“Covid-19 is deadly, and so is keeping millions of people out of work”

This is the 2nd chapter in my series on ‘Stakeholder engagement is on life-support itself’. It is a continuation of Rumsfeld’s heuristic beginning with the ‘Known Knowns’ events/decisions of the 1st wave of infections that dramatically affected virtually every stakeholder in the U.S. and Canada - from wearing a mask, keeping six feet from interacting with people outside the home, to staying-at-home, to bearing the disease and in the worst cases, saying goodbye to a loved one on Zoom or Skype because funeral gatherings were prohibited. For the seriously ill, it was dieing alone.

Reminder of Chapter 1.1

Chapter 1.1 described the 1st crisis, the impact of the pandemic on people’s health and on the underfunded and unprepared health care systems themselves. It included the following:

1.1.1 Covid-19 is a zoonotic disease - it is here to stay and more to come. “By one estimate, there are more than 827,000 viruses in the animal world that have the potential to infect humans. We encourage these spillovers whenever we cut roads through the wilderness, clear forests to grow crops, catch wildlife to sell as trophies or butcher for food, or pen chickens and swine in places where bats and wild birds can mingle with them.”

1.1.2 “We expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths... climb even higher”. 9.8 million cases and almost 240 thousand death in the U.S. and 277,061 cases and 10,685 deaths in Canada as of November 10th, 2020. “The toll taken on survivors is tremendous. A new study calculates that nine family members are affected by every person who dies of the coronavirus. ... the grief pandemic will outlast the coronavirus pandemic.” Joseph Stalin was brutally correct - “A single death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic”

 1.1.3 The health care systems were unprepared, underfunded yet undefeated. “When Covid-19 patients first began showing up in hospitals in the spring, doctors didn’t know which medicines or treatments would be effective. Little was understood about how the virus was transmitted or the best way to protect staff. USC’s Dorian described health care workers dealing with that unprecedented crisis as “deer in headlights.” The surge in cases and hospitalizations revealed a number of gaps/holes in the hospitals’ inventory of ventilators personal protective equipment and testing swabs and their struggles to procure them. 

1.1.4 The media have overlooked therapeutics in favour of the race for a vaccine. The accelerated international developments of a vaccine has swamped the media coverage of search for and development of effective therapeutics for Covid-19. “The president’s enthusiasm for hydroxychloroquine has also sparked a run on the drug, in some cases preventing patients with lupus, who have relied on the drug for years, from refilling their prescriptions.” But the race to develop a vaccine was awaited by all.

1.1.5 Closing comments 

Endnotes for Chapter 1.1

Appendix A - Definitions of stakeholders and stakeholder engagement

Abstract of Chapter 1.2 - economic fallout from Stay-at-home/lockdown orders

Chapter 1.2 explores the tradeoffs/tension between the policy options of protecting the population’s health versus protecting the economy has haunted policy-makers since the coronavirus became a pandemic. The lockdowns were the last ditch stand against the stealthy and speedy transmission of the coronavirus in the community- from the 1st case in the US on January 20th, to 750 cases by early March to 187,303 cases and 3,900 deaths by late March [“Coronavirus updates from March 31, 2020”, CBS News]. The public health officials had exhausted their traditional tools of promoting personal hygiene, social distancing, wear a mask when interacting with other people and avoid gatherings of more than ‘X’ number of people. In spite of these efforts, infections, hospitalizations and deaths were increasing and threatening to overwhelm the health care systems. Extended lockdowns were the reluctant option that had proven effective in China, Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong and were demonstrating their ability to ‘flatten the curve’. With the exception of five mid-western states, the governors ‘bit the bullet’ knowing they were between a rock and a hard place. As Eric Morath notes “The bottom line is tens of millions of jobs were lost in a matter of three months—and it will likely take several years for them to be replaced.” “Nonfarm payrolls fell by a combined 21.4 million in March and April” “Canadians went from packing for March break vacations to sheltering in place”. This chapter briefly examines the economic impacts on the aviation industry, tourism, cruise ships, hospitality, agrifood, the R&D sector, events and conventions, live music concerts and sporting events. “The synchronized shutdown was the largest, fastest and most comprehensive reduction in economic activity ever witnessed in the modern world”. A brief exploration of the U.S. and Canadian bailout relief packages provides a profile of “A larger injection [of cash relief] than any other big, rich country”. Finally, the closing comments argues that four groups of stakeholders: (1) Permanent laid off workers due to closures, downsizing, e-commerce invasion of mainstream and automation/robotics and AI; (2) Layoffs from restaurants, bars, nightclubs; (3) ‘Body Blows’ to the Arts and Cultural Industries; and (4) Gig economy workers, are the latest cluster of ‘left behind’ workers.

Contents of the next Chapter 1.2 - The 2nd crisis - economic fallout...

1.2.1 The backstory as the Introduction

1.2.2 ‘Beware the Ides of March’ - suppression measures as the last resort

1.2.3 The economic impacts of Stay-at-home/closure/lockdown orders

1.2.4 “The largest, fastest and most comprehensive reduction in economic activity...”

1.2.5 The “Coronavirus Economy” - A larger injection of cash relief than any other big, rich country

1.2.6 Closing comments - A new group of ‘left behinds’ is at risk of being discarded/forgotten by the ‘pancession’ 

Endnotes for Chapter 1.2

Chapter 1.2 - The 2nd crisis - economic fallout from the Stay-at-home/lockdown orders

1.2.1The backstory as the Introduction

The coronavirus wasn’t initially perceived as a threat. In the midst of this ‘normal’ life before the coronavirus of Americans and Canadians, various announcements about coronavirus trickled out in the media. The coronavirus was generally perceived by the politicians and the public as something over there, in China: [72]

• January 9 - WHO Announces Mysterious Coronavirus-Related Pneumonia in Wuhan, China
• January 19 - U.S. had its 1st case of coronavirus diagnosed/reported when a man returned to Washington State on January 15 after traveling to visit family in Wuhan, China
• January 25 - Canada’s 1st coronavirus case was identified on January 25th - another man who had just returned from a trip to Wuhan, China
• January 31 - The WHO finally declares a Global Health Emergency
• February 2 - Global Air Travel Is Restricted. Those en route to the United States have to have left China or they can face a 2-week home-based quarantine if they had been in Hubei province. Mainland visitors, however, will need to undergo health screenings upon their return, and foreign nationals can even be denied admittance.

The media and the public began to perceive the coronavirus as a threat when the U.S. declared a Public Health Emergency even though the Administration was playing down the threat/risks of the coronavirus.

• February 2/3 — US Declares Public Health Emergency. The announcement came 3 days after WHO declared a Global Health Emergency as more than 9800 cases of the virus and more than 200 deaths had been confirmed worldwide.
• “Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that while the risk in the U.S. is low, “I want to emphasize that this is a significant global situation and it continues to evolve.” [73]
• March 11 — WHO Declares COVID-19 a Pandemic. ““For weeks now, the WHO has hesitated to make the pandemic declaration, for fear of inciting panic or prompting some countries to flag in their efforts, even though many epidemiologists believed the coronavirus had already spread to pandemic levels. But on Wednesday, Tedros noted the widespread scale of the outbreak..” [74]
• March 13 — Federal government declares COVID-19 a National Emergency. 
• March 31 - Canada closed its border with the United States, with exceptions for freight movements and some essential workers.

There’s no longer an illusion that the contagion can be contained

Meanwhile, public health officials were becoming increasingly alarmed and were caught in a struggle to get the public to practise social distancing, wearing a mask, avoid gatherings of ‘X’ number of people while the White House continued to say “it’ll go away”, “a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat”, “One day - it’s like a miracle- it will disappear”.

• “... There’s no longer an illusion that the contagion can be contained. ... For Americans, the problem is no longer stemming the tide of a foreign pathogen. “The emphasis has shifted—from stopping them from infecting us to stopping us from infecting each other...” 
• “The coronavirus’s swift speed and its range of contagion have stunned governments and public-health experts. “COVID-19 is turning out to be a remarkably intelligent evolutionary adversary,” ... The bad news, he said, is that people living in densely populated areas are “very likely” to contract the virus—“if not this year, next year, or the year after as it undergoes its seasonal global migration pattern.” The good news is that most people won’t die of it.” [75]

COVID-19 death rates 20 times higher than the flu

As of early March, more than 750 people in the United States had been diagnosed, including at least 25 people who have died. Bear in mind the first case was identified on January 19th. By the end of March, the U.S. cases exploded to 187,303 cases and 3,900 deaths. By comparison, the common flu had infected as many as 35 million Americans in 2018-2019 and killed as many as 34,157, according to Dr. Mandy Armitage in her article “How Do COVID-19’s Annual Deaths and Mortality Rate Compare to the Flu’s?” :

• “In the spring of this year, this paper found that weekly death counts of COVID-19 were much higher — on average 20 times higher — than weekly deaths from the last several seasons of the flu at its peak.” [76].

The speed Covid-19 transmission has the potential to overwhelm the health care system

As noted in Chapter 1, the health care systems normally operate at near 90% capacity due to funding objectives/limitations. They are not designed to handle natural disaster such as floods, hurricanes, wildfires, etc., let alone pandemics. [77]

A pandemic such as Covid-19 has the potential to overwhelm and ‘crash’ these health care systems - the ability of health-care systems capacity to provide acute and routine care - hospital emergency departments in particular. 

The coronavirus transmits from infected and asymptomatic individuals to other individuals it comes in contact with so quickly that ‘hot spots’ can suddenly explode. The problem with Covid-19 is the speed with which it is transmitted from an infected person to a non-infected person - the serial interval. It spreads quickly, like the flu, in approximately 4 days. The study also found that people without symptoms were also transmitting the virus (pre-symptomatic transmission). According to the paper, more than 1 in 10 infections were from people who had the virus but did not yet feel sick. Which means, public health and their governing entity have to intervene quickly to test, perform contact tracing, quarantine and treat the infected individuals.

• “to calculate what’s called the serial interval of the virus. To measure serial interval, scientists look at the time it takes for symptoms to appear in two people with the virus: the person who infects another, and the infected second person. Researchers found that the average serial interval for the novel coronavirus in China was approximately four days. ... The short serial interval of COVID-19 means emerging outbreaks will grow quickly and could be difficult to stop.
• Ebola, with a serial interval of several weeks, is much easier to contain than influenza, with a serial interval of only a few days. Public health responders to Ebola outbreaks have much more time to identify and isolate cases before they infect others...” [ 78]

As the Science News pointed out, the number of people infected with the virus can double or even triple in 4 days. 

The 1st Wave of cases finally alarmed the governors and premiers

Although the following Figures 3 and 4 from Chapter 1 illustrate the number of new cases for the entire period of January to December, the inserted box highlights just the 1st Wave which is the original source of the governments’ panic. The 1st wave looks minor compared to the 2nd and 3rd wave in these graphs but it is important to remember the 1st wave in the U.S. began with 3,351 new cases on March 19 and topped out at 35,386 new daily cases. [79] In Canada, with 1/10th of the population, saw daily new cases increase to 1,874 on April 15. [80]

As the CDC cryptically noted, “During a 3-week period in late February to early March, the number of U.S. COVID-19 cases increased more than 1,000-fold. Various community mitigation interventions were implemented with the aim of reducing further spread and controlling the impact on health care capacity.”

