Coronavirus is taking a toll on the Puget Sound-area economy, but how bad could it get?

Hart Hodges, an economist at Western Washington University and director of the Center for Economic and Business Research, said he will be watching for a similar dynamic among consumers.

“If people do not go out to eat as much, restaurant owners and wait staff [will] see a drop in revenue, so they in turn spend less,” Hodges wrote in an email Thursday, adding that he had just been notified that a future lunch meeting had been canceled. “So there’s 100 people not attending a lunch in Seattle.”