MY TAKE ON THE EFFECTS OF COVID-19 OR CORONA VIRUS

I believe that the effects, on society, of this current threat to our health, are going to become exponentially greater as time goes on. If people are not allowed to continue with life as normal, then the long range effects may never be reversed. My biggest fear is the effect on the people that have and will, during this time, lose their jobs and livelihood. In North America to this time millions have already been furloughed or laid off outright. Some workers have been sent to work at home, and these may be truly the lucky ones. The ones that haven’t been so lucky can collect some form of additional help from the government. The question being how long can any government continue to provide such relief?

Understanding that the government does not “produce” anything. It only collects money in the form of taxes from citizens. Like those that are being laid off, and who now have no income other than from the government. So expand the present scenario for a few months. Then expand the number of subsequent layoffs 5 or 10 fold. Now you can quickly see what will happen to the government’s revenue stream. It will start to dry up. Taxes will have to be increased on those still working and paying taxes. It is an animal with its tail in its mouth and starving, pretty soon it will eat itself up. Where does it all go from here?

Now I have just explained my take on people. However a much bigger impact will be on businesses. Those, that have been shut down because of the isolation requirements of most governments (not just ours). Many, many of these companies will not be able to weather the storm. Many will not come out the other side still viable. The longer we remain isolated, the more dramatic will be the increase in companies going under. Some sectors, such as tourism, may not recover from the effects, of even, the last month. Let alone the effects of more and more months, piling on. If they do recover it may take two or three years to return peoples’ confidence in travel and adventure.

Ask yourself this question, are any of you planning on booking travel to Italy soon after they declare “everything is normal no further risk”? I expect that like myself I will not be hurrying back anytime soon. If you look at it, a great percent of the money coming into Italy (as an example) is from tourism. Also consider what percent of the population here, there and in other popular spots are employed in the tourism sector. This industry contributes huge amounts of tax dollars to the government in many, many areas of the world, such as most of Europe, North and South America, South East Asia and many other places. This, is only considering one Industry, again you can fill in the list of other areas that will not recover.

How is this money going to be replaced in government coffers to allow the continuation of current and “new” social programs, put in place, to help stave off the effects of these trying times.

In trying to sum up an opinion I have spent many hours of isolation wandering around in my own mind. I think I can say that my opinion is if we cannot “return to normal” very ,very soon, that the long term effects are going to be much more devastating than any of us can ever dream of. I don’t expect to shake a hand, give out a hug or peck on the cheek even to my loved ones. Ok now you might say “its easy to predict doom”, but it much harder to suggest a solution. In my mind it goes something like this. We need a vaccine very, very soon OR 60% of us must get our immunity by surviving a bout of this flu. Neither of those solutions appear to be on the horizon.

The only other thing that must happen is that someone, somewhere in some government is going to have to put his spear in the ground and declare that we all must return to life, taking the upmost of precautions possible and fight thru the remainder of this horrible devastating sickness. I for one would not like to be the one to make that call, not in any country in this world. It is a no win situation for whoever steps out and says we need to fight on, get back to work, even through these threatening times. But it is my opinion, that this must happen, and I may be alone in that opinion.