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COVID-19 Pandemic Perspectives India (Tushya Mehta) The perspective that this page is exploring is the perspective of the largest democracy of the world- India. It is also the second-most populous country in the world and so understanding how the nation is dealing with this crisis is crucial. The country is another giant like China where things could go very wrong and according to WHO may direct the future of this pandemic. I am exploring what the citizens are feeling and how they are responding to the pandemic. I have studied the Prime Minister’s speech on the nationwide lockdown to understand the action being taken., I used media/journalistic sources from TIME and NewYorker to see how the governments decisions are impacting the people. Using previous Public health studies I tried to understand why the decisions being taker are necessary and how prepared India actually is?

Small Business Owners & Employees (Kaleigh Rios)

Fact-Checked Source: "Small Businesses Call for More Help During COVID-19 Crisis" by CBC News.

A CBC News interview conducted with two small business owners about the devastating impacts the COVID-19 shutdown has had on their employees, their personal livelihood, and their companies from a broader financial standpoint.

In order to better understand the concerns of these small business owners and to verify claims made throughout the interview regarding the actions of the federal government, I did research to fact check these statements.

Five Fact Checked Claims

Last week the Feds announced that they were boosting their planned wage subsidy from 10% to up to 75%. It will apply to all businesses big and small.

Justin Trudeau did in fact increase the wage subsidy and also relaxed the parameters to qualify according to CTV News.

Part of this announcement from the Federal government where help for businesses is concerned was a $40,000 loan made available through the Business Development Bank, through banks as well. Interest for the first year and then a quarter of it-up to a quarter of it-can be forgiven.

I thought this was important to fact check because at the time of this interview this loan program had not yet been released. I was able to find through Business Development of Canada's website that this loan program can now in fact be acessed through a Canada Emergency Business Account.

This is already a narrow margin business and to just the answer to be take on more debt, keep paying your bills, but take on more debt. I don't see how that's helpful at all.

This quote coming from the the owner of a small resurant in Toronto claimed that this loan program would not advantageous for a good portion of small businesses. According to CBC News, the requirements of the loan program make it very difficult to qualify for it, and many businesses would not be able to financially handle accumulating such a large amount of debt.

There needs to be some support here. Leaving it up to the good graces of- you know banks, or your landlords is not gonna work, you know, we're particularly vunerable.

Small businesses in fact are more financially vunerable than businesses in the corporate sector according to FXStreet. Small businesses have greater difficulty paying back loans due to their typically small profit margins and sensitivity to growing interest rates.

The mall that we're in I think about three quarters of the businesses are forced to be closed now.

According to the Financial Post, all non-essential businesses were in fact forced to shut down. Only grocery stores, pharmacies, and the supply chains needed to support those stores were allowed to stay open.

Analytic Essay

Leaving the Vunerable Behind: The COVID-19 Crisis from the Perspective of Small Business Owners

The perspective conveyed in this source is a group of medical researchers concerned with pandemic preparedness of small businesses. The lead author of this source, Deron Burton, is a medical officer with the US Public Health Service. He is also a medical epidemiologist and the head of operations in Western Kenya. He has a medical degree and a master of public health from John Hopkins University, and a law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. After the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, Burton feared that many small businesses did not use effective practices that would lower the inevitable negative impacts a pandemic would have on their business financially, their employees, and their community overall. Even in places like New York City, this research team recognized that small businesses are the backbone of the economy. If these places were to be driven out of business due to a pandemic, this would have a domino effect and result in detrimental economic consequences to New York City as a whole.

The researchers talked to many small business owners and employees to perform a careful analysis of practices they implemented prior to the H1N1 pandemic in 2009 that they believed helped to lower the potential negative effects that they may have faced otherwise. These were then shared with other small businesses and rated on a spectrum from small-large in helpfulness. The researchers conducted this study in order to gain valuable data on the best practices to prevent severe financial consequences on small businesses that can quickly lead them to a forced closing. Their intention is that this information given in their scientific paper will be shared with small businesses across the world, especially those in highly populated cities such as NYC, in hopes that when another pandemic hits these businesses will be better equipped to deal with it.

These researchers are definitely qualified to be conducting this study because of their academic backgrounds that allow them to understand pandemics from both a medical and business standpoint. It is important to include this perspective to emphasize the economic importance of small businesses even in places like New York City where they seem to be undermined by much larger corporations. It is ironic that this paper was written in 2011 and that they discussed how they were grateful and therefore optimistic that they got to talk to these business owners and give them a wake-up call of sorts to how they need to be readily prepared for a greater pandemic. The H1N1 pandemic in 2009 was very mild compared to the COVID-19 pandemic we are currently facing in 2020. Maybe the specific businesses that were involved in the study will survive because of the new practices they adopted, but it is most likely that the vast majority of small businesses throughout the world did not have a clear set strategy on how to deal with a pandemic and are going through extreme financial struggle as a result and or have been forced to close. It is essential that all small businesses take away the important lesson of having a pandemic preparation plan moving forward.

