Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t

There is really no easy answer as to whether we should continue the “stay at home” order or to start opening up businesses. It’s either die from the coronavirus or die from starvation. At some point with businesses closures, you run into people having no money for food; you can only have businesses closed for a limited time. The question is how long?

Here’s my thought process on leaning on continued “stay at home order”: say we open up the economy while the virus is still virally spreading while we still don’t have adequate materials for testing (the tests itself, the reagents, the PPEs and masks, everything that goes into the testing from making the tests to distributing to testing to analyzing results). Since the virus is still hot – and I don’t think people understand how CONTAGIOUS the virus is – cases shoot up which then endanger hospitals’ ability to provide care, thus leading to increased deaths, maybe to frightening levels. Once people realize that the virus is still around and infecting more people and killing their loved ones, they will go right back into their homes and hunker there for a longer period of time. This combination of fear and greater number of deaths will cause whatever meager economic revival to collapse, possibly even deeper.

As an analogy, during war, imagine your enemy is bombing your town. You don’t keep businesses open or go grocery shopping during those bombing runs. You hunker down in whatever safe space you got. It is only between bombing cessation you go out to quickly do what you have to do until the next bombing run. This virus is a more severe case of the bombing runs – it is incessant and doesn’t have quiet periods.

The second element of my thought process is I did some research about the 1918 flu because I always read about the medical aspects of the flu itself but not the economic impact. I was wondering why I didn’t read more about the economy of those times. What happened back then? There is a paucity of materials out there on the economic impact but I did see two websites addressing the economics. There is not a whole lot but basically both sites said there was an economic fallout but those cities that implemented the isolation/quarantine orders right after the first appearance of the flu and kept those isolation/quarantine order going for a longer period ending up having a faster economic recovery. Economically and health wise, those cities that responded quickly ended up with less deaths and a faster recovering economy. Those that acted quickly but then opened up the economy too soon, ended up with a slower economic recovery.

Here's a couple of links that provides research on the 1918 flu pandemic and its health and economic impact.

This article talks about how we are not overreacting to the coronavirus – in fact, we need to overreact to ensure we reduce the fatalities. Early social distancing saved lives during the 1918 flu, as soon as a case appeared if not before, and sustained social distancing led to faster economic growth after the crisis.

Here's one that mainly focuses on the health impact of the social distancing; there is little or no discussion about the economic impact.

And finally this article delves into the economic impact of the 1918 flu. It goes to compare how stringent social distancing/"stay at home" orders compared to less stringent social distancing/"stay at home" orders fared in the aftermath of the pandemic. It was found that the cities that imposed more stringent orders fared better economically afterward. There is also some discussion about the social value of the economy versus saving lives.

That doesn’t mean I relish the idea of people starving or being thrown out into the streets. No, I’m really scared about that. I really don’t want us to go there. So, while we are undergoing the “stay at home” orders, we need to deal with the jobless aspect. In Europe, I believe some European countries are paying businesses to keep their employees hired, even if those employees are stuck at home. This allows the companies to keep paying their employees and thus those employees can continue to buy food, keep a roof over their head and buy other necessities. Why can’t we do something similar? I think that is what the payments to small businesses are for but it’s not working? Let’s fix that, ASAP, then we don’t have to end the “stay at home” order too soon.

Or how about something way out of the box? What did we do before we had trade or monetary systems, you know like when we came out of the trees? Or, I’m surer the aborigines of old had some sort of system of keeping their people fed and clothed without a monetary system. Is there a possibility of doing something along the same lines temporarily? With automation and AI taking over jobs hanging in the horizon, this could be the time to start dreaming up solutions to “jobless” lives.

Or, can we borrow the “free ethos of the Internet”? A lot of businesses give their services away for free. WordPress is free. Software developers join together to create the software for free. Is there anything from their strategies that we can learn from?

Michigan wants to get back to work. Actually, we all do but some of us believe that the pandemic has to be squelched to a controllable level and we have to have sufficient testing and resources to combat the coronavirus. Again, it looks like a choice between money and life. The Trump supporters, and these protestors look like to be Trump supporters, seem to value money over life, although I suspect some of them are worried about being able to eat and have a roof over the head. Again, this is a tricky situation and we have to find a way to enable people to continue to eat, have a roof and pay for necessities during this time.

A lot of these protestors are standing around outside without practicing 6 feet distancing or without masks, so when they go back home, they will probably bring back the virus to their towns. And oops, there goes the infection rate.

It seems some people have to learn the hard way what the doctors and scientists are trying to do. They just don't get it.

Or they are following the wrong news source. Lately Fox News have been banging the drum to re-open up the economy. There was one Republican congressman from Indiana who said we need to put on the big boys' and big girls' pants and just deal with the deaths that will come with re-opening the economy.

"But it is always the American government's position to say, in the choice between the loss of our way of life as Americans and the loss of life of American lives, we have to always choose the latter." Trey Hollingsworth, Republican congressman of Indiana.

Okay, it looks like we have some serious differences in value system. It looks like some Republicans view money as their god; they don't value lives as much. Quite a few right wing commentators have said they are willing to die in order to re-open the economy. Glenn Beck comes to mind. Now, remember, these are wealthy men who are probably plugged into a very good medical system so if they should get sick, they will get good health care and might not die because of that. And, they probably can self-isolate better with extra amenities so they can much more easily reduce the likelihood of contracting the virus. So when these Republicans or right wingers tell your grandfather or grandmother to die so that the economy can open back up, consider that those people are sitting in a sweet spot.