Non-pharmaceutical measures/interventions - mitigation 

Underlying the incessant incantations to “Wash your hands often”, Wear a mask” and “ Keep 6 feet away from other people”, is a paradigm of non-pharmaceutical measures/interventions - mitigation and suppression.

When coronavirus first appeared in the U.S. and Canada, public health officials launched their traditional ‘mitigation’ approaches to stopping the spread of the coronavirus. Separate from a vaccine, these non-pharmaceutical interventions included: [81] :

• Practicing good hygiene (hand hygiene, avoid touching face, respiratory etiquette);
• Staying at home and away from others if symptomatic/feeling ill - not going to school/work;
• Maintaining physical distancing as much as possible when outside of the home -maintain a two-metre physical distance from others, particularly in crowded public settings;
• Wearing of non-medical masks (NMMs) or cloth face coverings 
• Cleaning and disinfecting your surfaces and objects;
• Staying at home as much as possible
• Reducing personal non-essential travel

Figure 7 is a hierarchy, from most effective to least effective, was developed by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. [82]

Physical distancing - “For the general public, this means eliminating unnecessary trips to the store or other places where you could come in contact with infected individuals and keeping your distance (6 ft)4 from other people when you must be away from your home. It also means staying home if you are sick or suspect that you have been around someone who is sick. Social isolation is one of our best tools to reduce the spread of infection. Social isolation is especially important in the context of COVID-19 because many individuals are asymptomatic and can, unknowingly, spread the virus any time they leave their home. Employers/operators should restructure physical settings and responsibilities to adhere to the distance needed between people (e.g., increasing space between people and/or reducing the number of employees within a space at a given time). In addition, wherever possible people should have the option to work or access businesses, schools and other settings from home.”

Engineering controls - creating physical barriers between people when distancing is not possible; increasing ventilation. “separating the workers from the hazard. This is achieved in hospitals with a high ventilation rate that removes the air from a room where virus may be found. Some companies are installing extra barriers between workers and consumers. In homes, individuals may choose to run filtered home HVAC systems or open windows to bring in fresh air regularly. You might also choose to run an air purifier.”

Administrative controls - “changing the way work is performed. For workplaces this can mean instituting work from home policies for all non-essential personnel. Many cities and states have already implemented this control. For essential personnel and workplaces, it can mean reducing the number of workers on a shift and keeping workers further apart. Staggering work schedules so people don’t have to come in contact with their shift replacement can also help. Some companies have also implemented buying online with curbside pick-up.”

PPE and NMMs — having people wear medical PPE (personal protective equipment) when required (in health care settings) and NMMs (non-medical masks) or cloth face coverings in the community setting. “The final, and LEAST effective control strategy is Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) – protecting workers with masks, gloves and other equipment. It is tempting to use PPE as the first line of defense, because it is (typically) readily available and inexpensive, but in reality, PPE is the least effective strategy because it relies on adequate supplies and proper and continuous use, which is difficult to achieve. At hospitals where medical staff are required to come into close contact with infected patients, PPE use is critical. However, hospitals also use other measures spanning the full hierarchy of controls, today and always, to protect both workers and patients. It is most important that medical staff have the PPE they need to do their work as safely as possible.” 

Interestingly, the above hierarchy did not include testing, tracing, quarantine and treatment, yet South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong included testing and contact tracing as an integral feature of controlling community spread of the virus. 

Non-pharmaceutical measures/interventions -Suppression

Suppression differs from mitigation in that it “aims to reverse epidemic growth, reducing case numbers to low levels and maintaining that situation indefinitely.”

One of the most influential reports read during the start of the 1st wave when everyone was struggling with trying to figure out how to stop this runaway pandemic was the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team’s “Report 9: Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand”. This report advocated, thereby legitimizing, suppression measures in addition to the traditional mitigation:

• “Two fundamental strategies are possible: (a) mitigation, which focuses on slowing but not necessarily stopping epidemic spread – reducing peak healthcare demand while protecting those most at risk of severe disease from infection, and (b) suppression, which aims to reverse epidemic growth, reducing case numbers to low levels and maintaining that situation indefinitely. 
•  We find that that optimal mitigation policies (combining home isolation of suspect cases, home quarantine of those living in the same household as suspect cases, and social distancing of the elderly and others at most risk of severe disease) might reduce peak healthcare demand by 2/3 and deaths by half. However, the resulting mitigated epidemic would still likely result in hundreds of thousands of deaths and health systems (most notably intensive care units) being overwhelmed many times over. For countries able to achieve it, this leaves suppression as the preferred policy option.” [83]

Many governors and premiers looked at the experiences of the People’s Republic of China who instituted mandatory suppression measures immediately:

• “The Chinese authorities took drastic action relatively early when there were about 500 known cases. ...The government also introduced rigorous public health measures to reduce personal contact, including stopping movement out of Hubei province, stopping local public transport, shutting schools, staggering working hours, strictly limiting movement out of homes and the numbers of people in restaurants or shops. These social distancing measures worked and by February the number of new cases had slowed down and has now almost stopped. Shortly after the outbreak started, a few cases were seen in other parts of China, and very rapidly similar public health measures were instituted there.” [84]

“Would the public accept mandatory stay-at-home/closures/lockdowns?”

Since the U.S. and Canada were not authoritarian regimes like the People’s Republic of China, the policy question was “would the public accept mandatory stay-at-home/closures/lockdowns?”. The preliminary indications, based on public reactions to travel bans, favoured mandatory action because of the public’s considerable alarm regarding the coronavirus. But the scope and magnitude of the proposed suppression of human enterprises that involve people interacting with each other was huge:

 Travel - Restrictions to and/or from designated geographical areas within host jurisdiction to international countries, outright bans

Businesses - All non-essential businesses/organizations must cease operations and close. This affects all businesses/organizations that required employees to work at a physical location where they were interacting with each other and/or customers. This included all non-profits, social service and civic organizations:

• All businesses with offices, plants, warehouses, depots, distribution centers, transportation hubs, etc. - in-person commercial activities
• Food and drink venues for consumption on-site, such as restaurants and cafes. Restaurants were still allowed to do take-out services;
• Drinking establishments, including bars, nightclubs;
• Entertainment venues, including cinemas, theatres, concert halls, casinos and bingo halls;

• Museums and galleries;
• Spas, wellness centres and massage parlours;
• All indoor leisure and sports facilities, including gyms
• Etc.

Sports - All professional and amateur sporting events postponed:

• NBA (basket ball), MLB (baseball), NHL )hockey) and MLS (soccer) all suspended their seasons 
• Tennis - The Miami Open and the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., were canceled.
• Boston Marathon, the Masters Golf Tournament
• The World Figure Skating Championships in Montreal, scheduled to run March 18 to 22, were canceled
• The women’s world ice hockey championship was cancelled

 Festivals/Parades cancelled:

• Shambhala Music Festival 2020, Las Vegas’ Life is Beautiful festival, postponed, Louisville, Kentucky’s Forecastle Festival cancelled, the 2020 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival was canceled
• Bon Jovi cancelled their 2020 North American tour
• New York City Pride canceled all in-person events for their 2020 festival
• the 2020 Essence Festival of Culture was canceled
• New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, the largest such celebration in the world, was postponed

Religious - Churches, religious meeting, services, weddings and funerals cancelled

Education - All kindergarten, elementary, middle, High schools and colleges and universities must close ...home schooling and on-line learning as substitute class rooms

Stay-at-home also referred to as shelter-in-place - the basic message was “don’t leave the house at all, unless you have to.”. People were encouraged to only go out of their house/apartment/condo to buy food/groceries and medical supplies/prescriptions

Essential services - Essential services were exempted and included the obvious categories of food, pharmaceuticals, public transit and health care. See also “The federal government has identified 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems and networks, whether physical or virtual are considered so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, economic security, public health or safety or any combination thereof." Mentioned later under California's Stay-at-home orders. 

It is not surprising that these suppression measures were instituted to varying degrees by most governors during the week of March 23-27 when new cases were hitting 10,000 to 15,000 cases a day across the U.S. Contrary to what the President was saying about the coronavirus (“One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”), if a governor was looking at her cases increasing exponentially every day, some degree of suppression was the only option left to try to flatten the curve.

The governors and the premiers gambled on instituting mandatory suppression orders with varying scope and magnitudes to stop the 1st wave, which it did as later studies demonstrate. However, segments of the public and states that were not experiencing the ravages of the pandemic, smoldered and festered about this infringement on their rights and freedoms. The outbreak of protests will be described in more detail later in this chapter.

The following section is a blow-by-blow description of how the U.S. and Canada backed into stay-at-home/closures/lockdown, the horrendous social and economic consequences and the on-again off-again struggles to re-open their economies.

1.2.2 ‘Beware the Ides of March’ - suppression measures as the last resort

Mitigation measures, of varying types and to varying degrees of encouragement, were instituted by virtually all states and province, early in the pandemic. The quotation from Shakespeare’s play ‘Julius Caesar’ seemed fitting when the states and provinces began to order the brutal suppression measures of mandatory stay-at-home/closures/lockdowns in March.

It happened primarily during the 4th week in March- 22nd, 23rd and 24th. As usual California got a jump on the rest of the country by starting their Stay-at-home order on the 3rd week, the Thursday the 19th. Five states did NOT issue any stay-at-home orders - North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Utah, Wyoming and Arkansas.

The following is a sample of states that issued Stay-at-home orders and the five states that refused to order lockdowns: [85]

West Coast

• Washington State - effective March 23 until May 4. - “Gov. Jay Inslee issued a “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order on March 23 prohibiting residents from leaving their homes except to conduct essential activities.”
• Oregon - effective March 23. - “On March 23, Gov. Kate Brown issued Executive Order 20-12, effective immediately until further notice. A statewide order, Failure to comply will be considered an immediate danger to public health.”
• California - effective March 19 until further notice. “Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a stay-at-home order on March 19 to protect the health and well being of all Californians and to establish consistency across the state to slow the spread of COVID-19.”

East Coast

• New York State - effective March 22 until May 15.“Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the “New York State on PAUSE” executive order, a 10-point policy to assure uniform safety for everyone. New York State on PAUSE: 100 percent of the workforce must stay home, excluding essential services; All nonessential gatherings of individuals of any size for any reason are temporarily banned.” 

• ?New Jersey - effective March 24 until revoked or modified by the governor. “Gov. Phil Murphy signed an executive stay-at-home order that invalidated any county exceptions; construction and utility workers are exempt; pet stores and car dealerships can also remain open.”
• Florida - effective April 3 until April 30. - “Gov. DeSantis had been previously criticized for refusing to implement statewide social distancing guidelines, particularly as beach-goers and students on spring break continued to gather in large groups. He issued a stay-at-home order for the entire state as it grapples with a rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak on Wednesday.”

