The economic fallout from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) can’t be overstated. Some people believe that we won’t see any real improvement for six to nine months. It’s a scary prospect; there’s so much uncertainty surrounding our economy.
I have what I consider to be a solution. To stop the bleeding – and bring us back closer to normalcy – I think we should implement a mandatory 30-day shutdown.
Think, rip off the band-aid…
Now, this may not sound like a viable proposition at first, but hear me out. I firmly believe that shutting down for 30 days could lessen the economic carnage we’re currently experiencing. We could bite the bullet now instead of feeling the pain for many months to come.
This plan would mean shutting down the stock market. Rent and mortgage payments would be deferred for the period. The only industries that would be exempt from closing their doors would be utility companies, grocery stores, food supply chains, first responders, and health care providers – the bare necessities that Americans need right now.
During this time, via social distancing, we would flatten the curve and give our healthcare system a fighting chance to address this virus. According to the Institute for Disease Modeling, through social distancing, we could actually minimize the total outbreak numbers by 90%! We would focus on doing 10 million COVID-19 tests in drug store parking lots across America. Testing on this level would have a tremendous impact on what little we know about the mortality rate.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we found out that two to three million people already have COVID-19. I personally know five or six people who have it. Just imagine how many more are out there with no symptoms to very mild cases. We need to count them, too, to get a more accurate denominator in the mortality calculation.
What if we found out that this statistic is far lower than 1%? Or hovering at under 0.5%? This knowledge would have a tremendous impact on Americans and how we choose to go about our daily lives. As of today’s writing, Germany has over 15,309 and 44 deaths. Any death is terrible. But a 0.28% mortality? That’s two or three times the flu…not 10 or 20 times.
At that point, we would all go back to work, be mindful of contact with our senior population, and continue to wash our hands…as opposed to this day-after-day, month-after-month series of cancellations, layoffs, and bloodletting.
Think, the fiercer the attack, the swifter the recovery. Our economy’s future depends on it.
