DROWNING IN COVID’S SECOND WAVE: CAN WE SURVIVE?

Close-up photos of Asian truck drivers wearing masks to protect against dust and the spread of the flu. Covid 19. Inside the car front

It finally struck me, why this pandemic thing is bothering me so much. Well, there’s lots about it that is bothering me, the inconvenience and the life it has stolen, the day to day things, friends I can’t see, places I can’t go. Worry all the time about others, me included, for the health of all. Work and businesses in tatters. The economy of it all. But really what is bugging me is that COVID is controlling all of us and it isn’t even human. It’s not a dictator or despotic tyrant or military fascist controlling us. It’s not even a space alien that has invaded earth. It’s this microscopic monster that doesn’t breathe, yet it runs the planet. Stealing breath and everything else it can. It’s perfect sci-fi, except it’s not a movie or a novel. It’s real and happening to all of us, right now!

To say that we are all tired and fed up with anything to do with COVID would be an understatement. It seems relentless and inhuman. What is most disconcerting is that the worst may yet still be to come. Talk is the second wave is upon us. The first wave was devastating to the planet and Some say the second wave will be even worse, can we really survive a second wave of COVID? Many won’t!

John Hopkins University is reporting COVID-19 has killed 1,156,212 around the world and almost 10,000 in Canada as of October 26. The most devastating global event since WW2 when an estimated 85 million died. It is more than obvious that we are at war against an invisible enemy. This battle against COVID-19 seems relentless and tiresome. It is wearing down humanity and destroying the global economy.

On September 23 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a special announcement said Canada is in the second wave of COVID-19 and warned the country is on the brink of a fall season that could be much worse than the spring.

The timeline for COVID’s arrival in Canada shows the first case was diagnosed at the end of January 2020. Cases rose constantly until May 3 when we hit a single-day peak of 2,760 new infections. Then followed a steady decline to August 3 with a low of just 147 new cases. Since then infection rates have been skyrocketing upwards, and on October 13 we reached a new one-day high of 4,042 cases. Ontario introduced stage 2 restrictions on October 9. Parts of Quebec are at stage 3 or even 4.

It’s not just Canada that is suffering the ongoing onslaught of the pandemic. Globally the trauma is equally if not more devastating. The numbers speak for themselves, as of October 26, 2020, there have been 43,215,856 COVID-19 cases and 1,155,914 deaths confirmed worldwide. Most likely the number may be much higher in reality.

The economic impact of COVID-19 is almost impossible to tell. The true analysis of that will occur in the years ahead. The pandemics’ daily toll in terms of our health and economy is happening in homes and towns, cities, and countries all around the world. While scientists rush toward a vaccine to provide us physical health immunity, one wonders what kind of immunity or recovery our economy and businesses will have.

THE HUMAN TOLL OF COVID-19

The resurgence of the pandemic and the uncertainty of the outcome is taking an unexpected toll. That is a toll on humanity, COVID-19 strikes deepest at the aged, women, and those marginalized by race, colour, and those suffering from mental disease, and poverty.

Calls and outreach to anxiety and depression help hotlines and websites are through the roof and hitting previously unprecedented numbers. Job loss, income worries, concerns of wellbeing for family and friends, and constant isolation are triggering mental health issues.

Socialization is a basic human need that COVID-19 has taken away from us all. Isolation and distancing, restrictions to normal day to day activities ranging from gyms to libraries, sporting events, movies, restaurants, and even our workplaces are affecting everyone’s mental wellbeing. Whether we realize it or not, we are all suffering. As the pandemic continues these issues will continue to escalate and cause greater problems.

According to Calgary Psychologist Dr. Christopher Rose “as a species we are hard-wired for social interaction; and in the absence of it we become anxious and depressed.” And apparently through the pandemic alcohol sales are through the roof. Dr. Rose continued “Depression can lead to an increase in alcohol consumption and a decrease in sleep, both of which can exacerbate anxiety and depression”

He says as a society, we have all been catapulted into a constant state of “fight or flight” usually a short-term innate survival response responsible for increasing heart rate, blood pressure, widening your pupils, and increasing your respiration. But over extended periods it is definitely not healthy. And it is also responsible for the release of cortisol. Cortisol increases blood glucose, suppressing and weakening the immune system, providing yet another danger for all of us during COVID.

Particularly hard hit during the pandemic are marginalized groups. Figures show that native people, people of colour, seniors, and women, who are all with us in this struggle are suffering greater from the effects of layoffs and shutdowns. Many will never re-enter the workforce. This will cause a further slowdown in any future economic recovery.

