Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said in a CBS interview that “we’ve not control over the virus spread,” and “another support package is really incredibly important”. He emphasized the importance of public confidence “so that people feel good about going back to work, they feel safe they can go out to retail establishments and enjoy leisure and hospitality that put people back to work.”

Evans said the actual unemployment rate is “somewhat higher” that the official number at 10%. “If we got the kind of support that we needed as quickly as possible, got control of the virus, perhaps all the people who were sent home to stay safe could be brought back by their- by their previous employers. ”

Full transcript here.

Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan said “the issue with the resurgence in the virus is it slowed down or somewhat muted the recovery we’ve been expecting”. Hence, “the better again we manage the virus, the better we’ll recover.”

“I believe the economy needs a continuation of the unemployment benefits,” Kaplan told CNN. “It may not need to be in the same form as it currently is, but we need a continuation.”

Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said in a speech that “the increase in virus cases that we’ve seen in recent weeks has raised the downside risks to the outlook and is a stark reminder that there are several different scenarios that could play out”. The reopening phase maybe “more protracted than many had anticipated when it started”.

It’s “clear that more fiscal support is needed to provide a bridge for households, small businesses, and state and local municipalities that have borne the brunt of the economic shutdown until the recovery is sustainably in place”, she added.

On Fed’s side, even though policy rate is “already at its effective lower bound”, there are tools to provide additional accommodations, including “forward guidance about the future path of policy and purchases of longer-term Treasuries and agency mortgage-backed securities”.

Mester’s full speech here.

Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida said he forecast the US to have a “rebound in economic activity in the third-quarter data”. However, “the course of the economy is going to depend on the course of the virus, and it’s a complex picture”.

“It will take some time I believe before we get back to the level of activity we were at in February before the pandemic hit,” he added. “My baseline view is that we could get back to the level of activity perhaps towards the end of 2021.”

Also, ‘”there are a lot of moving parts with the virus and the global outlook.” One being additional fiscal support which the Congress and the White House are still struggling to reach an agreement. “The longer this drags on, the greater risk there is to long-term damage to the economy,” Clarida said. “I don’t think we’re at that point yet.”