What have you learned since you first heard the word “coronavirus,” aka “COVID-19?
When we, Positively Naperville, first learned about coronavirus in January and began to follow its out-of-control spread, the opinions of doctors, scientists and other professionals varied.
Most reports were playing down the dangers in a numbers game. Others seemed alarming. Some seemed reasonable. Other reports appeared to need more input.
Who were we to trust with such uncharted information, ever-changing data, myriad models and diverse opinions?
Since late January, we’ve aimed to find facts. We’ve aimed to highlight the need to be safe and healthy, to put into place protocols at home and during healthful walks outside in order to create a safe environment for our family, friends and neighbors.
Since March 14, 2020, we’ve learned that we’ve come to despise the word “essential” and the way some individuals in authority positions have decided to define essential during the ups and downs of these uncertain times.
We believe that every human being is essential and deserves to live in liberty, with freedom to choose as long as the equal rights of others are observed with no harm to others as protected by the Constitution.
Some days we think everything we read and hear about coronavirus is inconsistent. Other days we wonder if our world is coming to an end with many unknowns about the contagion with grand predictions that often come up short. The reporting is made with the presumption the data is accurate, but it is also made with conflicting comparisons to other known virus deaths. Have you noticed the constant use of disclaimers such as “likely” and “maybe”? Death is an emotional subject. Life is precious.
Every day we’ve learned this hunker down way of living presents innovation, creativity and productivity via technology to work from home; while it prevents answers to questions that address how to care for the needs of our families and friends employed in service industries and other types of livelihood.
We had hoped prudence, personal responsibility and practicing safe protocols throughout February and early March would help prevent a sustained lockdown in Naperville, one that forced local enterprise to follow state orders designed for density and Chicago. We’ve been patient.
We have urged readers to wash their hands often, but not to wash away common sense.
Our common sense tells us that even with spread of the novel coronavirus, not opening local businesses will come with other health issues.
Consider financial worries that cause mental illness, depression, drug and alcohol abuse and domestic violence. Think about prevention that comes during regular doctor and dentist visits. Consider illnesses, injuries, even fatalities that are averted with timely medical checkups.
Restrictions are top of mind; yet, peace of mind will come only when all of us find safe ways to get back to the jobs for which we’re grateful, ones that create a strong sense of purpose and our livelihoods.
Fortunately, when and if folks open their minds to all information, they’ll see science shows a far less deadly situation than originally presented. Individuals under age 60 need to be allowed to take personal responsibility and make their own risk assessments. Nobody wants to die from this infection.
Yet, leaders “keep moving the goal post,” disregarding trust in responsible individuals who aim to do what’s right. Keeping us homebound may be necessary in some communities and under some extreme conditions, but officials need to be hesitant and prudent about shrouding us with one-size-fits-all policies.
As this story is written, three of the 102 counties in Illinois have not been infected with coronavirus.
To our knowledge, the policy of quarantining healthy individuals and their healthy families has never been done during outbreaks of communicable diseases.
Let’s make the best choices
Several years ago, we stopped spending time visiting “friends” on social media. Even back then, we had discovered how mean-spirited, inaccurate and unproductive so much of its retaliatory content had become.
When “friend” requesters and commenters have wondered why – we don’t reply – that’s been our choice.
It’s our choice mostly because the last time we checked, Positively Naperville still found its home in the United States of America, the land of individual rights, where we can make discretionary, spontaneous choices.
Beginning May 1, when the recent stay-at-home orders began, we started receiving challenging and disturbing screen shots, phone calls and emails from folks who live among us. We made a conscious choice not to report, publish or draw attention to these emotionally charged communications. It’s not productive.
Listening and watching first, aiming not to live in fear
Meanwhile, we’ve been talking with many local business owners, dentists, doctors, lawyers, builders, city council members, city commissioners, park district employees, neighbors and more.
They’ve been folks who represent much of what has long been essential to our community. They’ve been folks who strive to keep our neighborhoods and business destinations unique, safe and attractive to residents as well as visitors beyond our borders.
We’ve watched Naperville City Council “remote” meetings. We recognize the good judgment of the Mayor and City Council to put on hold City projects with expenditures in the ballpark of $25 million dollars, a way to postpone spending taxpayer dollars for now.