References

CBC News. (2020, April 2). Small businesses call for more help amid COVID-19 crisis | Power & Politics [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV4jiZeD-Uk

This is a primary source coming from an interview by CBC News with two small business owners from Canada discussing the devastating impacts the COVID-19 shutdown has had on their companies. This source represents the perspective of small business owners because the news anchor is directly asking about the thoughts these two men have on the recent federal action that has been taken in an effort to support their companies. The main argument being portrayed in this source is the disappointment these owners are expressing for the lack of helpful federal programs during the pandemic, and how they are still desperately waiting on some well thought out government intervention. The owner of one of the restaurants had already offered takeout and delivery previously and described that although this was still a difficult transition for him, it wasn’t as strenuous as it had been for other small business owners. The restaurant that had not yet offered take out and delivery was struggling to pay rent. I think including this source provided a good piece of evidence because it is very emotionally driven and really captivated the audience. Sometimes it is easier to just think about the pure logistics of the current situation and forget that small business owners and employees dedicate their entire livelihood to these companies. My hope is that if more people watch this interview they can begin to see why these owners are so incredibly desperate for the Feds to take some more action.

Stangler, D. (2020, March). How Do We Help Small Business During COVID-19 Crisis? Forbes, 10-13. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/danestangler/2020/03/17/how-do-we-help-small-business-during-covid-19-crisis/#2527cca81b7d

This is a secondary source coming from a journalist working for Forbes who has done their research on how COVID-19 is negatively impacting small businesses financially and what we as a country should be doing to help them. Although this article is not written by a small business owner themselves, the author still provides some powerful insight on what government plans they believe should be implemented to save small businesses in these trying times. The main argument expressed in this article is that having this global emergency strike out of nowhere and the immediate recession we were thrown into proves that both our federal government and small businesses in the US are economically unprepared to handle pandemics. The author begins the article by describing the vulnerability of small businesses and how many of them essentially live paycheck to paycheck. As a result of COVID-19, a lot of them are facing disruptions within their international supply chains. Both of these issues are driving numerous businesses to close for good. Even at home businesses are suffering due to being denied access to federal aid programs as they do not fit the government’s qualifications. The author suggests that there is a lot more that could be done such as an increase in loan availability and lowering the amount of solicitations. I think this selected source provides good evidence for the perspective I am focusing on because it outlines more of the specifics of what the government is actually doing to attempt to help small businesses. Obviously, like anything else, when you are watching the news and hearing our government leaders talk about all the good they are doing to help small businesses, you may get a false impression of how much improvement these owners and employees are actually seeing. The plans that have been put out thus far are helping a percentage of small businesses, but certainly not all.

Mullainathan, S. (2020, March 20). We All Need Small Businesses. Don't Let Them Die. The New York Times, p. B8. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/business/small-businesses-coronavirus-help.html

This is a secondary source that comes from the perspective of the son of a former small business owner who is advocating for economic action to be taken during this pandemic. The main argument of this article emphasizes that unless the US Federal government infuses some money into small businesses or freezes commercial rent and mortgage payments, then when the economy eventually reopens a large percentage of our small businesses are going to be gone. The author of this article takes time to reflect on the 2008 financial crisis and explained how without government intervention such as the infusion of money into banks, a lot of the companies likely wouldn’t have survived. In addition to the negative consequences a shut down of a small business has on the owner, it also impacts employees and their families, as well as the greater community. This article informed readers that we should feel it is our civic duty to help the small businesses in our local communities during this time if we are financially able. I felt that this source was necessary to include because it’s easy to forget just how vulnerable the most beloved small businesses within our communities are. There are always things we could be doing to help each other during the pandemic, and one of the most powerful would be to continue to voice our concerns and push the government to take serious action in the protection of our economy.

Burton, D., Confield, E., Gasner, M.R., & Weisfuse I.B. (2009). A qualitative study of pandemic influenza preparedness among small and medium-sized businesses in New York City. Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning, 5(3), 267-289. doi: 10.1155/58618902204

The main author of this source is a medical officer with the US Public Health Service. He is also a medical epidemiologist and the head of operations in Western Kenya. This paper mainly focused on the preparedness of both medium and small businesses in New York City (businesses with less than 500 employees) in the face of the influenza pandemic. They worked with a combination of telephone, email, and fax communications to talk with small business owners in all boroughs of NYC. The thesis outlined in this paper states that in the face of a pandemic, small businesses need to practice continuity planning in order to sustain the economy and continue to deliver their services and goods. The main continuity planning ideas that were widely endorsed by many business owners included things such as hand sanitizer use, having a transportation plan, healthy workplace communication, emergency communication plans, and cross-training. These were effective ways of lowering costs, organizing themselves, and lowering their exposure to the greater public and public transit in NYC. These ideas are meant to be relatively simple and cost-effective strategies, but to the surprise of those conducting the study, they were not things being widely endorsed by many businesses in times of crisis. If the small businesses in NYC were to shut down due to a pandemic, that will also have secondary consequences for the larger businesses in the area. This source was important to include to discuss the irony and disappointing fact that this paper was written in 2011 in an effort to spread insight gained as result of the H1N1 pandemic in 2009. The authors expressed that they were optimistic for the future if another pandemic were to hit unexpectedly because of this newfound knowledge. Maybe the businesses in NYC that participated in the study are going to make it through, but it's very probable that most small businesses in the US did not have a concrete pandemic plan.