What In The World?: Coronavirus Part 3

Jennifer Woo - Staff Writer

Note: The following reflects the policies and economic climate as of April 22, 2020

Small Business Panic

Some businesses will never return once the lockdown policies are lifted. Your favorite Mom & Pop cafes, hair salons, theatre companies, and so much more are being devastated by the economic implications of the coronavirus. When we go back to ‘business as usual’, business will not be usual. The pandemic will continue to haunt us through empty storefronts, blank theater marquees, and “For Sale” signs. 

Which is why it is more important than ever to support local small businesses. 

Many businesses and restaurants are offering home delivery or pick up services for customers (Pop’s Cafe is still open for takeout!). These services are integral to keeping small businesses alive, as they are currently their only source of income.

Congress is also stepping up to support small businesses. One element of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, passed on March 27, is the PPP, the Paycheck Protection Program (not to be confused with “Princess Protection Program” the 2009 Disney Channel Original Movie). 

 The PPP funds loans for small businesses in an effort to prevent them from laying off workers and shutting their doors.  It provides loan forgiveness, as long as the money is used for “documented payroll costs, covered mortgage interest payments, covered rent payments, and covered utilities.” 

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin and U.S. Small Business Administration Administrator Jovita Carranza stated, “The SBA has processed more than 14 years’ worth of loans in less than 14 days.”

However, the PPP ran out of money in just 2 weeks, and many small businesses did not get any relief. There is a lot of controversy surrounding how the PPP was executed. Some feel that it is the insurance companies’ job to help businesses, not the government. Additionally, funds were given on a first-come, first-served basis, and many large chain restaurants and other corporations have been claiming billions in PPP loans, preventing many actual small businesses from receiving aid.

 On March 23, Congress passed a bill to replenish the loan fund with $310 billion and set requirements for the Trump administration to implement a testing plan. This gives hope to small businesses that they will be able to receive aid on this round. The national testing plan will hopefully allow some lockdowns to be lifted and small businesses to reopen.

A Reflection

What was intended to become an international news column very quickly turned into a coronavirus column with a rapid turn of events. When I started this column in February, I almost didn’t write a coronavirus article; I thought by the time it was published coronavirus would be old news. Boy, was I wrong. 

They say hindsight is 20/20 (and it’s the year 2020. Coincidence? I think not). If I could go back in time to February and write that article differently, I would have voiced more urgency, or at the very least have told myself to appreciate every minute on campus, because within a month everything would change.

I revisited the transcript of my interview with Dr. Ken Hayashida about coronavirus from the February issue, and it felt like a time machine to a whole other time. 

“What we really need in the United States is really high accuracy diagnostic testing that physicians and health professionals can rely on to make confirmatory or exclusionary diagnoses that someone has or doesn’t have the virus” 

Dr. Hayashida was absolutely correct. We needed better testing to get ahead of the virus in order to prevent any disruptions to our daily lives. That interview was truly a portent to what was about to ensue.The irony behind all of this is that 2 months later we still don’t have enough testing kits and medical resources to fully tackle this pandemic. 

 In an interview with NPR, Dr. Bruce Meyer, president of Jefferson Health said, “we're short of testing in the way we would like to carry out testing in order to understand everyone who might be infected or has any kind of symptomatology, much less be able to catch asymptomatic carriers [...] Essentially, every day we're competing with other places that need testing.” 

The way that we, including myself, treated this virus in its initial stages says a lot about us as a society. What happened in China and Italy were like movie trailers for what would happen in the US. We saw their schools shut down, their restaurants close, events get cancelled, yet it was all on the other side of the world, so we didn’t seem to care.

If anything, this experience should teach us all to open our eyes and listen (or as Señora Salkowitz would say, “¡Mira y escucha!”) to what’s happening in the world. It is so easy to stay in our little bubbles and only focus on what affects us, but there is so much to learn from others. 

That is the whole intention behind this column. We can all work on being more open and aware of things happening not only in other countries, but also in other states, other cities, other neighborhoods. Knowledge is power, my friends.