Since Jan. 22, 2020, we’ve stepped up efforts to feature inspiring examples of dedicated service, good humor and fundraising to fulfill unmet needs for folks less fortunate, all while trying to promote businesses and restaurants offering curbside pick-up service for individuals who choose to buy.
Several longtime readers continued to question and critique why Positively Naperville hadn’t taken a more active role in the community’s conversation about the economic and social impact of COVID-19. Many have asked if we know how the pandemic is impacting small businesses, nonprofits, schools, daily routines and livelihoods.
Reality is setting in. Individuals are making their own risk-assessments on how they interpret facts, science and models. Readers have noted that the data used for modeling often is inconsistent, volatile and sometimes proven to be inaccurate. It depends what readers read.
Of course, concern is top of mind!
Let us emphasize that, of course, we’re concerned about the most vulnerable with underlying conditions and those in long-term medical facilities and nursing homes. But it’s time to get on with our lives.
Some individuals said their property tax bills recently arrived, and in some cases, are higher than last year. A number of readers asked where the proposal stands to give tax payers a 90-day extension if needed to pay the tax bill? We listened.
One solution-seeking reader suggested, “How about a 25 percent tax reduction since many public services might not be received for three months of the year?”
Park district programs and facilities are closed. Thankfully, most trails are open. Yet, the governor’s unilateral decisions regarding what we are allowed to do and what we are not are playing a part in shutting down youth sports.
Forest Preserve dog parks are closed due to fear of dog transmission. Schools are closed, offering only e-learning studies. Graduation ceremonies are virtual. County courts and services are reduced with many closed.
College of DuPage is closed and we wonder how it’s operating virtually? How are students in vocational and hands-on career programs going to learn their craft?
More than a few folks have asked something like, “Don’t you think each community should be free and able to make its own decisions with health and safety top of mind?”
Folks have wondered why so many people appear content to be sitting on the sidelines during the biggest business crisis of our lifetimes.
One reader asked, “Why is PN not advocating for readers to reach out to the elected officials – or at the very least, letting them know about other efforts that are happening in this regard?”
It’s in your self-interest to self-quarantine
As this pandemic and the devastating economic fallout deepens daily with the local lockdown, PN has begun adding video stories to its mix to help cover key aspects of this uncharted challenge as it disrupts local businesses, politics, preventive health practices, attitudes, dispositions and just about everything else.
Positively Naperville appreciated hearing from the DuPage County Health Department with gratitude for posting daily updates with counts.
Local independent businesses remind us that none of us working in the private sector gets paid when we don’t work. Even worse, local business owners lose money when they can’t work or have reduced work because they still have to pay overhead and previous commitments.
Why is a large national chain permitted to be open just because it sells a few so-called “essential” items and a small business is ordered to close? It appears the government, again, is in the business of picking winners and losers.
“We’re all in this together” (a burdensome term highly used by some elected officials) is beginning to wear on us – it’s overwhelmingly now cliché. We aim to support getting back to work with our God-given talents to help contribute to our world, always thriving to make it a safer, kinder, better place.
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” – Adam Smith
Either let us use good judgment to work so we can support ourselves and pay our taxes, or reduce our expenses by reducing our taxes. If the private sector isn’t working who will pay for the public sector? If the private sector isn’t working, who will help support all the nonprofit needs? Are we truly “all in this together?” We have doubts.
The other essential point to embrace is that none of the suburbs or downstate Illinois has the same density and conditions as Chicago. It’s long been the choice in Naperville to be different from Chicago and Cook County. Naperville has different data, models and so on.
When we look at the actual data – the money and resources that appear to have been wasted in Chicago, the governor’s assessment on how they are doing, and their lack of a long-term plan for opening up Illinois – we have little confidence that their kind of leadership will benefit Naperville and most other communities in Illinois.
Recent story in Wall Street Journal hits nail on the head
Late Friday, May 8, 2020, after the horrific jobs report earlier in the day, the Wall Street Journal editorial board opined about the “lockdown catastrophe” that your PN editors think every open-minded individual will benefit from reading.
Here is an excerpt from “The Economic Lockdown Catastrophe” that appeared in the Wall Street Journal:
“Unemployment in April soared to 14.7%—the highest rate since the government started keeping records in 1948—while employers shed 20.5 million more jobs after losing 870,000 in March. The labor-market bleeding is even worse than those numbers suggest since 6.4 million workers left the workforce.
