4-5-20 to 4-18-20 - A ray of hope on the Coronavirus horizon?

During the past 2 weeks, worldwide Coronavirus reported cases have gone from 1.1 million to 2.3 million with 155 thousand deaths as of April 18th.  Things have gotten really bad in the United States with reported cases going from 313K to 710K with 37K deaths.  The United States has over 30% of the worldwide cases and almost 4 times as many cases as the next nearest country which is Spain with 190K.  All the flaws in the data and lack of testing notwithstanding, it is abundantly clear that things are boding well for the red-white-and-blue.    

These types of numbers serve to re-enforce our decision to not return to the US back on March 15th. But as bad as things seem, might there be a ray of hope on the Coronavirus horizon? The US has lowered the expected deaths from 240K to 100K to 60K.  Social distancing and home quarantines are starting to produce results in the flattening the curve at least in several US states.  New York’s Governor Cuomo said he believes “New York may have reached its peak and the worst is over.”

The Dow Jones has gone from a low of 18,591 on March 23 to 24,242 on April 17th as the market seems optimistic that things are not going to be as bad as feared a month ago.  Leanne received a text of a screenshot of CNBC which had a box on the bottom of the screening saying that 17 million people have lost their jobs while the main box touted that the stock market had its best week since the Great Depression.  Yes the irony is not lost there. 

Around the world, Queen Elizabeth gave an impassioned speech right before it was announced that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was hospitalized and then moved to intensive care as deaths in the UK continued to escalate and restrictions were extended for 3 more weeks. 

The Chinese released revised data showing a ~40% increase in deaths further calling into question the accuracy of China’s coronavirus data. In a bold move, Trump withholds U.S. portion of WHO funding, which represent 15% of its overall budget,  criticizing the global public health organization for defending China’s handling of the pandemic. 

In Singapore, use of Zoom for online education was suspended after hackers hijacked a lesson and showed obscene images to students.  As if things we’re stressful enough, now we have idiots trying to pollute our youth. 

Russia expresses concern as they experience spikes in Moscow hospitalizations.  The increase in cases pushes Moscow’s healthcare system to its limit well before the expected peak. Does this make Russia less likely of a suspect in the “Russians are behind it” conspiracy theory?

So the US and the rest of the world have shifted from trying to answer questions such as what sort of restrictions do we put in place to questions about when can we lift the restrictions. 

Trump unveiled guidelines on April 16th for re-opening America but left it to the Governors to make the decision.  Yes, clearly a case of Trump saying, “if we open up too early and this thing goes south again, it’s sure as hell not my fault.”  Trump seems to have an issue with Dr. Anthony Fauci’s newfound fame as the infectious disease head has risen in stature getting much better press treatment than his orange hairdo ever gets.

With the new guidelines, officials in Florida announced a soft opening allowing for recreational activities for several hours a day which sent scores of residents flocking to the Jacksonville beaches and sent health care experts into conniption fits. 

California has a shelter at home order until May 4th.  Governor Newsom said the possibility of mass gatherings likes concerts or sporting events was “negligible at best” until a vaccine was widely available.  The news was not welcome by Kyle who said, “what??? No Taylor Swift concerts or Lakers games???”

Meanwhile Los Angeles Country which accounts for 11.4K or ~40% of California’s 27.5K reported cases while only accounting for 25% of the population has a more issued their stay-at-home order through May 15th.  Even worse, Los Angeles Country health officials warned that the stay-at-home restrictions could remain into the summer. 

While lightening up restrictions for exercise, Antigua continues to get stricter in other arenas of their lockdown.  We are now in week 3 of the 24 hour curfew lockdown.  Yesterday, the Prime Minister took it one step further and saying that residents who need to be quarantined on the suspicion that they might have come into contact with an infected person will no longer be able to quarantine in the luxury of their own homes. Instead, they will spend a minimum of 14 days in a government controlled facility.

There are only 23 cases so far (subject to data flaws due to lack of testing) but the Prime Minister continues to be steaming mad due to the fact residents have not been “vigorously” adhering to home quarantine rules and the police have already arrested over 70 people for violating curfew.

We contemplate our stay here in Antigua as we look over the beautiful blue sea, the stream of tropical birds, and the white and gray clouds that are our new daily companions.  With no commercial flights in or out of Antigua, we don’t have an easy option off the island certainly in the short-term.  Next, the US has to be a safe place to return as well.  We are watching the re-open from afar closely listening to every source we can, so we can craft our exit plan.     

The Coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on students and the educational system.  Students have given up hope of a return to the classroom before the end of the school year as most schools have already stated this won’t happen. High school seniors are going to miss their prom and graduation.  College students have returned home and college seniors are missing their senior spring.

Even worse, the focus is now shifting to whether schools will be open come September and the start of the next school year.  Leanne read an article that 4 out of 10 high school seniors who were planning on attending a 4 year college full-time in the fall are no longer planning to do so. 

For some, parents are adversely financially impacted and can no longer afford it.  Media articles predicting our economic fate worse than the Great Depression don’t help matters much either.  For international students, it is the fear having to travel to the US and then back home if the outbreak re-emerges. For some students, they don’t want to start their college experience at home in a virtual learning environment if it is still that way. 

For those no longer planning to attend, they are considering either taking a gap year, enrolling in a community college or going to school part-time.  The message is clear that the Coronavirus is wreaking havoc on high school seniors.

From this perspective, John taking a gap year actually wasn’t such a bad thing as he would had been a senior if we hadn’t done the trip.  Not that it is stress free as the March, May and June SAT’s have been cancelled and John was still planning on taking it one more time.  The College Board tells us that if they can’t administer the SATs in testing centers by September, they will implement at test at home option.  John’s plans to study and perform in Europe this summer are also kabosh, thank you COVID-19.  

Disappointment accompanies the uncertainty.  The kids ask us if the school are will still be virtual come August and we respond that we don’t know.  They ask us if this is the case, will we still be in Antigua in August and we respond hopefully not but who knows.  They ask us if sports will start and if the beach at home will be open, we don’t know that either.   As adults, you at least pretend to have all the answers to your kids’ questions most of the time.  Here we just cannot.  And that will just have be OK for now.  Uncertainty continues to be the only consistent thing we have over the last 12 months.  

Yes, the million dollar question is when will things return to normal?  Only time will tell us the answer.