Central

• Michigan - effective March 24 until May 15. - “Volunteering at food pantries and shelters and exercise are considered essential. It was issued until April 7 then extended to May 15.”
• Minnesota - effective March 27 until May 3. - “Stay at home and limit movements outside of their home beyond essential needs. It was issued until April 10 then extended to May 4.”
• Ohio - effective March 23 until May 1.
• Wisconsin - effective  March 25 until May 26. - “The Wisconsin Department of Health Services issued the “Safer at Home” order on March 24, ordering residents to stay in their homes except for essential activities. It was issued until April 24 then extended to May 26.”

Midwest - No statewide stay-at-home orders

The NBC News inventory noted the following Republican states as not issuing any ‘statewide’ stay-at-home orders. CNN and CBS News reported their positions/qualifications on ‘statewide’ stay-at-home orders:

• North Dakota Governor: Doug Burgum (R) - “There is an active online petition -- signed by 2,800 people -- to try to force Gov. Doug Burgum to issue a stay-at-home order. But Burgum doesn’t seem to be reconsidering.”...” has not issued statewide orders to stay at home, though he did temporarily close bars, restaurants, theaters, schools, and other venues and businesses.” ...“It’s not about staying home, it’s about avoiding contact,” [86]
• South Dakota Governor: Kristi Noem (R) - “The South Dakota Medical Association sent Noem a letter last week asking her to issue a stay-at-home order but there’s no indication she has any plans to reverse course.” ... ”The calls to apply for a one-size-fits-all approach to this problem is herd mentality. It’s not leadership.” She also suggested that following social distancing orders should be voluntary. “The people themselves are primarily responsible for their safety,” she said. “They are the ones that are entrusted with expansive freedoms. They’re free to exercise their rights to work, to worship, and to play. Or to even stay at home, or to conduct social distancing.”[87]
• Nebraska Governor: Pete Ricketts (R) -”... ordered that all hair salons, tattoo parlors and strip clubs be closed through May 31. And on Friday he issued a directive that urged social distancing practices to stay in place; “We’re calling on people to exercise their freedom to do the right thing, that individual responsibility, that civic duty, to do the right thing here in our state,” Ricketts said. He noted that his directive was not a stay-at-home order: “This is not that kind of thing, this is about asking Nebraskans to do what’s right,” Ricketts said. [88] 

• Iowa Governor: Kim Reynolds (R) - “It would be irresponsible for me to just do a statewide [shelter-in-place order] when, according to Dr. Fauci, many of the mitigation efforts that I have put in place are actually aligned with the results that they’re trying to get.” “... the governor would issue a statewide order if 10 points are scored on the scale — which has yet to happen. In the meantime, the governor has temporarily closed many businesses, and banned gatherings of more than 10 people. Health care professionals in Iowa have been calling for her to issue a statewide order.” [89]
• Arkansas Governor: Asa Hutchinson (R) - “We want to take the long-term approach to this and you’re not going to win simply by a lockdown,” Hutchinson explained to CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday, adding: “There’s a lot of hope and optimism this Easter that our tough time is behind and we’re going to be getting better.” [90]
• Utah Governor: Gary Herbert - (R) - “Utah House Democrats have pushed Herbert to go further, using a statement last week to “send a stronger, clearer message to every person in the state about the severe threat of COVID-19 to our health, our welfare, and our economic well-being” by issuing a stay-at-home order.” [91]
• Wyoming Governor: Mark Gordon- (R) - “Last week, the Wyoming Medical Association sent a letter to Gov. Mark Gordon calling on him to issue a stay-at-home order “before it was too late.” Gordon has issued some self-quarantine restrictions for people visiting Wyoming but has largely left local government enforce the order (or not).” ... said March 30 he has no plans for a statewide order — though if one came, it would be “a true stay-at-home order” without multiple exemptions. Some counties and towns put out their own orders, including the popular skiing destination, Jackson.” [92]

The Los Angeles Times reported that these states have pursued other measures but not ‘statewide’ stay-at-home orders: 

• “...have taken steps to limit the size of gatherings, close schools and some nonessential businesses, and prohibit on-site dining at restaurants. But they have stopped short of directing all residents to stay home except for essential business. The Republican governors in those states have defended their decisions, arguing that their hospitals aren’t overrun and their rural states haven’t been hit as hard as others with denser urban centers, such as New York, Washington or Louisiana. The governors have said they don’t want to hurt small businesses or infringe on individual freedoms. [93]

Canada

“Canada’s top public health officer raised the risk level associated with the growing COVID-19 pandemic on Sunday even as retailers and top politicians reassured Canadians that any restrictive measures would not result in shortages of food or other basics. Both the Retail Council of Canada and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said supplies of groceries and other basics would continue to flow even if the outbreak of the novel coronavirus triggered widespread store or border closures.

That possibility loomed larger after the country’s chief public health officer stopped describing the situation as low-risk. “Our window to flatten the curve of the epidemic is narrow,” Dr. Theresa Tam said at a news conference. “We all need to act now. COVID-19 is a serious public health threat.” Dr. Tam’s new assessment did not immediately trigger fresh advice to prevent the spread of the pandemic. Tam repeated previous government messages about avoiding large public gatherings, practising social distancing and avoiding travel outside of Canada.” [94]

Canadian provinces followed the same pattern as the U.S. states with closure/lockdown orders in the 4th week of March:

• Ontario - March 17 - Premier Doug Ford declared a state of emergency including the gradual implementation of restrictions on gatherings and commerce. The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Canada was announced on January 25, 2020, involving a traveler who had recently returned to Toronto from travel in China, including Wuhan. On March 13, health officials reported 19 additional cases, bringing the number of cases to 79, and on the 14th, 24 more, making the total 103. “Premier Doug Ford has declared a state of emergency in Ontario, immediately ordering select closures of gatherings above 50 people — including bars and restaurants, except for take-out — but leaving malls, food stores, businesses, factories and construction sites open as the province fights COVID-19. “This is not a provincial shutdown,” Ford stressed while cautioning, “this is changing hour by hour, day by day” and offering $304 million to boost the health-care system.... for now closes only indoor recreation centres, public libraries, private schools, parades, places of worship, licenced day-care centres, cinemas, theatres, concerts and the like until the end of March.[95]
• Quebec - March 24 - Premier Fran?ois Legault put the province on partial lockdown until mid-April. “What I want to tell Quebecers who are not working in an essential service, please stay at home. The more we limit (human) contact, the faster we will limit the virus and the faster we will be able to return to our normal lives.” [96]
• Alberta - March 27 - Premier Kenney announced the closure of several non-essential businesses across Canada, including dine-in restaurants, retail services and close-contact businesses such as hair salons, tattoo and piercing studios, aesthetic services, as well as wellness studios and clinics and non-emergency and non-critical health services provided by regulated health professionals or registered professionals including dentistry, physiotherapy, massage, podiatry, chiropractic and optometry services. [97]
• BC - March 20 - Provincial health officer Bonnie Henry ordered the closure of all dine-in establishments.[15] On March 21, “Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has used new powers after declaring a public health emergency on Tuesday to enact a verbal order. “Bars and clubs, in my opinion, are not able to meet our test for social distancing and therefore must close,” she said. “Restaurant and cafes can in some cases meet the distancing requirements, but those that cannot maintain social distancing will need to close or move to takeout and delivery services. Gatherings larger than 50 people are not permitted, and people are urged to practise social-distancing measures, namely to keep a distance of two metres between each other.” The first case of community transmission in Canada was confirmed in British Columbia on March 5, 2020. [98]

The Stay-at-home orders were ad-hoc measures 

The New York Times in an article “‘It’s Totally Ad Hoc’: Why America’s Virus Response Looks Like a Patchwork”, reported that these Stay-at-home orders lacked clear guidance from the Federal government or its agencies:

•  “Boston had canceled its St. Patrick’s Day parade, but Newport had not. Movie theaters and malls were open. But Disney World was closing. In the end, members threw up their hands and canceled most everything through the end of April.

• “It’s totally ad hoc,” Mr. Norton said. “There’s no science behind it, or reasoning. It’s not like we were following someone’s instructions.”
• “The last week laid bare a dizzying patchwork of local decision-making, as the largest quarantine in recent American history occurred in a juddering, piecemeal fashion.” [99]

The power to make these public health decisions is vested in each state and province. Hence the inherent lack of a centralized coordinated containment strategy in a decentralized paradigm. At the same time, the coronavirus was basically an unknown disease and public health experts were struggling with what mix of mitigation and suppression measures should be used to stop its spread. Each state and province was left on their own (although New York State launched a Multi-State Council with neighbouring Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Rhode Island) to determine what combination of organizations and businesses should be deemed essential and what combination should be closed. 

There was no commonly accepted ‘playbook’

The following examples (Washington State, New York State and California) of these ad-hoc Stay-at-home orders has been included to illustrate the complexity of issues/dimensions that were considered/included in drafting these measures of last resort. Each state or province had to figure out what ‘stay home’ entailed and determine what terrible/keep awake at night trade-offs they were prepared to make between ‘shutting down to keep people alive and staying open so that life can go on’.

Washington State’s Stay-at-home order

Gov. Jay Inslee declared a “stay at home” order, effective March 23 until May 4, for all of Washington in efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus. The state had experienced 2,221 Covid-19 cases and 110 fatalities. [100]

The Stay-at-home order said people could leave their homes for only four reasons:

•   To obtain necessary supplies like food and medication
•   To exercise. You can go outside for activity but be conscientious by staying six feet apart from others.
•   To care for a loved one or take them to get medication, medical help or groceries.
•   To seek medical and behavioral help for you, family members or animals. 

The following were considered ‘essential services/businesses’ and can remain open and must comply with orders already in place for social distancing and sanitation measures.

• hospitals and pharmacies
• grocery stores and gas stations,
• delivering food, mail, picking up garbage and providing utilities
• Businesses that were not deemed essential services were to close. All spiritual, recreational or social gatherings were banned.

New York State’s Stay-at-home order

Governor Andrew Cuomo issued the state’s “New York State on PAUSE”  for the period of March 22 until May 15. [101] New York state had its first case of community spread on March 2nd. By March 11, there were 216 confirmed cases in the state, and that number rose to 613 by March 14. “New York ordered all schools closed by March 18, when it already had 2,300 cases. Cuomo ordered non-essential workers to stay at home beginning March 22, when there were over 15,000 cases.” [102]

The Governor’s 10-point NYS on PAUSE plan was as follows:

• 1.  Effective at 8PM on Sunday, March 22, all non-essential businesses statewide will be closed;
•  2. Non-essential gatherings of individuals of any size for any reason (e.g. parties, celebrations or other social events) are canceled or postponed at this time;
• 3. Any concentration of individuals outside their home must be limited to workers providing essential services and social distancing should be practiced;
• 4. When in public individuals must practice social distancing of at least six feet from others;
• 5. Businesses and entities that provide other essential services must implement rules that help facilitate social distancing of at least six feet;
• 6. Individuals should limit outdoor recreational activities to non-contact and avoid activities where they come in close contact with other people;
• 7. Individuals should limit use of public transportation to when absolutely necessary and should limit potential exposure by spacing out at least six feet from other riders;
• 8. Sick individuals should not leave their home unless to receive medical care and only after a telehealth visit to determine if leaving the home is in the best interest of their health;
• 9. Young people should also practice social distancing and avoid contact with vulnerable populations; and
• 10. Use precautionary sanitizer practices such as using isopropyl alcohol wipes.

