Important Correction Note- 28/May/2020:  “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines warning that antibody test results can have high false-positive rates and should not be used to make decisions about returning people to work, schools, dorms or other places where people congregate”. Given the CDC’s last advice, it is clear for Eleonora Escalante Strategy that serological testing can´t be used when it comes to planning for economic-educational recovery. Please take notice. Serological testing can´t be used because it is inaccurate, and I am correcting all my episodes related to Coronavirus testing accordingly.

Today’s post is about some initial thoughts that have crossed my mind when it comes to a Coronavirus economic recovery.  Please take this material as my primary personal advice which needs the consent and approval of your own health authorities and sanitary experts.

” A Hungry Panda” an aquarelle from the collection Baby Animals. Size: 7 inches x 5 Inches. Handmade with love on Fabriano 5 Paper 210 GSM. If you wish to buy it click https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/eleonora-escalante

Wonder Woman Strategy. As I have already written several times, the lockdown strategy has been a temporary strategy to understand “this corona thing” and try to find a solution to it. Since January 2020, each society has chosen different strategies to contain the contagion and keep their populations safe.  The economic lockdown or stay at home confinement was the initial beat to keep ourselves secure in the middle of uncertain stuff that no one was prepared for. The rest of the mechanisms used (with or without disruptive tech) are close adjacencies to the “stay at home” confinement.  The object of these measures have been:

1. To kill the virus (as cleaning our surroundings and sanitizing ourselves a lot with sterilization supplies like bleach, alcohol gel, soap water, disinfectants, Lysol, etc)
2. To set up barriers against the virus (as using masks, protective gear, face shields, etc)
3. To identify those who are sick from those who are not (testing either with PCR or serological tests)
4. To isolate the sick carrier with the purpose to stop the spread of the virus to other people.
5. To prepare the existing health infrastructure and hospitals for a massive amount of patients.  The hospitals and health facilities capacity is supposed to heal those who are sick, but in many countries, including the most developed ones, this COVID19 quick transmission of this virus has forced state and federal governments to use the lockdown strategy, as a way to decrease the amount of infected in the hospitals,  to keep the number of deaths to a minimum.

If the New Coronavirus or Covid19 disease were not so viral as it is, we wouldn´t worry at all. It is the nature of the pandemic that has triggered the current global issue. Now imagine what would be to live with biological air weapons in a world of war… I wish I could be the Marvel wonder woman to fight against the Nazis’ Ares plans, but I am not. So better to avoid it. Don´t you think so?

Public Safety measures have a cost. Our economies have been paralyzed, and many have lost their jobs, or have been forced to work from home (WFH) as a new normal condition. This saga´s intention is to show you some publications about how to recover not just economically from this virus,  but at an integral level, considering all the applicable contexts. Economically, at least I will try to start today. I will provide my own views about how to start our production possibilities. Even with the risk of the pandemic at our door.

Starting all over again.  In order for an economy to kick-off there must be two conditions:

1. Citizens who need and want products and services and can pay for them (demand)
2. Companies who offer and provide those products and services and can produce them (supply)

Both conditions have to exist to rebuild any type of economy, commerce, or trading. What do we need to do to re-establish the demand? What to do to ignite the supply of products and services again? What do business owners have to do to produce despite the virus? What do consumers have to do despite the virus? Let me say that this is a global effort. It is not a national one. The way our economies were before the virus had a huge global integration, in consequence, supply and demand value chains can´t be rehabilitated without a national-regional and global perspective. The more globalized an economy, the more difficult will be to obtain a coronavirus-free stamp of approval at the moment. That is why I proposed a dome economic temporary strategy for some time, at least meanwhile we try to control the propagation of the virus from external sources, and we win time for the vaccine to come up to our nations.

Some reflections about how to start economically again.