“Labor participation had been trending upward the past two years as faster job growth drew millions of low-income Americans from the sidelines. But the participation rate has now fallen 3.2 percentage points to 60.2% since a recent peak in February, the lowest since 1973 before large numbers of women started working.
“Much of the media continue to treat the economic destruction as a sideshow and present a false choice between saving lives and jobs. But this is the fastest jobs collapse in modern history. The Great Depression drove millions of Americans into poverty and caused many suicides, and there’s a substantial risk this could happen again.
“Mental-health crisis hotlines are reporting spikes in calls. According to Express Scripts, anti-anxiety prescriptions increased by a third between mid-February and mid-March. Many in despair will probably turn to alcohol or narcotics. CVS executives warned this week that delayed care could lead to a surge of non-coronavirus related health problems. They include cancers undiagnosed and illnesses left untreated.”
Help save a thriving, essential small business community
Just before Mother’s Day, we wrote that we think food also is essential.
While local dine-in is ordered locked down, we’ve been ordering from our favorite restaurants at least twice a week.
For Mother’s Day, Father’s Day or graduations, our wish is that everyone looking for a special gift would purchase gift certificates to one or two of our city’s small and local businesses.
For instance, we had a recent appointment to video Greg DeGeeter, owner of Dean’s Fine Clothing, where they are practicing all recommended protocols. The shop is chock full of beautiful spring and summer casual wear for men and women. Give them a call or visit their website to purchase a gift certificate. DeGeeter is eager to reopen where his family-owned business has been serving the community since 1959.
None of the local independent businesses we know want to go under. Yet, sales are down or nonexistent. Orders picked up curbside are not a sustainable solution.
As the Wall Street Journal editorial notes, “Some over-leveraged companies may have failed anyway, but many small businesses that were healthy before the government-induced coma are closing permanently.”
Give your favorite business a call or send an email to make a purchase whenever possible. They’re eager to get back to work.
We’ve been given eye-opening lessons in basic economics. Margins are all over the place for small businesses. Private business models that contribute to much-valued local revenues sometimes are missing from the minds of many who may think the government will have the answer to pandemic woes.
Plus, where’s the art of coordinating and collaborating knowledge in order to form policies that address the unique needs of many in their entirety? It’s become obvious, no one person has the solution. Yet, some seem reluctant to buddy up and show power with collaboration in numbers to folks setting orders.
Everyone needs to remember that small businesses employ half of America’s job market.
In Naperville, small and independent business owners, service providers and their employees are our families, friends and neighbors. For years, small and independent business owners have added charm and friendliness to our shopping and dining experiences.
Editors at the Wall Street Journal also wrote, “… According to the Labor report, 8.2 million leisure and hospitality jobs – about half of the industry – have been eliminated in two months.”
Some partisans and furloughed employees think the layoffs are OK because many workers are collecting enhanced unemployment benefits that pay more than their wages.
“But what happens in a few months if their employers no longer exist?” the WSJ asked.
Get to know your local business community
As a very small independently-owned family business in support of private enterprise, free markets, individual liberty and peace, our view always has been to seek solutions. Local businesses matter most. Local businesses and local policies are the ones that created the thriving economy that has attracted the mix of bigger shops and eateries.
Further, small business owners are known to help take care of unmet needs of nonprofits that provide services to the less fortunate. They also employ our friends and neighbors.
We agree that the spread of coronavirus requires special protocols and best practices. We know we’re all sacrificing. We know it’s necessary.
We recognize there are prerogative and executive orders to protect us and the general welfare of the public. But our right to work and receive the fruits of our labors also are protected.
We agree that a vaccine, effective medical treatment and daily testing ultimately could help with the pandemic. But later is not now.
We also think most residents and business owners in our community have common sense to follow safety protocols. And they’ll take individual responsibility for themselves and their respective businesses.
And what else have we learned? Wherever you stand, whatever your faith or your age, no matter your business or employer, we have learned that no one scientist, doctor or individual has all the answers for everybody about this pandemic. Think about it.
Let us end this lengthy opine with the cover headlines from our April print issue: Local matters. Shop, eat, bank, donate and support local enterprise where your heart is in Naperville. God bless our frontline responders.
—Positively Naperville