“Matilda’s Law” includes the following rules for vulnerable populations (Matilda is the Governor’s mother):

•   Remain indoors;
•   Can go outside for solitary exercise;
•   Pre-screen all visitors and aides by taking their temperature and seeing if person is exhibiting other flu-like symptoms;
•   Do not visit households with multiple people;
•   Wear a mask when in the company of others;
•   To the greatest extent possible, everyone in the presence of vulnerable people should wear a mask;
•   Always stay at least six feet away from individuals; and
•   Do not take public transportation unless urgent and absolutely necessary.

California’s Stay-at-home order

Governor Gavin Newsom issued a stay at home order - effective March 19 until further notice -  to protect the health and well-being of all Californians and to establish consistency across the state in order to slow the spread of COVID-19. “In California, at least 198 cases have been reported, including four deaths — the most recent of which was announced Wednesday. Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency in response to the outbreak.” [103]

On March 19, 2020, an Executive Order (PDF) and Public Health Order (PDF) directed all Californians to stay home except to go to an essential job or to shop for essential needs. [104]

All individuals living in the State of California are currently ordered to stay home or at their place of residence, except for permitted work, local shopping or other permitted errands, or as otherwise authorized. “Mr. Newsom said that most retail shops, including indoor malls, are being ordered shut across the state. Also closed are most corporate offices. Banks, grocery stores, pharmacies, laundromats and some other businesses are exempted. Officials emphasized that the orders did not bar residents from leaving their homes, and they encouraged people to take walks, as long as they stay six feet apart, and visit grocery stores.” [105]

“The federal government has identified 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems and networks, whether physical or virtual are considered so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, economic security, public health or safety or any combination thereof. I order that all Californians working in these 16 critical infrastructure sectors may continue their work because of the importance of these sectors to Californians’ health and well-being.

• 1. Chemical Sector
• 2. Commercial Facilities Sector
• 3. Communications Sector
• 4. Critical Manufacturing Sector
• 5. Dams Sector
• 6. Defense Industrial Base Sector
• 7. Emergency Services Sector
• 8. Energy Sector
• 9. Financial Services Sector
• 10. Food and Agriculture Sector
• 11. Government Facilities Sector
• 12. Healthcare and Public Health Sector
• 13. Information Technology Sector
• 14. Nuclear Reactors, Materials, and Waste Sector
• 15. Transportation Systems Sector
• 16. Water and Wastewater Systems Sector

The list of ‘16 critical infrastructure sectors’ also reveals that the Stay-at-home orders were not as comprehensive as they seemed at first glance. These exemptions were quite sweeping and not explicitly mentioned in other state orders.

America’s Patchwork Pandemic

In addition to the ad-hoc nature of the suppression measures, the U.S. experience has also been described as piecemeal, fragmentary or unsystematic. As The Atlantic noted “in the absence of a national-level order, such measures are not uniform across the whole country, and Americans can still travel from one area to another—potentially carrying COVID-19 from “hot zones” such as New York and Seattle to low-risk areas.” [106]

The Atlantic Magazine also referred to this as America’s Patchwork Pandemic:

• “This pattern exists because different states have experienced the coronavirus pandemic in very different ways. ...These trends average into a national plateau, but each state’s pattern is distinct. Currently, Hawaii’s looks like a child’s drawing of a mountain. Minnesota’s looks like the tip of a hockey stick. Maine’s looks like a (two-humped) camel. The U.S. is dealing with a patchwork pandemic.” 
• “...Further outbreaks are likely, although they might not happen immediately. The virus isn’t lying in a bush, waiting to pounce on those who reemerge from their house. It is, instead, lying within people. Its ability to jump between hosts depends on proximity, density, and mobility, and on people once again meeting, gathering, and moving...”
• “What’s happening is not one crisis, but many interconnected ones. As we shall see, it will be harder to come to terms with such a crisis. It will be harder to bring it to heel.” [107]

These mandatory Stay-At-Home/Closures/Lockdown orders were similar only in their mandatory interruption of normal life in the states and provinces where they were issued. What they shut down varied and for how long. Meanwhile, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Utah, Wyoming and Arkansas, sat offside and refused to follow this pattern. These Republican states reflected what has come to be known in the U.S. as the Great Divide. More on this later.

The next section begins to describe the impacts of these mandatory suppression measures, in particular, the economic impacts. the original plan was to begin with the social impacts but it became obvious that the social impacts were fallouts from the economic disruption of business closures, layoffs and the disintegration of too many businesses and the jobs they maintained. So, the next chronicles the dismal economic consequences of these Stay-At-Home orders.

1.2.3 The economic impacts of Stay-at-home/closure/lockdown orders

Early guesstimates of the economic impact of the pandemic were varied but dismal. 84,000,000 Americans ordered to stay home except to buy food and medicine while roughly 3 million Americans filed first-time claims for unemployment assistance, more than four times the number 1982 recession. The Washington Post reported in March that “Bridgewater Associates, a hedge fund manager, says the economy will shrink over the next three months at an annual rate of 30 percent. Goldman Sachs pegs the drop at 24 percent. JPMorgan Chase says 14 percent.” [108]. 

“U.S. daily output has fallen roughly 29%”

The Wall Street Journal claimed “U.S. daily output has fallen roughly 29%, compared with the first week of March” while Reuters reported that the 5 largest states had 39.5 million jobs affected by Stay-at-home orders:

• “All told there are 39.5 million jobs in the five states [California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut] subject to stay-at-home orders. ... Together, the five states produced $6.4 trillion in goods and services in 2018 ...” [109]

Studies have linked the stay-at-home/lockdowns to economic uncertainty, reduced economic activity, increased firm risk, job losses, and reduced labour-force participation.

• “The COVID-19 pandemic has created an enormous uncertainty shock – larger than the one associated with the financial crisis of 2008-09 and more similar in magnitude to the rise in uncertainty during the Great Depression of 1929-1933. ... contraction in U.S. real GDP is 9 % in Q2 and a peak year-on-year contraction of 11 percent two quarters later.” [110]

The same flattening of the economy in Canada

Canada hit the pause button and flattened not only the coronavirus curve but also flattened the economy:

• “By March 23, the Prime Minister, doing his best to summon Old Testament wrath, hinted that the state would act for the greater good if people couldn’t do so themselves. “Enough is enough,” he told the weekend partiers in his daily press briefing. “Go home and stay home.” It was a warning, not a plea ...
• The domino effect of companies shedding workers has been breathtaking. Cineplex laid off thousands of employees. Cirque du Soleil laid off more than 4,600, nearly 95 per cent of its workforce. The Stratford Festival laid off several hundred. The Calgary Stampede let go nearly 900 more.” [111]

The Globe and Mail reported on March 15th that Ontario was not considering a lockdown to respond to COVID-19 concerns, even as a top health official urged the province to close non-essential services. “The province is not currently considering a lock-down,” said Prabmeet Sarkaria, associate minister of small business. “We ask that Ontarians exercise a high degree of caution during this time and ensure they’re relying on information from credible sources.” But on March 23rd, Ontario ordered the closure of all non-essential businesses across the province for 14 days. {112]

“Nonfarm payrolls fell by a combined 21.4 million in March and April”

The Wall Street Journal’s survey of economists argued that non-farm payrolls is the most reliable estimate of the monthly net change in employment. One of the reasons for this belief is that it “based on a survey of 145,000 businesses and other employers, which is viewed as more accurate than asking individuals about their employment status”.

• “Nonfarm payrolls fell by a combined 21.4 million in March and April, the Labor Department said. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expect the May employment report to show another 8 million jobs were lost last month—bringing the total decrease since the pandemic took hold in the U.S. to more than 29 million.” [ 113]

The Wall Street Journal also cautions against using the unemployment claims data which some commentators use it as a proxy for the number of layoffs - i.e. number of jobs lost. If one used unemployment claims in this manner, a familiar headline would be The Washington Post’s article that 22 million people in the U.S. have filed unemployment claims in the four weeks since March 13 (Federal government declares COVID-19 a National Emergency) and driving the unemployment rate to 14.7 percent compared to 3.5 percent in February.

•  “The United States has not seen this level of job loss since the Great Depression... Layoffs are mounting in nearly every sector as businesses have been forced to close in an effort to stem the spread of covid-19. Many companies that remain open report a huge drop-off in sales. New data show manufacturing production cratered in March by the most since 1946, and new home construction saw the biggest decline in nearly 40 years.[114]

State unemployment offices are overwhelmed - people waiting weeks for payments

To make matters worse for the unemployed, many are victims of state organizations that are woefully unprepared to handle the volume in applicants displaced by the pandemic:

• “State unemployment offices are so overwhelmed that many people are still waiting for unemployment payments weeks later, and few states have done anything yet for the self-employed and gig workers who are desperate for aid.” [115]

The unemployment rate is equally unreliable as an overall/singular measure the state of the economy according to the WSJ:

• “That number does include some who were unemployed before the pandemic began, but doesn’t count those who lost jobs and subsequently dropped out of the labor force, meaning they were unable or unwilling to return to work...” “For that reason, many economists are looking at the change in the number of people reporting themselves as employed. In February, 158.8 million people said they had jobs. In April, that figure had fallen by 25 million to 133.4 million.” [116]

As Eric Morath notes “The bottom line is tens of millions of jobs were lost in a matter of three months—and it will likely take several years for them to be replaced.”

“Canadians went from packing for March break vacations to sheltering in place”

Statistics Canada reported “19.2 million Canadians had paid work in February before the coronavirus hit Canada with full force. A month later, barely 18 million still had jobs.”. Hence the reports :

• “Canada’s economy lost more than one million jobs in March, Statistics Canada said Thursday, pushing the jobless rate up to 7.8 per cent. ...” 
• “The true employment picture is likely even worse. The data agency notes that on top of the one million people who became officially unemployed during the month, another 1.3 million Canadians worked no paid hours because of lockdowns but technically still considered themselves to have jobs.”
• Another 800,000 Canadians worked less than half of their usual workload. [117]

The U.S. stock market exhibited major volatility in a relentless march to higher levels

Given the downward slide of the U.S. economy, the stock market’s business as usual approach is perplexing. MarketWatch said “stock-market investors are betting that the viral outbreak is likely to eventually subside.”

• “The S&P 500 posted its third-largest monthly gain since World War II, surging 12.7% in April. It was also its biggest one-month gain since 1987. The Dow had its fourth-largest post-war monthly rally with an 11.1% gain. The Dow also had its best month in 33 years. The Nasdaq surged 15.5% in April, its biggest monthly gain since June 2000.”
• “This month’s sharp gains have been driven by hopes for an earlier reopening of the economy than expected and a potential coronavirus treatment.” [118]

Meanwhile, as the following examples of specific sectors of the economy illustrate, mainstreet was suffering.

1.2.4 “The largest, fastest and most comprehensive reduction in economic activity...”

Unless the business/organization was exempted because it was deemed ‘essential’ or it could continue to operate by sending its employee to operate electronically from their homes, all businesses/organizations were shut down/shuttered/closed until further notice. There was often no notice period to enable an orderly transition, just a legal order that said ‘as of midnight tomorrow...’ The following is a short listing and description of the major shut downs and closures.