Put priorities in order. Each individual or leader household or state leader has the duty to sit down and organize its needs and wants in several categories. There are going to be categories that are simply indispensable or essential. And there will be others which at the moment are nonessential for survival or categories that will become a luxury. Therefore, the first necessities that a human being requires to fulfill are: feeding themselves (food is the top number one call); protecting themselves under a shelter (pay the rental or the mortgage bill); accessing to health providers and medicines if someone has other sicknesses than the pandemic; and finally keeping the primary services flowing (pay electricity, pay water, pay waste-collection, and cover communication expenses). At the moment the priority is to cover the physiological and safety needs.

Maslow´s pyramid of needs.

Any, but any other activity that is not included in food, shelter, primary health and basic essential services, are simply non-essential. And we all (from the poorest of the poor to the highest of the rich) must digest and understand these essential priorities by heart. Why? because those individuals who have an excess of the money flows will have enough wealth to help those who don´t. There are some of us that have an excess of cash in their pockets. These don´t need to show up to work. But there are others, like me, who depend on a day by day income that comes from our business endeavors.  This inequality (the gap between the rich and the poor) has increased by at least 20% in the last quarter and will augment more by the end of the year, causing social discontent and future conflicts if we do nothing about it.

Source: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/10/wealth-household-economie/

Keep our sources of income. People survive economically in different ways: the most basic form is the wage-model, or those who receive hourly, daily, or monthly injections of cash in return for the work provided. At the moment (and depending on the society) many employees have lost their jobs or are on risk to succumb their job duties. Just in the United States, up to last week, more than 30 million inhabitants have filed jobless claims in the last 45 days. Probably by today, around 25% of the economic American active workforce don´t have a job anymore.

For those people who are entrepreneurs, the situation becomes pessimistic. Each of us is fit by its own industry pains. In consequence, those of us who belong to industries where social contact is part of the experience (services industries as traveling, food-drink restaurants, traditional retail, leisure and massive events) of course have reduced their sources of income to null. But the warning doesn´t finish there. Even for those who believe that by using the online economy to offer their goods, they will get pay checks immediately, they are wrong.  Even with your website running and operating beautifully, with all your stocks ready to go,  if there is no demand for your product, then your model is not going to function. There are certain things that we sell which are considered non-essential or non-priority in times of crisis, and that is the big issue here. Who will buy our internet pretty offer? And if your cash inflows depend on clients who also lost their employments, then, of course, your cash inflow has failed.

Many companies, even the most tech profitable ones, have reduced their sources of income because of the lockdown economic paralysis, and I insist, the same Internet won´t be there to save us. When the jobless will start to choose between supplying aliments to their families or paying the Internet invoice? On such a selection, no internet business can thrive.

A potential solution to avoid a global inequality crisis: Solidarity. It occurs to me a government bailout through non-reimbursable philanthropic cash injections from the rich. Jobless, entrepreneurs without money, and the informal workers will need “AT LEAST” food capital injection to don´t perish of famine. In El Salvador, the basic food alimony is around 200 dollars per month per family of 3.7 members. For example,  a high net worth businessman from Western or Eastern Europe decides to provide US$1 billion (1,000 million USD) as a donation to El Salvador’s economic recovery. And this rich man decides to gift it for the food security of the Salvadoran population post-coronavirus recovery. El Salvador has 6,5 million inhabitants. So this rich man will provide food for around 1.8 million Salvadoran families. With one thousand million dollars, this man donation will cover three months of an alimony quota of 120 dollars for 1.8 million Salvadoran families (regardless if these families are poor or middle class or high-end). With that gift, he will feed 6.5 million people. This example can show you the impact of solidarity. Maybe other rich global individuals decide to help the issues of freezing rentals.  To freeze rents and mortgages payments are highly recommended (at least during the next 6 months), meanwhile, people find a new job or are rehired again. Those who live from rental flows from tenants must convene with the government to find financial structuring that can keep them afloat.

