far-reaching impacts on american lives. short-staffed airlines along with winter weather forcing the cancellation of thousands of flights again today. a travel nightmare for people returning from the holidays, and parents now worrying as classes are set to resume for their children after the winter break. several school districts, in fact, announcing they are switching to online learning to start this semester. the white house feverishly working on plans to address and mitigate covid s daily disruptions while acknowledging those disruptions will only get worse as the virus advances. it s kind of like a very interesting, somewhat complicated issue where you have a virus that might actually be less severe in its pathogenicity, but so many people getting infected that the net amount, the total amount of people that will require hospitalization might be up. so we can t be complacent in these reports which are likely accurate that it is ultimately in the big picture less sever
that s where a lot of people sit right now. they re going in to take care of other people and they re worried for their business, for their family. so we re just looking for some more help from congress. it s got bipartisan support. we just need a few more people to jump on. kevin, thanks for the hard truth, that s serving up some really harsh reality there, but i think we all understand exactly where you re coming from. i really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to speak. it s important to a lot of people. we re 16.1 million people who work in the united states in the whole supply chain. we re 4% of the gdp. we re an important business. we should be treated as such. we need you, we need our restaurants. and we all need to be restored, as you say. kevin bain, thank you so much, appreciate it. all the best, happy new year. happy new year. all right. hello again, everyone. thank you so much for being with me, i m fredericka whitfield. this breaking news, the ja
Played too in your current situation? well, yeah. everything is difficult right now. first of all, the restaurant business was already difficult. it s like the hardest business in the world. and so now we re like in the olympics of trying to make it work. and so, you know, we ve been working with senatorsin and sch on new legislation for this year. but neighborhood restaurants and bars are going out of business. yeah, restaurants have had to raise prices. but everything is hard right now. there are nights when you just don t have enough employees to field the team. the word restaurant literally means to restore other people. and it s pretty hard to restore other people when you re not restored and your spirit has been kicked. oh, my. that s bad.