Quickly we learned that age is a key factor in the infection and survivability rates of COVID-19. The aged are the most vulnerable and at the highest risk of all social groups. The latest figures from the CDC in the US say that 8 out of 10 COVID-19 deaths are in adults over the age of 65. We only have to remember the horrific death tolls in Canada’s senior residences this spring and summer to realize how endangered our seniors are and will continue to be, even with special precautions.

COVID seems to have a direct effect on race. According to a recent report by the CBC, Black Canadians are more likely than other Canadians to seek treatment and experience layoffs due to the virus. In Toronto, for example, data from May 20 to July 16 found that Black patients made up 21 percent of the COIVID cases even though they represented only nine percent of the population.

Dr. David Naylor, co-chair of the federal government’s Immunity Task Force says, ”Data in Ontario are pretty clear, you know — two to four times higher rates of, variously, infection, intensive care unit hospitalization and death among diverse neighbourhoods,” he said. “So understanding the spread of this disease in those neighbourhoods by looking at more than simply confirmed diagnostics is pretty valuable.” Naylor said he wonders how much of the disease’s impact on Black communities is due to socioeconomic conditions, “and how much could be genetic?”

Could COVID-19 be sexist? “In lots of ways, people have called it the women’s pandemic,” said Andrea Gunraj, vice-president of public engagement at the Canadian Women’s Foundation. “It seems to be hitting women, in particular, in unique and difficult ways. The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated gender disparities and their implications for women at work, especially for mothers, female senior leaders, and women of colour.

The pandemic has ushered in the first so-called “she-cession”, with women initially experiencing more job losses than men and being slower to return to work. It has also resulted in women shouldering a disproportionate amount of unpaid care-giving responsibilities with children out of school and daycare. Meanwhile, women, especially women of colour, are more likely to be in jobs that put them at risk of COVID-19. Sadly there have been reports of a surge in domestic violence calls as well. These are the invisible scars COVID leaves behind.

A survey of more than 1,500 Canadians by Oxfam Canada released earlier this summer found that 70 percent of women were experiencing increased anxiety, depression, fatigue, and isolation because of growing care work during the pandemic.

When children were forced home from school, many parents had no alternative but to stay at home and care for them. In most cases, childcare fell into the hands of women, those that were single moms were forced home away from their jobs. Thankfully the CERB and or the ability to work from home was a financial benefit to many but not all. The pandemic is showing cracks in our society that have always existed but weren’t being dealt with.

Those who study women and work say the pandemic could result in more long-term setbacks without significant change. Key to that change is childcare, which has long been fragmented and underfunded across Canada.“This is our sentinel moment. People have said, ‘If we don’t understand the value of childcare now, we never will’,” says Ivy Lynn Bourgeault, who holds a research chair in gender, diversity and the professions at the University of Ottawa. “The moment is now.

Economist Armine Yalnizyan, who coined the phrase “she-covery,” says childcare is the chokepoint without which there will be no real post-pandemic recovery, and she expects the news will get worse before it gets better. Yalnizyan says she expects women’s participation in the workforce will continue to shrink in the coming months as more women conclude that the “killer combination” of trying to work at home and do childcare and part-time schooling during the pandemic roller-coaster is untenable. So more jobs will disappear.“It is going to set back women’s rights and opportunities by decades,” she says. It is also going to negatively impact the overall economy.“It is an unbelievably bad spiral and it should not take an economist to point this out.”

COVID has always been about the human cost of sickness and the lives it has taken, but quickly it began to devastate our economy making it confusing and hard to differentiate which is more important. Clearly though in human terms COVID has put fear into all our hearts. Although we are fed up with it, it cares nothing of us. When COVID-19 should be a unifying force for the country, it is in fact dividing it. Preying on those more vulnerable in our society, seniors, peoples of colour, minorities, native peoples, and women, and those already financially disadvantaged or those suffering from mental illnesses. However emotionally we are all suffering from COVID. More importantly, we must not despair or we too shall be lost.

Make no mistake, this will be a difficult winter for most of us. Many already suffer seasonal depression, COVID may well exacerbate the struggle. With the aspirations for a vaccine in early 2021, there may well be many reasons to look forward to the spring of 2021.

According to the science of psychology, hope is considered a fundamental constituent of an individual’s world view, mostly unconscious, and learned very early. As we enter into the COVID winter of 2020/21 it appears we shall all be fighting isolationism and fear and anxiety as it the second wave continues to pour over us. It is time for our society to bond closer. That is each our own responsibility to those within our spheres, our friends, and loved ones, it will come down to each individual to help each other. It is a fight we must all take on. It is a time for none of us not to give up hope.