Even though EL Salvador canasta básica has reached 200 dollars a month, just to receive $120/month dollars alimony will help to reduce the famine in my country. https://diario.elmundo.sv/la-canasta-basica-siguio-arriba-de-los-200-en-abril/

Sort out the virus as much as we can. Meanwhile, we get help from donors to keep people eating and paying the rent, we need to start to find a job or become entrepreneurs, or find a decent adequate solution to our lack of income. It is going to be a huge risk to re-start our economic activities in the middle of a pandemic, but we have to do it. Gradually, petit a petit, step by step, and with protection. We need to protect ourselves to the maximum we can. The same premises that we drafted for the education sector are key success factors to sort out the virus in any company, manufacturing plant, mall, services, food, and drink facilities, construction, leisure, whatever we do.

1. Testing in each work center is a must. Every CEO has to provide the resources to the company to be equipped with PCR or serological tests to his or her employees. And testing has to be done properly and in a well-organized manner with a regular frequency. Look it this way, it is a duty of the CEO to keep his-her employees community coronavirus free.  Don´t confuse diagnosis testing by taking the temperature. To take the temperature (daily at the entrance) is one thing, but testing has to be done at a frequency rate recommended by the health experts. It can be each week or every 14 days. The frequency of testing depends on the type of business and its population density. As soon as one member of the crew is infected, he has to be sent to quarantine under the protocols established by the health authorities.
   

   Certain industries to survive will need to invest in compulsory testing. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/compulsory-coronavirus-test-could-get-travellers-back-in-the-air-sh37fvbnz

   Important Correction Note- 28/May/2020:  “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines warning that antibody test results can have high false-positive rates and should not be used to make decisions about returning people to work, schools, dorms or other places where people congregate”. Given the CDC’s last advice, it is clear for Eleonora Escalante Strategy that my suggestion scheme to start school is not feasible with serological testing. Please take notice. Serological testing can´t be used for the purposes of this article, and I am correcting this chapter accordingly.

2. Doing hygiene homework. Each manager has to hire a sanitary squad team who will be in charge of cleaning the facilities with specific supplies that kill the virus, constantly. Bathrooms, cafeterias, hallways, offices, have to be sanitized constantly, several times per day. At an individual level, each employee as soon as he or she returns home has to disinfect shoes, leave them out of home, take a shower immediately, wash their clothes, and sanitize their purses, phone, and everything that has been touched. This tip is to help to kill the virus.
3. Social Distancing. Even in reduced space offices or markets, the social distance has to be the norm between workforce communities and clients. The recommended distance between people is 2 meters, but that may not happen in reality. Whatever the case, at least close contact has to be avoided (no hugs, no cheek kisses, no hand salutations, no touching others). Don´t touch own eyes, mouth, and nose, please.
4. Using protecting gear: Each employee has to use a mask,  protection lenses, and a facial shield (if possible). The usage of alcohol gel has to become an hour by hour routine. People have to get used to washing hands constantly. Employers are obliged to incur the costs of masks and face shields as if it is part of the uniform of each of its employees.
   

   Using face shields at work https://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2020/03/22/how-a-private-new-jersey-factory-is-pivoting-its-business-to-manufacture-essential-face-shields/

5. Setting up an Emergency Clinic: Each big corporation is obliged to hire at least a COVID19 competent nurse or doctor on a temporary recovery beginning. Companies with more employees must hire more health personnel. If possible there must be one ventilator or more (this data has to be confirmed by the health authorities about how many ventilators are required by each density specific population in that specific company) and specific bed space to care for any emergency. In the case of small and medium enterprises, they have to organize themselves by zone areas (a group of streets and avenues) that must have one bed with a ventilator and a handy doctor to call at least. An emergency plan on how to respond for each eventuality and the respective health protocols, in different phases, to help those who will need immediate attention.
6. Scheduling journées at different entrance-exit hours: To comply with social distancing will stimulate thoughtful innovation in relation to work schedules. Each CEO has to sit down and lead its managerial team to establish the best schedule system to work well for his or her company. It may happen that people will work Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for 8 hours. Or it may be that people will be segmented and divided to work only 4 hours a day, a group in the morning another group in the afternoon. Or it may be that given the nature of the work, employees will be able to show up only one time per week, and do the rest of their activities at home under the WFH modality. In the case of manufacturing plants, nocturnal journées must be welcome and well thought, so one group of employees will be able to work during the day, meanwhile another one at night. In the case of food and drink and recreation businesses, your locations have to be adjusted to keep social distancing and operate. The purpose of scheduling different journées has a reason: to keep the recommended density population that keeps the company safe at all times. In the case of companies that receive clients or consumers, all these rules apply too.
   

