We Get Through Covid-19 Together By Working and Sharing
The Dales Report contributor and host of Chatter that Matters, Tony Chapman, explores the stimulus individual responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.
We are fighting a World War and our enemy is a virus that knows no boundaries. Our strategy is to flatten the curve of people requiring medical care and to protect the most vulnerable through our only weapon – social isolation.
This strategy is displacing millions of workers around the globe, and the first to fall is our infantry: our front line or ‘gig’ workers, many who work paycheck to paycheck. They already fear the arrival of a bill, a knock from a landlord, the emotional toll on them is far higher than 911, and the economic impact of sudden unemployment, in these numbers, will surpass 2008.
The IMF and Governments are stepping up with stimulus packages and strategies to keep people isolated and those sick alive, but the sheer numbers suggest no pockets are deep enough to cover the essential needs of those most in need. 20 million unemployed – making an average conservative wage, including management, of $20 an hour in good times – would generate $400 million an hour, or $3.2 billion a day. Does 20 million seem extreme? That is the number who work in foodservice and hospitality in North America. I haven’t even gotten to the business owners and their expenses or any other sector.
So what can we do? We get through this together by working and sharing.
1) I want to see Governments come together with banking, healthcare, and essential services to offer citizens a unified strategy and plan. Be transparent and honest. We have too many moving pieces to talk in definitives, and too many unknowns to predict outcomes or timing.
2) I want individuals to come together—those who are making an income share with those who aren’t.
3) The super-wealthy need to transfer some of their wealth, by sponsoring hundreds of thousands, even millions of families.
4) University endowments repurposed to turn dorms into catered accommodations
5) Hospital endowments diverted to help cover day-to-day health care expenses.
6) And those who have cash, circulate it within your local economy. Buy gift cards, order food, keep spending.
There is no political sleight of hand to deflect the public from this reality.
We will all take a haircut with Covid-19. But if one part of society gets sheered, while the other gets a trim, we will have Anarchy.
And that’s not a math lesson, that is a history lesson.
Covid-19 is a World War, but victory will come and with it, I hope a better human race.