Coronavirus
I have actually had several different versions of this post started, but things have changed so quickly that they become obsolete in a day. For posterity though, let's go ahead and plow through this.
Coronavirus has gripped the world. It's officially a pandemic and community transmission has been confirmed here in the US. I had prior posts talking about the stock market, but needless to say, it has tanked down -20% and counting. I believe levels are back at 2017 or even before Trump took office.
Nobody really cares about what I thought (but didn't say) several weeks ago, but I knew the economy was boned the minute I heard that the Arnold Expo was canceled. Or rather, when the radio segment mentioned that the Arnold Expo brings in $51 million. That's $51 million in economic activity that just evaporated like two weeks ago. The latest news is that entire sports are canceled, like the NBA. Those are fans paying for seats, paying for hotels, paying for food, and... just aren't anymore. Who the hell is wanting to go sit in a restaurant and get served by people who don't have any sick days?
Having said that, we're not so much concerned about the virus itself. The mortality rate is in flux - understandable given the extremely embarrassingly low testing rates in the US - but the average age of people dying is 80-years old. Things get riskier if you are a younger 60-year old with underlying health issues, and I indeed know quite a few of those. Everyone younger than 50 has less to worry about, or at least should have the same amount of worry surrounding the flu.
Nevertheless, the disruptions to daily life is really what hits you in the face. The Arnold Expo didn't affect me. College campuses going to online-only classes didn't affect me. Jess being asked to work from home when possible sorta didn't affect me. Then they shut down K-12 schools for the next three weeks. AO obviously isn't in school yet, but all this raises the specter of the expensive-as-shit daycare closing down, and then what? Jess can watch him for some of that but I will be needed at home too to cover some of the gaps. Then you start thinking about peers at work who do have kids in school, and what the hell they're going to be doing come Monday.
This past week has been crazy enough at work, but this past Friday in particular was brutal. About half the employees at The Job have mobility solutions already, but half of a lot is still a lot. We got some extremely late news that some additional mobility solutions were going to be rolled out Monday morning, so IT was scrambling. My job can technically be mostly done from home, but my team members really can't do what they do from home. Hell, even the low-paid data entry staff couldn't work from home when their jobs revolve around, say, scanning paper.
As I left Friday, I saw the cleaning crew and wondered if hazard pay was a thing. It's not, of course, but it probably should be.
Will everything be terrible forever? No. It may even be whistling past the graveyard to feel as though the virus itself is no big deal. Shit, we're still dealing with upper respiratory issues from a month ago, back when we all got norovirus. No fever, just extremely productive nose-blowing and the occasional cough from the drainage. Probably the flu, probably mitigated from vaccines.
Things don't need to be terrible forever though - just long enough to fuck with everything. We haven't seen the service industry layoffs or restaurant bankruptcies yet, but they're coming. And all the market liquidity in the world isn't going to get asses in chairs while there's a pandemic just down the street in every direction.
I don't know. Like everything, this too shall pass.