regaining momentum.

Paragraph: "The flu season is upon us. But is it hitting the Peach State harder than other places? We wondered after seeing a map on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website Thursday, showing Georgia with the highest flu activity in the country, and hearing television reports repeating the claim. The short answer: Not really. Flu season starts in October and can run into May. It typically peaks in Georgia by early January, with upticks after Thanksgiving and Christmas when germs are often passed like holiday feasts. Flu vaccines are designed to protect against the main flu viruses that research suggests will be the most common of the season. This year’s vaccines protect against three viruses. The CDC develops its ""flu view"" map based on weekly reports from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico of outpatient visits to doctors for treatment of flu-like symptoms. The information is voluntarily submitted by doctors’ offices to their state public health departments. States on the CDC map are assigned to one of four levels of influenza-like illness activity -- minimal, low, moderate, or high. Georgia was identified as having ""low"" flu activity in the week of Oct. 4 through Oct. 10, the most recent period for which outpatient information was available on Thursday. But that was a notch above the rest of the nation, which this early in flu season fell in the minimal range. ""The biggest takeaway is the flu is here,"" said Nancy Nydam, spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Public Health, ""and if you don’t have a flu shot, you need to get one."" Georgia did not report any hospitalizations or deaths due to the flu in that week, Nydam said. South Carolina, meanwhile, had four flu deaths but showed up with less flu activity on the CDC map because the map -- again --  is based on how many people see a doctor, not how many die. ""It’s really misleading,"" Nydam said. ""The numbers (of patients with flu-like symptoms) are so low."" Georgia reported 22,273 patients visiting doctor’ offices in the week of Oct. 4 through Oct. 10, with 379 of those patients or 1.7 percent exhibiting flu-like symptoms. Compare that to a report from a week in December 2014, when 20,835 people visited doctors, 1,643 or 7.89 percent with flu-like symptoms. Changes come quickly If Georgia was identified as the state with the highest flu activity on Thursday, it was a different story Friday. That’s because on Friday the Georgia Department of Public Health had later, data from the week starting Oct. 11. It showed Georgia’s flu activity down in the minimal range, where the rest of the country had been the week before. (Of 25,876 patients, 355 or 1.37 percent had flu-like symptoms. South Carolina and Alaska jumped ahead of Georgia in activity, but they were just higher in the minimal range, Nydam said. The CDC doesn’t look at the flu activity in isolation, said Lynnette Brammer, CDC epidemiologist. The map is just one of nine resources that the CDC uses to track increases in flu-like illnesses across the country, she said. ""You take a look at all those pieces, including laboratory data, and you can get a pretty complete picture of flu that comes in contact with health care systems,"" Brammer said. ""With flu, you should never look at just one piece."" Doctors report cases where patients complain of flu-like symptoms -- fever, cough or sore throat, she said. ""That flu-like illness may have been flu or may not have been,"" Brammer said. Our ruling Georgia had the highest flu activity in the country based on data provided by doctors offices across the country and mapped by the CDC for the week of Oct. 4 through Oct. 10. That information factors into the CDC’s efforts to track what goes on through flu season. But it’s based on data submitted voluntarily and that, as we have seen, can change week -to-week. That’s important context that downgrades the statement to ." Claim: Georgia has the highest flu activity in the country.

Georgia had the highest flu activity in the country based on data provided by doctors offices across the country and mapped by the CDC for the week of Oct. 4 through Oct. 10. That information factors into the CDC’s efforts to track what goes on through flu season. But it’s based on data submitted voluntarily and that, as we have seen, can change week -to-week. That’s important context that downgrades the statement.