   A glass outdoor restaurant in Europe. Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/amsterdam-greenhouse-social-distancing-coronavirus-mediamatic-eten-a9513821.html

7. Establishing Temporary Cubicles in open spaces (made with crystal transparent material or sheet-rock structures) may help. I have seen the use of transparent plastic curtains to isolate used to draw a boundary wall between the client and the clerk.
8. Avoiding crunching people situations: These situations are usually at the entrance of the facilities, elevators, stairs, cafeterias, hallways,, bathrooms, and meeting rooms. People will need schedules to grab their coffee or food at the cafeteria, temporary water-coffee dispensers must be provided in different office areas, or each one has to fill its coffee thermos at different hours. Businesses that operate under the premise of massive amounts of people (auditoriums, churches, stadiums, etc) have to wait or run with less density population, the one recommended by the health authorities.
9. Transporting employees safely: Every employee has the duty to take measures of social distancing and cleaning or protecting themselves when using collective buses or taxis or the metro. Buses and transportation proprietors must sanitize after each ride or route ride is completed. It is desirable for the private sector to establish different work schedules to avoid the congestion of people on the bus, train, tram stops.  When possible, employers may provide their own transportation mediums to employees (pay for UBER, Lyft, or taxi rides).
   

   How poorer countries are scrambling to prevent a coronavirus disaster Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00983-9

Prepare your people for the best and for the worst scenario. Ideally, if the seclusion period at home was done well during the lockdown period, we were taught that the virus spread could stop, or at least we passed the worst of the storm (high peak cases) at home. If each and all households stayed at home, it was believed that after no exposure to the infected surfaces and sick carriers during 40 days, the virus should have disappeared in our environment. This means that if we did the quarantine perfectly and we did our homework perfectly, we deserve an A+ or a 100/100. But each society knows their own errors, and we are living the consequences of the transgression to the quarantine. That´s why I was keen to remember you to stay at home since my previous saga. In addition, we all know that health workers, delivery crews, and “essential employees” have continued to operate without stopping. So in reality, we have to assume that the virus is still alive, is around us and each of us can be an asymptomatic carrier particularly if we have not been tested properly So, our mental frame has to accept that inevitably if we start to operate again, we may get infected either by mistake or by chance. Even if all these measures are adopted by employers and employees, we hope that our immune systems may deal with it and we can build the inner strengthful defense for this virus to vanish.

I also recommend to don´t start the education sector (schools and universities) at the same time as our economic activities. Let´s find out how to deal with the virus at an adult productive economic level. The school can wait for a few months if there is not online instruction, students can follow their study guides at home. If students lose the whole year but remain alive! that is awesome. Nevertheless, the job paycheck from parents can´t wait, otherwise, students will not die because of the virus, but because of future starvation.

To be continued…

Disclaimer: Illustrations in Watercolor are painted by Eleonora Escalante. Other types of illustrations or videos (which are not mine) are used for educational purposes ONLY.  Nevertheless, the majority of the pictures, images, or videos shown on this blog are not mine.  I do not own any of the lovely photos or images posted unless otherwise stated.

Published by eleonoraescalantestrategy

Corporate Strategy Artist, San Salvador, El Salvador View all posts by eleonoraescalantestrategy