THE ECONOMIC TOLL

The first 6 months of COVID-19 not only devastated people’s health, but it also managed to throw a booming but unsuspecting world economy into an abrupt tailspin. Now, as of mid-October, the World Health Organization is reporting that Canada has entered the second wave of the pandemic, we must all wonder how will our economy survive with predictions that the pandemic’s second wave will be worse than the first. With many businesses large and small barely hanging to life, will the second wave drown them completely? There are some fearful predictions for what lays ahead.

University of Waterloo professor of Economics Joel Blit offered these sobering words, “The world remains in an economic crisis and hopes for a full and fast economic recovery are misplaced. Depressed wages and profits, and in many cases increased debt loads, will be a drag on consumer and business spending. Lingering uncertainty over potential new waves of COVID-19 drowning the economy will also dampen demand.”

The Economist magazine writes that in the first wave “World trade shuddered as factories shut down and countries closed their borders. An even deeper economic catastrophe was avoided thanks only to unprecedented interventions in financial markets by central banks, government aid to workers and failing firms, and the expansion of budget deficits to near-wartime levels. COVID wave 2 will worsen these events.

 

With governmental interventions, the global crash was somewhat synchronized. As recovery takes place, however, huge gaps between the performance of countries are opening up—which could yet recast the world’s economic order.

Individual world economies are reacting in many different ways. By the end of next year, according to forecasts by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), America’s economy will be the same size as it was in 2019 but China’s will be 10% larger. In the second quarter of this year, according to UBS, a major European bank, the distribution of growth rates across 50 economies was at its widest for at least 40 years.

The variation is the result of differences between countries and their response to the pandemic. Most important is how countries managed to stop the spread of the disease. China has all but stopped it, while Europe, and America, are battling a costly second wave. Canada too. Over the past week, Paris has closed its bars and Madrid has gone into partial lockdown. Melbourne in Australia is just emerging from a second wave two-month shutdown. In China, meanwhile, you can now down sambuca shots in nightclubs.

Another telling difference is the pre-existing structure of economies. It is far easier to operate factories under social distancing than it is to run service-sector businesses that rely on face-to-face contact. Manufacturing makes up a bigger share of the economy in China than in any other big country. A third factor is the governmental policy response.

A third factor is the governmental policy response. At the outset of COVID-19, our National government injected massive funding to help stabilize the economy. Small business loans, a wage subsidy, and a monthly cash payment to residents were all deployed in a bid to prevent the country from teetering into a prolonged recession. Our governmental response was seen as more proactive than that in the US.

As the Manchester Guardian newspaper reported “Those policies – and the government’s general handling of the pandemic – have been well received by voters. A recent PEW Research Centre Poll shows, 88% of Canadians supported their government’s response – a stark contrast to the frustration and anger that many Americans expressed in response to Donald Trump’s reaction to the crisis.

 

But what of the future? All levels of government worry that the Second Wave of COVID will be worse than the first. That is what is happening already in Europe and the United States. As daily infection numbers are double or worse than what was happening in March and April. Numbers that locked down Europe, and is again. Time magazine is saying that the US is now already into the third wave of COVID, and one that is worse than both the first and second wave in terms of numbers infected.

Undoubtedly “pandemic fatigue” plus the reopening of restaurants, bars, and gyms, etc are in part responsible for the second wave. As well as a return to schools by students. Many of us are implicit because of a simple lack of adhesion to basic  “pandemic rules” such as masking and social distancing. This includes many in the less vulnerable under 40 crowd.

So what does the crystal ball tell us for our economy and its’ recovery?

Reuters is reporting, “The Canadian economic recovery from the coronavirus recession will be significantly slower than previously thought, with a high risk that a resurgence in cases will halt the rebound underway, according to a poll of economists.”

As the second wave grows, Ontario, for example, has had to reinstitute lockdowns. The small business lobby describes them as a “crushing blow”. Many simply will not survive, as they were barely hanging on from the first wave.

Canada must brace for almost certain business closures from a second wave of the pandemic according to a panel of leading economists and money experts. Meanwhile, agitation and unrest are building from restrictions amongst the population. As the rising infection rate numbers would indicate.

Business experts are predicting more bankruptcies and business closures. 71% say that is very likely, 29% say it is likely. Industries in hospitality, travel, and tourism, and the health and wellness businesses are set for particularly harsh impacts. Hundreds of idle jetliners are collecting dust in the deserts while multi billion dollar cruise ships lay rusting in port. Once again restaurant doors are famished for clientele and hotel beds rest empty.

