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Unless a vaccine or viable treatment options are found, social distancing in some form due to Covid19 could continue into the year 2022. Americans need to recognize the reality that their lives have dramatically changed in the short term, and will never be the same even when the planet comes to grips with covid19.
In the coming months it’s wise to pay attention to the forces shaping the coming months and perhaps years of our lives. It will be necessary to face the reality that the world we knew prior to covid19 will be undeniably different after covid19.
Here are some things to be aware of right now to help develop your personal strategy to best weather these proverbial “gathering storms”.
Migrant workers who pick the majority of the produce in the country are being run out of the country. Those who manage to remain in the country are subject to working conditions that will make them a population particularly susceptible to covid19 infection. Whether by deportation or numbers reduced by illness, the shortage of workers to pick and process the nation’s produce will likely reduce the availability of produce. This could also drive prices upwards at the worst possible time for the unemployed and food insecure.
We see now that a meat processing plant in South Dakota has the largest single cluster of COVID19 cases in the country. That plant has closed down. Conditions at meat processing plants in other states appear to be driving COVID19 infections as well. Without competent leadership and management, more plants across the country like those for chicken, beef and other meat products could result in more processing plant shutdowns. At the very least, reduced production and slowdowns could result in far less product available then in normal times.
To the two concerns already listed, add the massive unemployment of the coming months and perhaps years. With many Americans unemployed a fairly dramatic shrinking of the American economy is likely. An incompetent administration too eager to put the economy before public health could make any economic downturn much worse. Such incompetence would cost the nation dearly in both “lives and treasure”.
We hope for new leadership in January of 2021, but as I write this, that still leaves the Drumpf administration 9 months to make an already bad situation worse. Given that, a potential Biden / Warren administration will face a Republican-caused disaster even worse than the one faced by President Obama. Not only will the new administration be faced with an economic disaster from which to recover, but they will be facing a public health disaster as well.
Faced with just these few facts it is clear that anyone who can, must be planning to establish as much control as possible over their food, water, energy, housing, internet and health. It is foolish at this late date, given the track record of the current administration to rely on what this current administration can, or even will do to help Americans through this crisis.