The aviation industry 

Air transport, airports and aircraft manufacturing suffered immediate losses of revenue from the travel bans -the U.S. imposed travel bans on China on January 31, Iran on February 29, European Schengen Area on March 11, Ireland and United Kingdom on March 14 . The European Schengen area includes Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

The CNBC News reported that the travel and tourism industry has never before been as restricted as have the travel bans and business closures under the coronavirus pandemic. What was 19%-36%? - The estimated range of permanent fall-off in business travel after the pandemic, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal and airline industry experts. Many types of business air travel, such as catching flights for intra-company meetings or training events, could be replaced by virtual sessions.”

• “From spring breaks to summer holidays, the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted travel plans globally as lockdown measures keep much of the world’s population at home during some of the peak seasons for traveling. ... The average number of commercial flights per day fell from more than 100,000 in January and February this year to around 78,500 in March and 29,400 in April, according to data by Flightradar24, a website that tracks flights globally.” [119]
• “Key companies getting affected in the region include Alaska Airlines, Allegiant Air, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, and JetBlue. Aviation companies such as airlines and cargo carriers are seeking around $58 billion in loans and grants along with additional tax changes to cover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Numerous airports have also sought $10 billion in the form of loans and grants to survive the COVID-19 outbreak...” [120]

U.S. airlines have warned more than 75,000 employees that their jobs are at risk on Oct. 1 when the terms expire on a $25 billion federal aid package.

• “U.S. passenger and cargo carriers together employ around 700,000 people, but other jobs could be at stake. The industry supports some 10 million jobs, according to Airlines for America, a trade group that represents large U.S. carriers. Those include more than 6 million jobs in tourism and hospitality.” [121]

The tourism industry 

Tourism is based on people travelling and touring to/in and about some other destination. Tourism includes all the businesses and organizations that provide the products and services that are meant and used by tourists at different stages of their travel. Countries, regions, cities, parks, resorts have been developed to attract and accommodate tourists and their wallets/purses. The travel restrictions and bans (217 countries and territories worldwide have imposed travel restrictions) interrupted/killed the supply of the tourists. Stay-at-home/closures/lockdowns did the rest of the damage by shuttering the tour companies, shops and services that catered to tourists. 

• “The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has triggered an unprecedented crisis in the tourism economy, given the immediate and immense shock to the sector. Revised OECD estimates on the COVID-19 impact point to 60% decline in international tourism in 2020...

• Five months into the crisis, the situation continues to evolve and the outlook remains uncertain. Recovery is now expected to start later and be slower than previously foreseen. Travel restrictions and containment measures are likely to be in place for longer, and are expected to be lifted only gradually, with the possibility of reversal should new waves occur. Even when tourism supply chains start to function again, new health protocols mean businesses will be operating at restricted capacity. Demand-side recovery will also take some time, given the interlinked consequences of the economic and health crises, and the progressive lifting of travel restrictions, while consumer confidence and travel behaviour will be more deeply impacted the longer the pandemic goes on. This will have knock-on implications for many national economies.” [122 ]

The cruise ship industry employed 246,000 in 2018 

Cruise ships were hammered by the global stories and photographs of luxury cruise ship “DIAMOND PRINCESS” quarantined at berth in Yokohama for two weeks (2,600 passengers and 1,045 crew members) and the subsequent ordeal of the “MS WESTERDAM” with 2,000 passengers onboard, when it was prevented from docking by various countries over Coronavirus fears.

• “In particular, the saga of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, where hundreds of passengers were quarantined on board while the ship was docked in Yokohama, Japan, has received worldwide headlines. Princess Cruises, which operates the ship, canceled all Diamond Princess voyages through April 20 due to the “prolonged quarantine period” and the cruise line offered a full refund to all 2,666 guests, more than 400 of whom were from the United States.” [123 ]

The hospitality industry accounted for 16.78 million jobs in 2019 

The food and beverages, travel and tourist, lodging, and recreation saw immediate declines in business for each of its major segments. Statista reported that “the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics accounted for 16.78 million people working in the hospitality and leisure industry as of December 2019”.

• “Key companies of hospitality industry that are getting affected in the market include Burger King Corp., Choice Hotels International, Inc., Domino’s Pizza, Inc., Expedia Group, Four Seasons Holdings Inc., InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, KFC Corp., Marriott International Inc., McDonald’s Corp., Starbucks Corp., and Walt Disney Co./The. For instance, as per the business updates provided by Marriott International, the occupancy rate in the greater China lied near to 15% during March 2020. In other regions such as North America and Europe, the occupancy level lies below 25% during March 2020 which was around 70% during the same month a year ago.” [124]

The headline from the National Restaurant Association said it all - “Restaurant and Bar Employees Make Up 60 Percent of Jobs Lost in March”. The industry association predicted “5 million to 7 million hospitality service workers will lose their jobs in the next three months”.

The agrifood industry 

The entire supply chain of food production, processing, distribution, and demand affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Food production has been affected by travel restrictions on the migrant workers who plant and harvest many of the foods. Food processing, especially meats and poultry, have experienced lost productivity and shutdowns due to coronavirus infections of their migrant employees. Food distribution has also been hampered by travel restrictions, closures of truck stops and employee illnesses in essential service depots. The consumer demand for food stuffs has resulted in numerous panic buying and resultant food shortages in grocery stores. [125]

• “In 2019, 22.2 million full- and part-time jobs were related to the agricultural and food sectors—10.9 percent of total U.S. employment. Direct on-farm employment accounted for about 2.6 million of these jobs, or 1.3 percent of U.S. employment. Employment in agriculture- and food-related industries supported another 19.6 million jobs. Of this, food service, eating and drinking places accounted for the largest share—13.0 million jobs—and food/beverage stores supported 3.2 million jobs. The remaining agriculture-related industries together added another 3.4 million jobs.” [126]
• “Mass euthanasia of livestock, millions of gallons of dumped milk, piles of fresh vegetables left to rot in the sun: Images of farmers dumping their products stand in stark contrast to those showing mile-long lines for food banks. Over 36 million Americans are now unemployed, and food insecurity—which affected one in six Americans before COVID-19—will likely increase ...” [127]

The R&D sector 

The R&D facilities of universities, industry and government were shuttered. Unless the scientists and their labs/staff were working on Covid-19 related research or their research could continue from their homes, the labs, research facilities, experimental prototypes, etc. were closed down. The research grants that many universities and their scientists depend on dried up as the pandemic started shutting down the global village of these interconnected and interdependent networks of scientists. Funding from the normal sources of research grants (500+ foundations, government agencies, development banks, etc. from the Abbott Fund to 3M Foundation to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) were suspended pending risk analysis, reduced, clawed-back or terminated:

• “The looming global economic recession will reduce funds available to national governments and conservation foundations, and potentially reduce funding for research grants and conservation programs. Projects funded by the Inter-American development bank (IDB) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), for example, are now requesting a formal risk analysis related to the pandemic to assess whether and by how much the projects they fund will be impacted by the virus. Conservation research is unlikely to be a government priority during the post-pandemic economic recovery...Organizations reliant on external donors to employ staff and implement research and conservation activities will be particularly vulnerable.” [128]

 The Events industry 

This sector includes Exhibitions, Trade shows, Conferences, Live-Music Concerts and Sporting Events. These events are designed to being people together, to view new products, technologies, performances, competitions etc. Mingling, meeting potential clients, being part of the audience are all values of these events which have been seriously affected by social distancing requirements and ultimately by closures and lockdown orders. Exhibitions range from large event such as a World’s fair to small one-artist solo shows or display. Globally, revenues are projected to contract by 2/3.

• “ The more than $1tn global events industry is at the sharp end of the disruption unleashed by the virus, as conferences, trade exhibitions, festivals and sporting events have been cancelled in a scramble to contain the global outbreak. Mipim, the property sector’s annual jamboree in Cannes, the Geneva Motor Show, and Cera Week, a major gathering of energy executives in Texas, are among the casualties as the epidemic presents an unprecedented challenge to an industry built around gathering people together. “This disease is presenting the exhibitions and events industry with an unprecedented global challenge,” said Cathy Breden, executive vice-president of the International Association of Exhibitions and Events.” [129 ]

Tech Conferences & Trade Shows have been severely affected by travel restrictions between countries and a general decline in corporate travel budgets - “direct losses from major tech events soars beyond $1 billion”

• “As the novel coronavirus continues to take a human and economic toll across the world, the lucrative business of tech conferences is not immune. The direct economic loss from the cancellation of more than 10 major tech conferences — including Google I/O, Facebook’s F8 event, Mobile World Congress, SXSW, and now the massive video gaming conference Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) — due to the coronavirus outbreak has surpassed $1.1 billion, according to estimates the data intelligence company PredictHQ pulled for Recode.” [130]

Live-music concerts - “the music industry could lose as much as $5 billion” 

Concerts have been a staple for performing artists because they make more money from touring than from recording. The large live-music companies like Live nation are expected to survive the pandemic but the smaller operators will not make it. The U.S. ‘s National Independent Venue Association predicted that 90% of its 2,900 members will close without some government relief - “Analysts told Forbes last week that the music industry could lose as much as $5 billion”.

• ?““I think this is the greatest risk management challenge since the financial crisis,” Jaconi tells Rolling Stone. “We don’t know its impact yet, we don’t know if we’ll be able to contain this or not. So for a lot of companies, this is the worst risk management challenge they’ve faced since the crash in 2008.” And accurate data is still far out of reach. “You’re weighing the risks to public health and safety, there’s nothing more paramount than that,” Jaconi said. “That’s the thing entertainment and sports are weighing right now. We don’t have the best data.” Analysts told Forbes last week that the music industry could lose as much as $5 billion — the same amount as the projected loss for the film industry, which has already pushed back several high-profile movie production schedules and premieres, like the one for the latest Bond film No Time to Die.’ [131]

Sporting Events 

Professional Sports cancelled their scheduled events in the Spring in a quick response to the 1st wave of coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and deaths. Since then, the professional sports have managed truncated schedules, quarantine rules for athletes and supporting staff living and competing in bubbles of containment, the elimination or severely reduced spectators, etc. The losses of gate receipts and reduced national broadcasting rights revenues have been significant.

• “The 2020 Tokyo Olympics have been postponed and rescheduled for July 23-Aug. 8, 2021. Wimbledon has been canceled. So has the Little League World Series. All major North American sports leagues, including MLB, the NBA, MLS and the NHL have suspended the playing of games as the virus spreads around the world. The NCAA canceled March Madness, and many other major events, including the Masters, the French Open and the Boston Marathon, have been postponed. The British Open has been canceled.” [132]

• “Sports leagues are turning to technology to bring fans closer to the game, even if they’re physically distant... The National Hockey League and Major League Soccer are both working on upgrading their VR and AR offerings, too. But it’s not clear whether consumers are ready to to convert to a market that, before the pandemic, researchers estimated could help grow the global economy by $1.5 trillion. “It’s still missing a couple of things to be successful...” [133] 

“The synchronized shutdown was the largest, fastest and most comprehensive reduction in economic activity ever witnessed in the modern world” - Foreign Affairs

Economists are generally of the opinion that none of these historic shocks - the global financial crisis of 2007, the dot-com crash, oil price shocks, 9/11 -compare to that of the coronavirus. 

