COVID-19 and a U.S. economic restart
First published 30th April 2020
by Tom Warneke
Americas | Understanding Your World | Resolving Incidents & Crisis
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the White House seems hellbent on reopening the economy.
At the time of writing, the United States has just over 1 million confirmed cases 61,000 fatalities and has administered just over 6 million tests.
There’s no nationwide lockdown and while the federal government advises against all non essential activities, it’s left to individual states to mandate specific precautions and requirements.
Testing & Health Care
In the United States, there’s been extensive conversations about how this might work but all parties tend to agree there needs to be extensive testing and contact tracing — basically finding infected people and stopping them from infecting others.
Of course, the Centre for Disease Control has also advised that opening too soon could have dire consequences. Modelling suggests that the pandemic wave may be even worse the second time around.
When we look to Italy, Spain or New York, we see case studies in health systems overwhelmed. Given the lessons these locations have taught, it needs to be ensured that there’s a robust and capable health system to respond to ongoing demands. This includes critical care equipment and ventilators as well as basic personal protective equipment.
Should new cases or outbreaks occur as the economy reopens, the health care system needs to be sure it can respond. This needs to be priority one for a reopening strategy.
Protests
Americans are protesting the lockdown orders in some states — driven by a downturn in the economy as well as a rise in unemployment rates. Fuel to the fire being added by President Donald Trump, the protests are on the increase at all levels — both local and state.
It’s a delicate balance between the health crisis and managing the coronavirus pandemic versus the economic impacts of managing said crisis developing an economic one.
Election
A recession won’t play well into a presidential election in November so the United States is desperate to reopen and resume ‘business as normal’. Over 22 million people have filed for unemployment.
Let us not forget that President Trump was campaigning hard on the American Economy as a fore-bearer of success before this crisis. However, Trump is now confronted with an economic crisis unseen in almost a century since the great depression of 1929.
Not an ideal place from which to campaign from let alone dive into an election, President Trump’s best hope is for an economic reboot — hoping that this rebound may influence citizens in his favour. This sentiment is clearly driving his desire for reopening America at large.
A Potential Timeframe
The million dollar question. A number of approaches are being considered by the various states across the U.S.
Many of the mandatory lockdown orders have termination dates anywhere from Early May onwards. Those states considering relaxing or lifting the orders earlier will serve as a test environment for many.
The federal government issued guidelines recently suggesting rolling two week phases of surveillance, monitoring case counts and a trajectory of spread, suggesting that ultimately sustained decreases over a 14 day period may well provide a trajectory through which to ease restrictions.
In the best case, schools and some non essential businesses could consider reopening but only where social distancing measures could strictly be imposed.
Of course, looking at different local, state and federal guidelines is all well and good but companies and organisations will really need to drive their own policies and approaches — specific to their needs and locations.
Many of our clients globally are already engaging with us as they determine how to monitor the situation whilst continuing their operations and keep their teams and operations safe.
We’ve setup a hub on our website to help our clients track the situation as well as access the latest in analysis as well as advice from the World Health Organisation — find us at www.complexglobal.co/covid-19
We’re helping our clients through monitoring and analysis of the situation via inCountry as well as our local, regional & global analysts and experts as well as our crisis response and emergency management provisions — ensuring our clients are assisted in their time of need.
If you have concerns about your current operations and the risks to your team or your business or if you feel you need a more developed understanding in the current situation and what might help you be better prepared, our team is able to assist. We have an expansive team in most regions with access to the latest information and analysis as well as scenario planning and support. To find out how we can support you, our team can be reached at coronavirus@complexglobal.co
