In my world there is something called a \u201cno-brainer\u201d. That means it doesn’t take much thought to think that something is a good idea. For example, Friday night pizza and beer: a \u201cno-brainer\u201d. So when I look at the national response to COVID-19, it seems to me that it\u2019s a no-brainer to maintain the strict guidelines that have dramatically lowered the infection and death numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have done nothing to \u201cstop\u201d the virus; it\u2019s still out there. But what we have done is protected our population from infection by spacing out, hiding in our homes, and keeping apart. It\u2019s worked, we see it in the statistic that should mean more than any: instead of hundreds of thousands or even millions of deaths (so far) we are looking at something closer to sixty thousand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That number is still abhorrent. But the actions of individual Americans, staying in their homes and following the \u201cguidelines\u201d have saved many. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have been under the \u201cguidelines\u201d since March 16th<\/sup>, the day before St. Patrick\u2019s Day. That\u2019s thirty-seven days for those keeping count \u2013 a long time to hide out. Folks are getting restless, maybe beyond restless, and they want to go back to their \u201cnormal\u201d lives again. Who can blame them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is another pressure pushing people to \u201creturn to normalcy\u201d (thanks President Harding!!). It\u2019s simple: money. Twenty-six million Americans have filed for unemployment in the past six weeks. The state unemployment offices, designed for maybe a few hundred a week, are now face with an overwhelming number of claims. Not surprisingly, they are so far behind, that folks are waiting weeks to get any kind of unemployment compensation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And on the Federal side, the PPP (Paycheck Protection Program), designed to keep people \u201cemployed\u201d in their jobs even if they can\u2019t work, ran out of money in forty-eight hours. It\u2019s being re-infused now by the Congress, but even that will not be near enough to keep folks paid. The numbers are simply beyond the capacity of the program to quickly handle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And finally there\u2019s the one-time Federal payment, if they\u2019re eligible. It\u2019s $1200, maybe enough to cover the rent and utilities for the month. But that was last month, and now folks are faced with paying bills with money they simply don\u2019t have, and don\u2019t have reason to expect soon. And that\u2019s if they\u2019re qualified for the payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are a lot of twenty and thirty-something\u2019s working in the \u201cgig\u201d economy. The cost of healthcare is so great, that many employers won\u2019t hire fulltime workers. If they did, they\u2019d have to offer benefits, instead they keep more employees on a part-time basis. This lays bare the flaw in our employee based health care system: employers have found a way to \u201cdodge the healthcare bullet\u201d. So a lot of those folks don\u2019t have health insurance at all. And many are working a couple of jobs, maybe a big-box store for twenty hours, and waiting table for fifteen more a week. When everything\u2019s going well, it\u2019s enough money to cover expenses, but when everything falls apart, their left destitute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s been thirty-seven days, and many of them haven\u2019t seen a paycheck or a government check. If they received the Federal payment, it\u2019s gone. And even though a lot of landlords are cancelling rent payments, it doesn\u2019t mean they won\u2019t owe ALL the rent someday \u2013 just not today. And zero money doesn\u2019t pay for groceries, or gas if there\u2019s somewhere to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We want people to stay isolated.\u00a0\u00a0We know that if we \u201cgo back\u201d to the \u201cgood old days\u201d of early March, we will trigger a COVID-19 spike, and be right back in the crisis we avoided.\u00a0\u00a0All of us should remember the story of Philadelphia in 1918.\u00a0The city dodged the worst of the Spanish Flu epidemic, following the same prescription that Dr. Fauci and the rest offered to us.\u00a0\u00a0They stayed apart, they shut down, and they kept the infection rates down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But World War I ended, and they wanted to celebrate with a massive parade. Two hundred thousand Philadelphians came out to cheer \u201cthe boys\u201d returning from Europe. Within two weeks, the Spanish Flu was back and thousands more died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the answer is to keep up the work. But if we\u2019re going to get that done, we\u2019ve got to get money to folks to keep going. We have to take care of those who slip through the cracks, the \u201cgig economy\u201d workers who don\u2019t show up as \u201cregular\u201d employees. If we don\u2019t, we can\u2019t expect that they will quietly stay at home, with no way for them to financially take care. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unemployment offices are overwhelmed \u2013 we need to help them. The PPP is underfunded, we need to put more in. The $1200 is gone (if it ever showed up). We need to do that again, and maybe more. And for those who say the Federal government can\u2019t afford it, the short answer is that the Federal government can\u2019t afford not to. Yes, the bill will have to be paid, but it\u2019s better to pay a financial bill later, than the butcher\u2019s bill of death now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Return to Normalcy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A Gig World<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What We Want<\/h3>\n\n\n\n