 Adam Tooze, in his article entitled “The Normal Economy Is Never Coming Back”, described the coronavirus lockdown as affecting 80% of the sectors where the majority of Americans work:

• “The coronavirus lockdown directly affects services—retail, real estate, education, entertainment, restaurants—where 80 percent of Americans work today. Thus the result is immediate and catastrophic. In sectors like retail, which has recently come under fierce pressure from online competition, the temporary lockdown may prove to be terminal. In many cases, the stores that shut down in early March will not reopen. The jobs will be permanently lost. Millions of Americans and their families are facing catastrophe...
• As recently as five weeks ago, at the beginning of March, U.S. unemployment was at record lows. By the end of March, it had surged to somewhere around 13 percent. That is the highest number recorded since World War II. We don’t know the precise figure because our system of unemployment registration was not built to track an increase at this speed. On successive Thursdays, the number of those making initial filings for unemployment insurance has surged first to 3.3 million, then 6.6 million, and now by another 6.6 million.” [134]

The final section of this chapter describes what The Economist described as “a larger injection [of cash relief] than any other big, rich country.”:

• “In the Spring America passed economic rescue measures worth $2.3 trn this year, a larger injection than any other big, rich country. With a slowing economy, almost everyone agrees that more is required, yet for the last 6 months Congress has squabbled over a new bill. Democrats pushed for a deal worth over $2trn in 2021; Republicans insisted on far lower amounts...” [135]

1.2.5 The “Coronavirus Economy” - A larger injection [of cash relief] than any other big, rich country

U.S. Government’s epic bailout of the “Coronavirus Economy”

The congressional stimulus package agreed within days of the shutdown was by far the largest in U.S. peacetime history. “The $2 trillion coronavirus rescue package that the Senate passed on Wednesday will fundamentally transform the U.S. government by placing thousands of businesses and millions of workers on federally funded life support.” [136]

Midsize companies, or those with between 500 and 10,000 employees, get to borrow at an interest rate that is not higher than 2 percent annually, and don’t have to repay principal or interest for six months. The midsize companies cannot “outsource or offshore” jobs from the start of the loan until two years after it has been repaid.

Businesses with 500 or fewer employees will get loans directly from banks to cover more than two months of payrolls and some other operating expenses, with the government paying off the balance so long as the companies either do not lay off workers or rehire ones they’ve already let go.

The government will inject more than $60 billion into the airline industry, including $25 billion in grants to pay employees of passenger airlines and $4 billion for those who work at cargo airlines.

Companies that borrow money are forbidden to repurchase their stock or pay dividends during the loan and for a year after it is repaid. They must not cut staffing by more than 10 percent through the end of September.

The weekly $600 federal supplement to unemployment benefits, enacted in March and ending July 31st , came on top of the typical aid that states pay (most states pay minimum unemployment benefits of below $100 a week)

“We went to bed as America and woke up the next morning looking like social democratic Europe,”

The New York Times article quoted professor Erik Gordon of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan as saying “We went to bed as America and woke up the next morning looking like social democratic Europe,” ... “We’ve made fun of Europe propping up their failing steel companies and car companies, and when push comes to shove we’re going to outdo them.”

• “The government will pay the wages of some workers who remain on their companies’ payrolls. It will sustain other workers who have lost their jobs with checks that are as large as — or even larger than — what they were earning before they were laid off. And it will cushion some of the country’s largest corporations from bankruptcy, with taxpayers taking shares in those companies as collateral.” [137]

The bailout was actually four (4) different packages [138]:

First Stimulus Package (March 6) - $8.3 Billion - Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act - provided emergency funding for federal agencies to respond to the coronavirus outbreak, including for COVID-19 testing, and provided loans and loan subsidies to small businesses.

Second Stimulus Package (March 18) - $104 Billion - Families First Coronavirus Response Act - allowed for free COVID-19 testing, including emergency room visits and doctor’s fees, for all patients, regardless of insurance type or status; provided funding for paid time off to allow some symptomatic or exposed workers, or parents of children with school closures; $2 billion to state unemployment insurance programs; and emergency funding to ensure the nutrition assistance programs have adequate resources to help those impacted by the COVID-19 public health emergency.

Third Stimulus Package- CARES Act (March 27) - $2 Trillion - provided a one-time, direct deposit payment to individuals and families, who are not a dependent of another taxpayer; created a temporary Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program to provide payment to those not traditionally eligible for unemployment benefits (self-employed, independent contractors, and gig economy workers); provision that enables individuals to defer payment of 2020 taxes until 2021 or 2022.; suspend monthly payments on all federally held student loans, without interest, through September 30, 2020; and over $330 billion in emergency relief funding, including $100 billion for hospital, public and not-for-profit entities, and Medicare and Medicaid providers to cover costs related to crisis.Fourth Stimulus Package (April 24) - $484 Billion - Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act - to deliver more pandemic aid to small businesses and hospitals, in addition to coronavirus testing.

In addition, the Federal Reserve Bank waded-in with immense injections of funds to sustain businesses and the financial markets.

• “In late March, the Fed was buying assets at a rate of $90 billion per day. This is more per day than Ben Bernanke’s Fed purchased most months. Every single second, the Fed was swapping almost a million dollars’ worth of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities for cash. On the morning of April 9, at the same moment that the latest horrifying unemployment number was released, the Fed announced that it was launching an additional $2.3 trillion in asset purchases.” [ 139]

Canada’s bailout of individuals and businesses affected by the lockdowns

On March 18, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced an$82-billion aid package to help Canadians and businesses cope with the global COVID-19 pandemic. CBC News reported that the the package will include $27 billion in direct supports and $55 billion to help businesses [140] :

 A temporary boost to Canada Child Benefit payments, delivering about $2 billion in extra support.

•   A new Emergency Care Benefit of up to $900 biweekly, up to 15 weeks, to provide income support to workers, including the self-employed, who have to stay home and don’t qualify for paid sick leave or employment insurance. The measure could disburse up to $10 billion.
•   A new Emergency Support Benefit to provide up to $5 billion in support to workers who are not eligible for EI and who are facing unemployment.  
•   A six-month, interest-free reprieve on student loan payments.
•   Doubling the homeless care program. 
•   Extending the tax filing deadline to June 1.
•   Allowing taxpayers to defer until after Aug. 31 tax payments that are due after today and before September.
•   $305 million for a new Indigenous Community Support Fund to address immediate needs in First Nations, Inuit and Métis Nation communities. 

“ It did help avert a downward spiral into a Great Depression-type scenario.” 

These financial relief packages provided cash transfers, loans, deferred payments and other assistance to both individuals and businesses at a scale unseen in modern times -” households without income and businesses without revenues”. Central banks also played a major role by cutting interest rates and increasing the availability of credit. Economists have described the relief packages as responsible for keeping the economies as just bad recessions as opposed to depression-scale collapses.

• “...Although these spending bills were widely described as an economic stimulus, that term was a bit misleading. Enacted at a time when the first wave of coronavirus infections was raging, with no cure or vaccine in sight, the bills were really a form of disaster aid, intended to get the country through an unprecedented public-health crisis.
• As stay-at-home orders spread across the country, this policy response didn’t prevent an alarming increase in joblessness and income losses, particularly among minority and low-income groups. It did help avert a downward spiral into a Great Depression-type scenario.” [141]

Even as commentators were celebrating the generosity of the Federal government’s relief packages, the Atlantic Magazine was making a case for expanding the existing CARES Act to the tune of an additional $3 trillion [142] :

For families - “... adding another direct payment to families in the $1,000 range, an extension of the $600 unemployment-insurance benefit, and measures for food and housing, such as rental and mortgage support for families who might otherwise face eviction”;

For businesses -“The leisure and hospitality industry—which includes restaurants, hotels, and theaters—has accounted for almost half of job losses during the crisis but has received only 10 percent of the total PPP money. The federal government should guarantee zero-interest loans to small businesses that they could pay back over many years.”;

For state and local governments - “The pandemic has torched income and sales taxes, which has decimated state and local-government treasuries. An analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that state budget shortfalls in the next three years could approach $700 billion.”; 

For public health - “That includes increased funding for mass testing, effective contact tracing (through interviews or tech surveillance), dedicated quarantine facilities, mass production of masks, sufficient funding for health-care workers and rural hospitals, and aggressive spending across a wide range of research, including antiviral drugs and vaccines.”

” Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.”

The problems with getting the monies to those who were supposed to get it but didn’t, reminded me of one of Guy Kawasaki’s axiom - “Organizations are successful because of good implementation,not good business plans.” [143]

These bailout and rescue initiatives did indeed “avert a downward spiral into a Great Depression-type scenario”. Although american capitalists are usually the first to object to government interventions in the economy, in this case, they were lined up at the door to get their share of the bailouts. The complaints were not with the policy intent or the size of the financial allocations of these programs but with their delegated implementation, especially the delivery of financial support to small businesses and the unemployed. 

The small banks and the Small Business Administration complained of a lack of congressional guidance on the application and intake processes they were supposed to administer. The antiquated unemployment claims assessment and payment systems of many individual states were unable to handle the volume of applications in a timely manner. In many cases applicants had difficulty navigating the application hurdles while too many were unable to access the systems at all. 

• “Under the bill, any small businesses that have been adversely affected by the shutdowns will be able to apply to the Small Business Administration for an emergency loan, which could be forgiven when the crisis ends if it keeps most of its workers on its payroll. But the S.B.A. is a small agency, and it’s far from clear that it will be able to deal with millions of loan applications in a timely fashion. “We have to hope against hope that this Administration takes execution and implementation more seriously and shows dramatically more competence than it did on testing, and ventilators, and masks,” Sperling said. “If this becomes the same type of nightmare—in providing things like the small-business aid and the expanded unemployment assistance—then a lot of people are going to suffer.” [144]

The BROOKINGS Institute, in their article “Careful or Careless? Perspectives on the CARES Act”, raise the issue plaguing many of the stories written about the ‘pancession’ - i.e. is this a one-timer or would it be wise to plan, now, for the next one?

“... policy makers should be making contingency plans for the uncertainty that marks the future path of COVID-19 and the economy. It is currently unclear what the worst-case scenario is and there are a number of high-impact options to mitigate potential catastrophe. ... The CARES Act is a much-needed relief package but policy makers and the public will need to keep an eye on the virus and the economy and be ready to respond quickly as the situation inevitably changes.” [145]

1.2.6 Closing comments - A new group of ‘left behinds’ is at risk of being discarded/forgotten/cut loose by the ‘pancession’ 

 As noted earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported that 29,000,000 jobs were lost in March, April and May in the U.S. The unemployment rate jumped from 3.5% in February to 14.7% in April. Economists and business analysts populated the print and broadcast media with their versions of the recovery - ‘V’ shaped, ‘U’ shaped, or ‘W’ shaped with recurring bouts of circuit breaker lockdowns. Their focus was on the recovery, jobs created and declines in the unemployment rates. 

From a stakeholder engagement perspective, my concern is for the permanent job losses because the pancession is in the process of creating a new group of ‘left behinds’. The original group of ‘left behinds’ were those workers in manufacturing (in the rust belt and rural areas) whose jobs were off-shored to cheaper labour countries, primarily in Asia, in the mad dash of globalization. This new group of ‘left behinds’ (my appropriation of the term, not Bloomberg’s) are often barely mentioned in passing.

No, I am not referring to “Left Behind,” the popular series about the coming of the Antichrist. I am referring to the work of the Pew Research Center who conducted a special series of 26 focus groups “to understand better the degree to which similar narratives about globalization and its impacts are evident in each country”:

• “The focus groups confirm that the story of being “left behind” remains common in both the U.S. and UK. Participants highlighted the ways in which the forces of globalization left them rudderless, closing industries, leading people to abandon their homes and harming them economically. But the group conversations also reveal a narrative of being “swept up” by globalization. Those who are swept up experience dislocation because of too much attention from global forces – investment and new job creation supplant traditional work, inflate real estate prices and displace some people from their homes and communities. Stories of being left behind and swept up both lead to feelings of alienation and loss.” [146]

My analysis is that four groups of stakeholders: (1) Permanent laid off workers due to closures, downsizing, e-commerce invasion of mainstream and automation/robotics and AI; (2) Layoffs from restaurants, bars, nightclubs; (3) ‘Body Blows’ to the Arts and Cultural Industries; and (4) Gig economy workers, are the latest cluster of ‘left behind’ - like the workers who saw their manufacturing jobs out-sourced to low wage countries as part of globalization. 

1. Permanent laid off workers due to closures, downsizing, e-commerce invasion of mainstream and automation/robotics and AI -these workers are permanent casualties because their host employer is closing stores, cutting back production assuming slower economy, implementing automation/robotics and/or AI to reduce the uncertainties of human labour, etc. The traditional labour economist’s reaction is ‘they will find other jobs in the local labour market’. True, some will but given the sheer size of the pancession, many won’t:

• “United Airlines Holdings Inc. is looking to severely cut costs as it prepares for lower travel demand. The company will cut 3,500 jobs, or 30 per cent of its workforce, mainly in management and administration by October.”
• “Leon’s Furniture has laid off 3,900 employees, or about half its staff, after closing its locations”
• “Reitmans Canada Ltd. -. On June 1, the company said it will be shutting down its Thyme Maternity and Addition Elle brands over the course of the summer as part of its restructuring process. The move will eliminate 1,100 retail positions and about 300 jobs at its head office.”
• “On June 5, Bombardier revealed it will be cutting about 2,500 jobs, mostly in Canada, from its aviation unit - Bombardier Aviation president David Coleal said the company reached the end of its ability to maintain pre-COVID employment levels.” [ I have pulled these examples from Bloomberg’s COVID-19 jobs tracker. [147]

Although the trend towards increased e-commerce predated the coronavirus, but the increasingly stealth invasion of e-commerce on mainstreet businesses is a direct byproduct of the pancession. The HBR envisioned countries saving/restoring their economies by moving whatever economic activity is possible, online:

• “While only part of any economy’s work can be done remotely, the success of moving large swaths of work into “socially distant mode” depends on multiple digital services: telecommunications platforms and apps, such as Zoom and Skype, to keep workers connected; e-commerce to get provisions to remote workers as retail establishments are shuttered or curtailed; and digital media — especially those that can withstand a drop in advertising revenues — to keep people informed and make good business decisions. On top of that, countries need digital payment options capable of handling the surges in transactions.” [148]

Another trend in manufacturing that is killing permanent jobs is automations, robotics and AI. AI also has increasing effects on white collar jobs

• “The early weeks of the pandemic featured a rush of reports of companies pushing automation and AI, in part to replace humans... In a report for MIT Sloan Management Review, Brynjolfsson and his colleague Matt Beane found that while companies are investing in robotics and automation, it takes more time than you might expect for employers to find the right uses for new technology, especially in the midst of an economic downturn when firms are “focused on keeping the lights on,” [149]

2. Layoffs from restaurants, bars, nightclubs are especially problematic. Bars, nightclubs and restaurants are vulnerable to not only periodic circuit breaker lockdowns but also the restrictions on the number of customers allowed in their dining spaces and physical/social distancing requirements. The National Restaurant Association reported that restaurants employed 15,600,000 employees while bars and nightclubs employ 345,000. Once the relief packages and unemployment benefits run out, these workers are stranded in never never land. 

• “The National Restaurant Association estimates the restaurant industry lost $80 billion through April, and could lose $240 billion by the end of the year. ... While some establishments will reopen with limited capacity sooner rather than later, the sector is likely to face widespread decimation, according to industry and health experts. ... The California Restaurant Association estimated in late March that 30% of the state’s 90,000 restaurants would not survive the crisis.” 
• “Even if restaurants find it economically feasible to reopen, there’s no guarantee Americans would feel safe enough to show up in the numbers necessary for a recovery. In fact, 68% percent of Americans say they would feel uncomfortable eating at a restaurant, according to a late April survey from SAP’s Qualtrics”. [150]

3. ‘Body Blows’ to the Arts and Cultural Industries. I have used the expression ‘body blows’ because the public health banning of public gatherings, events, concerts, performances, etc. has prohibited/hobbled artists who perform for an audience in some type of gathering/venue that now has physical/social distancing requirements. Also called ‘creative industries’, they are a significant source of livelihood for 5 million workers that are employed in arts and cultural industries - either as self-employed or wage-and-salary workers for commercial or not-for-profit organizations.[151]. The arts and cultural industries include architecture; crafts; design and designer fashion; film, TV, radio and photography; information technology (IT), software and computer services; publishing; museums, galleries and libraries; music, performing and visual arts. I am not sure I would have included architects, but the point of this list is to expand our perception of what’s included in this sector. All is not lost however because true to their creativity, many artists are exploring the use of the Internet as an alternative venue:

“The growing use of digital means of access by the public has significantly altered the organisation of both production and consumption, making even complex performing arts, such as opera and symphony concerts, available in a far greater range of venues via the ‘simulcasting’ of live performances from opera houses and concert halls all over the world to local cinemas and via the internet (Towse, 2019). It has also enabled visual artists to sell their work directly over the internet.” [152]

In spite of the efforts by some artists and commercial arts organizations to use the Internet as their venue, the vast majority of artists will be ‘left behind’ if physical/social distancing requirements continue into the future.

4. Gig economy workers. Gig workers are “self-employed freelancers, on-demand online workers and day labourers who supplement their wage employment and those who did not earn any wages or salaries and therefore relied primarily on their gig earnings. The gig earnings of the majority of GWs did not exceed five thousand dollars per year.” [153]

Gig workers represent approximately 8%-10% of all Canadian workers in 2016. 

• “Periods of unemployment are often the catalyst for a move into gig work, and there is good reason to believe that an increasing number of Canadians could be considering gig work. Between February and June 2020, about 301,960 Canadian businesses closed (compared with 195,492 business closures during the same time period last year). The unemployment rate in the core working age (25 to 54 years old) in August 2020 was 8.9 percent, up from 5.5 percent in August 2019. Additionally, 100,600 more people had dropped out of the labour force — were unemployed and not seeking work — over August 2019 figures. Behind those numbers are Canadians who can’t find work or have closed their business. Some have gone back to work on reduced hours; others have chosen not to return to work as an employee because of care-giving responsibilities.” [154]

The gig economy is often equated with the ride-sharing company Uber and its pioneering role in providing thousands, if not millions, of part-time workers with the opportunities to make more money on the side. The paradox is that Uber was built on a platform that increased opportunities for almost anyone to make some money on the side while Uber’s former CEO described its efforts/investments to develop self-driving cars as mission-critical - i.e. thereby developing the ability to “offer taxi trips without paying for human drivers”. [“Spinning off - self-driving cars”, The Economist, December 2020]

Meanwhile, in the background, automation and AI are lurking

The New York Times in its article “The Hidden Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite”, revealed the inherent duplicity of the corporate pursuit of automation and AI:

• “In public, many executives wring their hands over the negative consequences that artificial intelligence and automation could have for workers. They take part in panel discussions about building “human-centered A.I.” for the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” — Davos-speak for the corporate adoption of machine learning and other advanced technology — and talk about the need to provide a safety net for people who lose their jobs as a result of automation.
• But in private settings, including meetings with the leaders of the many consulting and technology firms whose pop-up storefronts line the Davos Promenade, these executives tell a different story: They are racing to automate their own work forces to stay ahead of the competition, with little regard for the impact on workers.
• All over the world, executives are spending billions of dollars to transform their businesses into lean, digitized, highly automated operations. They crave the fat profit margins automation can deliver, and they see A.I. as a golden ticket to savings, perhaps by letting them whittle departments with thousands of workers down to just a few dozen.” [155]

A more extreme proposition has been proposed by Naomi Klein in her book “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism “. Michael Brennan refers to her proposition of disaster capitalism as a source of some workers’ fears that the pandemic will be used as an excuse by some corporations to implement some labour-cost reductions that will make their lives worse:  

• “‘Disaster capitalism’ is described by Naomi Klein ( in her book “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism “). Here there is a genuine and well-founded fear among many that COVID will be used cynically to roll through unpopular neoliberal policies undreamt of in less exceptional circumstances, redrawing established working practices and implementing cost-saving measures to the detriment of workers.” [156]

In my version of the ‘left behind’ , these workers are watching their jobs simply disappear because of the public health’s physical/social distancing measures to combat the coronavirus. To be sure, the current pancession is resulting in the permanent destruction of the livelihood of millions of Americans and Canadians. They will become the newest version of left behind stakeholders. Meanwhile, the underlying pursuit of automation and AI “will determine whether A.I. is used as a tool for increasing productivity or for inflicting pain.”

