About a year ago there came the first news of novel coronavirus in China. Soon it hit Europe with fast and devastating effect as cases overwhelmed Italian hospitals. Then it hit the New York City area and a nursing home in Seattle. Even in late February 2020 we didn’t know what to expect. Now we do.
In that one nursing home 23 people would eventually die. As of this writing, 95 Vermonters have died of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) from over 5,500 cases. Most of the deaths are related to older Vermonters and those with more than one illness.
At first, of course, no one quite understood what was going on, despite what was happening in China and then Italy.
The first press conference on March 13 at the University of Vermont Medical Center featured no masks and little social distancing, even though CEO John Brumsted, MD, urged the press to spread out. They did not and nor did the hospital staff.
The next day featured a press conference held by Governor Scott in the Pavilion building in Montpelier.
Again, social distancing was not encouraged and there were no masks. No Vermonter had yet died of it.
There were mixed messages on mask wearing at the time. In retrospect this is curious because health care workers typically wear masks in cases involving respiratory infections and always do in surgery.
There was a question, given what they knew at the time, whether ordinary masks provided either the wearer or contacts any protection. Turns out, they do.
N95 masks, which filter 95 percent of virus, were in short supply and were set aside for health care workers.
The weather was relatively warm for that time of year. The UVMMC presser was held outside and people wore jackets, not coats.
The ski season was having a great March and expectations were high that it might boast a record year, or at least over 4 million skier visits, which is the gold standard; 4.5 million would be platinum.
But the governor invoked a State of Emergency on March 13 and by St Patrick’s Day lunch, he had ordered restaurants and bars closed.
On March 24 he issued his Stay Home, Stay Safe order that sent everyone but essential workers home. Many have stayed there.
A slog of a spring ensued. Schools would be out for months. The streets were quiet, too quiet.
The ski areas lost their profit margins. Restaurants and bars put chairs on tables. In some cases, those chairs never came back down. Or were taken down and are now back up.
After a month of political haggling Congress came through with an aggressive recovery package of $2.1 trillion. Even then we believed it to be about a trillion short, but still a solid package.
Vermont got a whopping $1.25 billion. It saved jobs and businesses.
The initial unemployment here and across the nation was the worst since the Great Depression.
And while Vermont’s unemployment rate for October is down to a head-scratching 3.2 percent (just a tenth worse than pre-pandemic, and down from 15.6 percent in April), the real unemployment rate is considered to be more like 8 percent as many who used to work have disappeared from the official Labor Force.
Near the beginning of the pandemic we soon learned that social distancing and mask wearing, staying home if sick and “washing your hands like crazy” not only were preached from the governor’s pulpit, but were effective. Chapped hands ensued. COVID numbers fell.
A lanky doctor named Mark Levine, who happened to be the state Health Commissioner, became a rock star.
As the governor reopened the economy in late spring, certain industries like construction and manufacturing bounced back.
Hospitality, however, did not and has not and is not expected to anytime soon, or at least until after there is a vaccine.
Even in the early days, Dr Levine told us that there were good indications that a vaccine could be developed and relatively quickly, even though there has never been one for any coronavirus. Its structure and lack of mutation indicated as much. (Vaccines are being developed at a record rate and are expected to be cranked out and start arriving in Vermont later this week.)
Dr Levine warned of a possible second wave in the fall and fretted about “letting our guard down.”
But as a nation we did. The ramifications of that are nearly 300,000 dead from over 15 million cases.
In Vermont we can’t travel in or out without quarantining. A “twindemic” of flu plus COVID is possible, but even Dr Levine believes that is unlikely now if we follow health guidelines.
As the General Election approached in early November, the COVID numbers everywhere climbed, including in Vermont.
Political and health tension was high. Former Vice President Joe Biden, whom almost no one would have guessed a year ago, was elected president.
But the economic damage still lurks just as the coronavirus does. The red-hot construction season has cooled off with the weather, but the ski season will not fully be able to pick up the slack the way it usually does.
A second stimulus package will come from Congress. But without the stick of a looming election, there is concern that the US Senate will not step up to the plate and hit another CARES-like homer.
But they will do something. It will be impactful. Whatever the economy looks like by next summer, it will not look like last summer and it won’t look like the summer before that.
Some of those chairs will still be on top of those same tables. It will be a new economy with, yes, new opportunities.
Between now and then, stay safe, wear a mask, wash your hands like crazy.
Timothy McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine