This graph is a report card on the effectiveness of our social distancing measures. The flatter the line, the better we’re doing. Canada is doing better at slowing the spread than the US, Spain and Italy. Even so we’re still on pace to double infections every three days.
Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and Korea are doing the best. They have also managed to control this outbreak while minimizing economic disruption, but they have had experience with similar outbreaks (SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2018) and have learned from them. The rest of the world is learning on the fly.
A problem made for us.
The Covid-19 pandemic is a crisis tailor made for our vulnerabilities:
Increased political polarization means we are out of practice for reaching consensus and compromise.
Just-in-time supply chains are highly efficient, but the tradeoff is a lack of redundancy and storage.
A decade of low interest rates means most of us have plenty of debt and not a lot of savings to carry us over rough patches.
The fractured media landscape means we each get our news from different sources.
Global interconnectedness allowed this disease to threaten the world in two months.
Modern democratic societies are built on freedom and prioritize individual rights. This makes it harder to get everyone to follow health guidelines.
Doctors have given us the advice to fight this, but doctors can’t win this fight alone. Hoarders have taken the advice too seriously. Those ignoring social distancing aren’t taking it seriously enough. We need a unified purpose to succeed.
How long will this last?
The challenging aspect of this situation is that we don’t know how long it will last. A vaccine may take 12-18 months. The global economy is turning its power to this problem. Our best and brightest minds are working on this problem. I would bet it’s solved sooner than expected. But we must also prepare for the possibility of longer disruption.
Currently, we don’t expect Covid-19 infections to peak for another 8 weeks. The social and economic costs of social distancing are already apparent—not even two weeks since Alberta declared a public health emergency.
How can we keep this community together and following health guidelines under this stress for that long?
If we don’t follow Alberta Health guidelines, provincial and federal governments will impose harsher and harsher measures. India has now decided it’s simpler to order everyone to stay home for 21 days. Imagine trying to enforce this for 1.3 billion people. If we could do the same here it would break the transmission chain, but many of us don’t have the money to not work for weeks.
Government help
The health crisis has yet to hit us. In the meantime financial stress is the biggest problem facing many of us. Handling the effects of this situation if you’re financially secure is one thing. If you’re stressed about money, it becomes much harder to handle.
Many residents and businesses are experiencing economic losses from the sudden slowdown. PM Trudeau and Premier Kenney have promised help, but there are more and more news stories about how provincial and federal government supports are inadequate to the scale of the problem.
Across Canada 900,000 newly unemployed people have applied for employment insurance. That’s up from 25,000 this time last year. (Nevermind how long it’s going to take to process this spike in applications.)
Government supports are designed to help people, but also minimize fraud. Hence it usually involves convincing some bureaucrat that you are deserving of help. Even for those eligible, EI only covers up to 55% of your earnings to a maximum of $573 per week. Still a big economic shock. Deferring tax payments until Aug 31 and filing until June 15 has helped.
We can’t rely on provincial and federal governments alone. Municipal governments must also help.
What can city council do?
City council has convened a special council meeting for March 27. We have a number of tools to cushion the blow of this situation, but there are plenty of questions I don’t yet have answers to. I understand our community wants quick action, but local government does not have the deep pockets of provincial and federal governments. So we have to be more careful in how we help. The immediate short term money crunch has been avoided by utility and tax deferral. That keeps as much money as we can in people’s pockets for now—until council can decide on a direction.
City staff spent last week ensuring the continuity of essential services. This week they have been studying the financial impact of Covid-19 to city operations. That information will help council understand our options. I have many questions and no shortage of ideas I’ve heard from the community.
How many local businesses and residents are struggling? People have been negatively affected to different degrees.
Deferring the collection of property taxes makes sense. But can the city reasonably expect to collect the same taxes at a later date? The Medicine Hat Ratepayers Association has asked for a 0% increase this year, down from the scheduled 3.5% increase. Should any tax decrease be proportional to the economic impact of Covid -19? How would we determine what the local impact has been?
Premier Kenney has deferred utility disconnections for 90 days, but that only pushes back a larger bill. It’s not clear why those in need would have any more money in 90 days than they do now. We’ll have to look at utility forgiveness to some degree. A flat subsidy is one option, but not everyone needs assistance. Considering the high cost of utility forgiveness ideally assistance should be better targeted. We will need those who can pay to still pay. I would support a ‘Pay-what-you-can’ policy for March fees. It would quickly help businesses and residents alike. This option might exempt large industries or have a ceiling amount we can forgive an individual business/resident. It would be a direct economic stimulus to the local community. Directed to those who need it, with minimal government red tape because it relies on trust. Some level of fraud will always be expected, those abusing a system, but if it accomplishes it’s primary aim it might be an acceptable tradeoff.
Reducing utility rates would be another option.
The Natural Gas and Petroleum Resources Department was already projected to lose $33 million in 2020. Considering that oil prices have fallen even further it’s likely that NGPR losses will be even greater.
GenCo, our electric generation division, may also see less demand as the economy slows.
We know that Covid-19 is a temporary storm. But with so many city facilities shuttered, what do we do with those staff in the meantime?
This pandemic has affected everyone. We’re all concerned about vulnerable members of our family and community. But this pandemic has not affected everyone equally financially. We can find creative ways to share the pain and get through this together.