Contents of the next Chapter (1.3) - The 2nd crisis - social fallout from the Stay-at-home/lockdown orders

1.3.1 Social fallout - the ‘invisible’ impacts of Stay-at-home/lockdown orders

1.3.2 Black, Asian and minority ethnic group are more likely to contract and die of the virus than their white counterparts  

1.3.3 George Floyd - “I can’t breathe” and the revival of the anti-racism agenda 

1.3.4 The pandemic hit women workers measurably harder than men—the so-called “she-cession.”

1.3.5 Impact on mental health of children and adolescents, vulnerable students/special education students

1.3.6 Increased poverty and hunger - the pandemic has exacerbated food insecurity in the U.S

1.3.7 “Loneliness is a public health issue as damaging to our physical health as smoking” - - our fundamental need, closer to home, for genuine face-to-face contact with others upon whom we depend 

1.3.8 Increased mental health problems, depression, opioid additions, domestic abuse, suicides

1.3.9 Dying alone - Absence of funerary rituals and church ceremonies have hampered grieving

1.3.10 Coronavirus fatigue

Endnotes for Chapter 1.2

1.2.1 The backstory as the Introduction

[72] “A Timeline of COVID-19 Developments in 2020”, AJMC, Nov 2020

[73] “U.S. declares public health emergency, entry restrictions as 7th coronavirus case confirmed”, CBC News, January 2020

[74] William Wan, “WHO declares a pandemic of coronavirus disease covid-19”, The Washington Post, March 11 2020

[75] Robin Wright, “The Global Panic Over the Coronavirus”, The New Yorker, March 2020

[76] Mandy Armitage, “How Do COVID-19’s Annual Deaths and Mortality Rate Compare to the Flu’s?” [Goodrx.com, August 2020

[77] Shannon Muchmore, “What does it mean for a hospital to be ready for disaster?”, Healthcare DIVE, Sept 2017

[78] “Coronavirus spreads quickly and sometimes before people have symptoms, study finds”, Science News, March 2020

[79] Source: Joe Murphy, “Graphic:See the day-ro-day size of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. and worldwide”, NBC News, Nov 11, 2020

[80] Source: Worldmeter’s COVID-19 data-https://www.worldmeters.info/coronavirus/country/canada

[81] “Community-based measures to mitigate the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Canada”, Government of Canada, Oct 2020

[82] Kirsten Koehler and Ana Riles, “Can a Mask Protect Me? Putting Homemade Masks in the Hierarchy of Controls”, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, April 2020]

[83] Neil M Ferguson, et al, “Report 9: Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand”, Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team, March 2020

[84] Jimmy Whitworth, “ How coronavirus measures have worked around the world”, The CONVERSATION, March 2020

1.2.2 ‘Beware the Ides of March’ - suppression measures adopted

[85] Jiachuan Wu , et al, “Stay-at-home orders across the country - What each state is doing — or not doing — amid widespread coronavirus lockdowns.”, NBC News, March 2020

[86] Jason Silverstein, “43 states now have stay-at-home orders for coronavirus. These are the 7 that don’t”, CBS News, April 2020

[87] Ditto

[88] Ditto

[89] “Seven Republican Governors Still Haven’t Issues Stay-at-Home Orders. Here’s Why.” The-CNN-Wire , April 2020

[90] Jason Silverstein, “43 states now have stay-at-home orders for coronavirus. These are the 7 that don’t”, op. cit.

[91] Ditto

[92] Ditto

[93] Arit John, “These eight states haven’t issued stay-at-home orders to fight the coronavirus”, The Los Angeles Times, April 2020

[94] Michelle McQuigge , “‘We need to act now’: Canada public health officer raises COVID-19 pandemic threat from low-risk to ‘serious’, The National Post, March 2020

[95] Rob Ferguson and Robert Benzie, “‘This is changing hour by hour, day by day’: Premier Doug Ford declares state of emergency in Ontario”, The Toronto Star, March 2020]

[96] Philip Authier, “Quebec put on partial lockdown as coronavirus cases climb”, Montreal Gazette, March 2020

[97] Caley Ramsay, “1 month after Alberta’s first COVID-19 case, what’s changed?”, Global News, April 2020

[98] Richard Zussman, “B.C. nightclubs and bars ordered closed amid coronavirus”, Global News, March 2020]

[99] Ellen Barry, “‘It’s Totally Ad Hoc’: Why America’s Virus Response Looks Like a Patchwork”, The New York Times, March 2020

[100] Josephine Peterson, “This is what Washington state governor’s COVID-19 ‘stay at home’ order means for you”, The News Tribune, March 2020

[101] [“Governor Cuomo Signs the ‘New York State on PAUSE’ Executive Order” March 2020 - https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-signs-new-york-state-pause-executive-order

[102] Eric Levenson, “Why New York is the epicenter of the American coronavirus outbreak”, CNN, March 2020

[103] Alex Wigglesworth,, et al, “Here’s where coronavirus cases have been reported in California”, Los Angeles Times, March 2020

[104] “About COVID-19 restrictions”, https://covid19.ca.gov/stay-home-except-for-essential-needs/

[105] Tim Arango and Jill Cowan, “Californians to Stay at Home”, The New York Times, March 2020

[106 Lawrence Gostin and Sarah Wetter, “Why There’s No National Lockdown”, The Atlantic, March 2020

[107] Ed Yong, “America’s Patchwork Pandemic Is Fraying Even Further”, The Atlantic, May 2020

1.2.3 The economic impacts of Stay-at-home/closure/lockdown orders

[108] David J. Lynch and Heather Long, “U.S. economy deteriorating faster than anticipated as 80 million Americans are forced to stay at home”, The Washington Post, March 2020

[109] Ann Saphir, “ Factbox: Five statewide stay-at-home orders, 31% of U.S. economy”, Reuters, March 2020

[110] Scott R. Baker, et al, “Covid-induced economic uncertainty”, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2020

[111] Aaron Hutchins, et al, “Quarantine nation: Inside the lockdown that will change Canada forever”, MACLEAN’S, April 2020

[112] Kevin Nielsen, “A timeline of the novel coronavirus in Ontario”, Global News, March 2020

[113] Eric Morath, “How Many U.S. Workers Have Lost Jobs During Coronavirus Pandemic? There Are Several Ways to Count”, The Wall Street Journal, May 2020

[114] Heather Long, “U.S. now has 22 million unemployed, wiping out a decade of job gains”, The Washington Post, April 2020

[115] Ditto

[116] Eric Morath, “How Many U.S. Workers Have Lost Jobs During Coronavirus Pandemic? There Are Several Ways to Count”, The Wall Street Journal, May 2020

[117] Pete Evans, “Canada lost more than 1 million jobs last month as COVID-19 struck”, CBC News, April 2020

[118] Fred Imbert and Thomas Franck, “Dow drops nearly 300 points, but notches best month in 33 years”, CNBC News, April-May 2020

1.2.4 “The largest, fastest and most comprehensive reduction in economic activity...”

[119] Yen Nee Lee, “5 charts show which travel sectors were worst hit by the coronavirus”, CNBC News, May 2020

[120] “Insights on the Impact of COVID-19 on the North American Aviation Industry - Key Companies Affected Include Airbus, American Airlines & Delta Air Lines Among Others”, businesswire, April 2020

[121] Leslie Josephs, “A flood of job losses looms as airline industry struggles in pandemic”, CNBC News, Aug 2020

[122] “Tourism Policy Responses to the coronavirus (COVID-19)”, OECD Policy Responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19), June 2020

[123]Catherine Thorbecke, “ Canceled flights, quarantined cruises and $30B losses: How coronavirus has upended the travel industry”, abc News, Feb 2020

[124] “COVID-19’s Impact on Hospitality, 2020 Market Report”, PRNewswire, April 2020

[125] Serpil Aday, Mehmet Seckin Aday, “Impact of COVID-19 on the food supply chain”, Food Quality and Safety, Aug 2020

[126] “Ag and Food Sectors and the Economy”, USDA Economic Research Service, https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/ag-and-food-sectors-and-the-economy/ 

[127] Sarah Gibbens, “ These 5 foods show how coronavirus has disrupted supply chains”, National Geographic, May 2020

[128] Richard T. Corlett,et al, “Impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on biodiversity conservation”, Biological Conservation, June 2020

[129] Alice Hancock, “Coronavirus risks downward spiral for events industry”, Financial Times, March 2020

[130] Rani Molla and Shirin Ghaffary, “With E3 and SXSW canceled, the direct losses from major tech events soars beyond $1 billion”, VOX - recode, March 2020

[131] Samantha Hissong & Ethan Millman, “ ‘Everything Is in Chaos’: The Concert Business Stands to Lose Billions From Coronavirus”, Rolling Stone, March 2020

[132] “How the coronavirus is affecting sports leagues and events”, Los Angeles Times, March 2020

[133] Jabari Young, “Sports leagues are betting on augmented reality, as virtual courtside seats can’t match the real thing”, .cnbc.com, Nov 2020

[134] Adam Tooze, “The Normal Economy Is Never Coming Back”, Foreign Policy, April 2020

[135] “Picking a Package”, The Economist, December 12th 2020

1.2.5 “A larger injection [of cash relief] than any other big, rich country”

[136] Jim Tankersley, et al, “The Coronavirus Economy: When Washington Takes Over Business”, The New York Times, March 2020

[137] Ditto

[138]Rachel Solomon, “What is the Federal Government Doing to Help People Impacted by Coronavirus?”, Cancer Support Community, June 2020

[139] Adam Tooze, “The Normal Economy Is Never Coming Back”, op. cit.

[140] Kathleen Harris, “Trudeau unveils $82B COVID-19 emergency response package for Canadians, businesses”, CBC News, March 2020 

[141] John Cassidy, “Congress Must Act Now to Provide an Economic Bridge to the Coronavirus Vaccine”, The New Yorker, Dec. 2020

[142] Derek Thompson, “We Can Prevent a Great Depression. It’ll Take $10 Trillion”, The Atlantic, May 2020

[143] Guy Takeo Kawasaki (born August 30, 1954) is an American marketing specialist, author, and Silicon Valley venture capitalist. He was one of the Apple employees originally responsible for marketing their Macintosh computer line in 1984.

[144] John Cassidy, “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly in the Two-Trillion-Dollar Stimulus”, The New Yorker, March 2020

[145] Grace Edna, et al, “Careful or Careless? Perspectives on the CARES Act”, BROOKINGS Institute, March 2020

1.2.6 Closing comments on the 2nd crisis - economic fallout

[146] Laura Silver, et al, “In U.S. and UK, Globalization Leaves Some Feeling ‘Left Behind’ or ‘Swept Up’”, Pew Research Center, October 2020

[147] Michelle Zadikian, “COVID-19 jobs tracker: Layoffs, furloughs and hiring during the pandemic”, BNN Bloomberg, July 2020

[148] Bhaskar Chakravorti and Ravi Shankar Chaturvedi, “Which Countries Were (And Weren’t) Ready for Remote Work?”, Harvard Business Review, april 2020

[149] Bryan Walsh, “AI and automation are creating a hybrid workforce”, AXIOS, October2020

[150] Alex Sherman and Amelia Lucas, “When will restaurants and bars reopen? Here’s what experts are saying”, CNBC, May 2020

[150] “Artists and Other Cultural Workers - A Statistical Portrait”, National Endowment for the Arts, April 2019

[151] “What do we know about the impact of coronavirus on the creative industries?”, https://www.coronavirusandtheeconomy.com/question/what-do-we-know-about-impact-coronavirus-creative-industries

[152] Sung-Hee Jeon and Yuri Ostrovsky, “The impact of COVID-19 on the gig economy: Short- and long-term concerns”, STATCAN COVID-19: Data to Insights for a Better Canada, May 2020]

[153] Elle Ziegler, Karen E. McCallum, “As a lot of suddenly jobless Canadians ponder their options, policies need to catch up and reckon with the drawbacks and trade-offs of gig work.”, Policy Options, Oct 2020

[154] Kevin Roose, “The Hidden Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite”, The New York Times, January 2019 

[155] Michael Brennan, “Why COVID-19 Is a Social Issue”, discoversociety.org, October 2020

Created by R.J. (Robb) Ogilvie, Managing Partner, Ogilvie, Ogilvie & Company - December 24, 2020

Researcher, policy wonk, facilitator, author and curator of information about ‘wicked’ policy issues

Four of the six recent chapters/articles by Robb on Biodiversity