. A counterintuitive silver lining to the pandemic is developing: While droves of small businesses across the United States have been crushed by COVID-19 and its restrictions, others have been pushed to lift off. There has been a surge in new business startups this year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By the week ending Dec. 5, the bureau reported, business applications were up 43.3% over the same period in 2019. “But it remains unclear how much of the increase is attributable to entrepreneurs finding opportunity in the crisis to form businesses likely to hire employees as opposed to newly unemployed individuals starting their own businesses,” according to the Economic Innovation Group, a bipartisan public policy organization.