“Job losses, economic uncertainty, and a decreased ability for the government to provide financial support to families could make for a brutal holiday season for retailers. Many just survived the first wave, many will not survive the second,” said Professor of Economics at Concordia University Moshe Lander.

He added that if consumers cannot congregate in a small space in large numbers, then “many of these industries do not have the financial buffer to withstand another shock, but also many of them do not have a viable business model for a post-pandemic economy.”

Derek Holt Scotiabank vice president says that another broad-scale shutdown would be more harmful than the first.“High contact areas (restaurants, bars, gyms, etc.) in the economy should be curtailed, but broad shutdowns would be more damaging than the first round through bankruptcies and permanent job losses,”

How will many will lose the ability to pay their mortgage or rents, or even properly feed their family?

We can see that locking down businesses is a tight rope act, balancing between bankruptcies and business failures on one hand and increased infection levels on the other.

“The coronavirus pandemic could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back of economic globalization,” according to Robin Niblett, director of the think tank Chatham House, in a foreign policy article. Canada thrived in a global marketplace. What if isolationism was just not a social concept but also an economic one too? Do we need trade to survive as a national economy? Time will tell where the global economy goes post-COVID.

In the face of uncertainty, many firms are unlikely to rehire non-essential workers in the short term. In fact, if history is any guide, they may choose not to rehire them at all, taking this downturn as an opportunity to automate and reorganize operations. Other firms will either downsize or fail altogether, and over time the labour and capital that they release will be reallocated to more productive or better-adapted firms. We are already seeing such a transformation in the retail sector, with Walmart announcing the first fully cashier-less store and market share being reallocated from brick and mortar to online store.

An article in Time magazine from July signalled the future “Many companies won’t survive the pandemic. But Amazon will emerge stronger than ever.” COVID has expedited the future of the retail industry as it goes more and more online, and most assuredly accelerated the closure of more than a few storefront shops.

The first wave of COVID claimed 3 million job losses in Canada. The labour market has recouped about 2.3 million, but a new round of restrictions amid rising COVID-19 case counts threatens some of those gains. A new 28-day lockdown in Ontario will take people out of work again. “Finding new employment may be no easy task, however. Especially for those with previous experience in ‘high-touch’ industries (i.e. food and accommodation services) said Sri Thanabalasingam, a senior economist at TD Banking Group.

“Looking ahead, manufacturing sales are likely to grow at a slower pace, with high unemployment levels worldwide and permanent capacity destruction likely to keep a tap on factory production,” noted Jocelyn Paquet, an economist at the National Bank of Canada. “Elevated inventory levels will not help either.”

Fortune magazine is saying that Canada has done a much better job in supporting those forced out of work by COVID-19 than has the US government. Our economy has been reeling, but so too has just about every other economy worldwide.

We must remember that our #1 trading partner is the US, and as its’ economy goes, so too does our economy. The amount of trade between us is very even, with exports and imports very close. So when the US sneezes, we catch a cold and in this case, the US caught COVID but then so did every other country. Ironically our #2 trading partner is China, however, we import twice as much as we export to China.

The next week or two will tell us a lot as the American presidential election will set the course for the next 4 years and also direct where we are heading as well.

Experts are now saying that it will be 2023 before our economy again reaches levels of 2019. By then gone will be many many businesses and the jobs once created. A reshaping of the modern office place also took place during COVID, where now so many now conduct their jobs from the home office. This will be a growing trend. The service and the travel industries have been particularly hard hit. It will be some time before people have the nerve to fly or travel.

So where does this leave us? The ultimate answer to our salvation is obvious, it’s a vaccine for COVID-19. Both scientists and economists agree that once we can be assured protective immunity from coronavirus we will be released from our pandemic jail. Our health and wellbeing and our economy will struggle. But once we do have that immunity our economies will be poised for rapid growth and recovery and a new positive outlook on the future will free us. There will be a collective sense of euphoria, with people in the streets dancing and drinking, hugging, and kissing. It will be like the end of the war. And the truth is, it will be the end of the war. We survived!

But, will we be ready for the next one?

While a teenager Tony was fortunate to have the opportunity to pursue his love of aviation and began a career began in the airline world during his days in high school and university as he grew up in Toronto. After completing University at Guelph he moved to Ottawa, following a path in urban agriculture and environmental awareness. He shared his insights for over 2 decades as he appeared on TV, and radio, as the "Plant D octor", and operating his own business in horticulture. Later he reentered the transport industry and became involved in the manufacture and marketing of sustainable fuel-saving and safety products for the truck industry. He is director of an African American art collection based in Washington D.C. Today he writes passionately about transportation, sustainability, concerns of our modern-day world, and the intrigue of the human condition.