Before Virus Outbreak, a Cascade of Warnings Went Unheeded

As more and more news and statistics comes out about all the widespread effects of Covid-19, there is also more news coming out about where it comes from and what was done to prepare for it. This article points out that reports are showing that the US should have been much more prepared than what they were/currently are for a pandemic like this. They had done previous studies that described this exact scenario that is playing out and the administration did not do much, if anything, to stop it. With the quarantines already in effect, the economy has come to a grinding halt with consumption already plummeting, but with these kind of reports coming out, there will be another chunk taken out of peoples confidence in the economy and will cause consumption to take longer to recover. This is not a good look for the future and will hopefully be counteracted by some kind of policy to do that. What kind of policy could be put out in order for this trend to be controlled? Also, what other kinds of things should companies be doing that could assist the governments relief?

How COVID-19 is Interrupting Children's Education

This Economist article tackles the issue of school closings as a result of the coronavirus, or COVID-19. Nearly 1 billion students in the world have had schooling interrupted to some extent by the virus spreading across the globe. At the time of publish, over 100 countries have closed or partially closed their schools.

It remains to be seen if these measures will slow the spread of the virus. Countries like China and Italy have already lost thousands of lives from the pandemic, and many other countries are still at least a week behind those in the growth of their infection rate. Either way, the virus forcing governments to close down schools is maybe the better of two bad options (that and keeping them open for education purposes but risking the viral infection).

A scary statistic from a 2009 study to consider is that if schools are closed for a month, between 6% and 19% of key healthcare workers will have to stay at home to take care of their children. There are other externalities to consider from closing schools other than the obvious effect of moving to online courses.

The courses themselves are not necessarily the problem; online education has tons of potential, especially as a way to educate those in poorer areas with a lack of quality schooling (or any schooling at all). However, the middle of a pandemic is one of the worst places for the ramping up of such programming to occur. We will see if K-12 and higher education are able to handle this very tall task.

https://www.economist.com/international/2020/03/19/how-covid-19-is-interrupting-childrens-education