Coronavirus will change how we visit nursing homes and hospitals

I’m sure you saw the rather sad news reports of families peeking into windows and waving at their loved ones who were, for lack of a better word, imprisoned in their Washington nursing home in order to prevent the spread, to the outside world, of coronavirus which had sickened so many residents and workers at that facility, killing 22 in the process.

In a less tragic but still heartbreaking scale this is, in various ways, being played out in nursing homes and hospitals across the country. Almost all of those facilities have suspended resident or patient visitation. Millions of Americans have no means to be in the room with their aged and infirm family members.

It shouldn’t be this way.

But, then again, maybe it always should have been this way.

Especially in regard to hospitals, why have we, with few exceptions, allowed outsiders to come in to see the weak and the ill, potentially as vectors bringing outside viruses to those with compromised health? Or, on the flipside, why would we want to expose otherwise healthy outsiders to the bugs that the hospitalized might be fighting?

Both of those questions have come to the fore in this coronavirus crisis. We don’t want the disease to breach medical containment, on the in or the out.

It makes sense to do that. It’s likely a lesson learned that might redefine the nursing and healthcare experience as we’ve known it. Limitations will become the norm on the other side of this crisis – maybe nursing homes will screen all visitors and limit the number per day; perhaps hospitals will screen, too, while suspending visits under many if not most circumstances.

Despite all the logic in doing so, there are powerful emotional factors to contend with.

How do we not visit the people who helped raise us? How do we not be there for our loved ones fighting for their lives?

We want to be with them.

And, they want to be with us.

There’s something to be said about the positive effects on mental, and even physical, well-being when a day at the nursing home is brightened by seeing the kids or grandkids or when someone hooked up to various machines gets a pick-me-up from a friendly visit.

So, how do we go about addressing the emotional constraints of the coronavirus crisis while at the same time preparing ourselves for the culture change set to come from it?

That’s where modern technology comes in.

Websites and smartphone apps are plentiful that allow for face-to-face conversation – FaceTime; Google Duo; Skype. For many of us, it has become old hat; most Americans have the technological means to communicate that way.

But, those in a facility don’t.

When it comes to nursing homes, many of the residents don’t have the physical ability to manipulate keyboards or touchscreens or the mental ability to remember passwords, contact numbers and all that.

As for hospitals, many of those institutions won’t allow cellular technology in some locations and many of the patients might not be in the mood or ability to navigate technology on their own due to pain, pain killers or physical inability.   

So, the technology needs to be augmented with a little customer service and TLC.

We’re in a war against disease right now, so I know personnel, especially on the front lines, are spread thin but I encourage nursing homes and hospitals to make remote visitation a reality now and into the future. Equip a nurse or porter on each shift, on each floor with a tablet that he or she can use to host face-to-face conversations between patients and their loved ones.

In a world chock full of illness, fear and anxiety everyone will savor the joy to be had by grandparents and parents seeing grandchildren and children, husbands seeing wives, and brothers seeing sisters. It’s not the same as being in the room with them, but it’s a quantum leap beyond talking on the landline -- the loved ones can be seen, smiles and tears can be shared, and, communally as family, the much-needed hope for a better tomorrow for all can be had with that human experience. Those on the inside and those on the outside can raise each other’s spirits by letting everyone know – and showing them -- that everyone is still okay and holding up.   

In hindsight, this should have become the norm over the past few years as video conferencing and calling apps have become ubiquitous. But, it sometimes takes a crisis to make us think differently, act and have the foresight to change policies and procedures.

Hopefully this is one of this changes and soon. Remote visitation can be the present and it will be, for many, the future.

From the 23 March 2020 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News

Negative interest rates would steal from your bank account

Back in 2016, the Bank of Japan shook up the markets when it announced that, for the first time, it would impose a negative interest rate on financial institutions. The move smacked of desperation as the once-proud archipelago continued to struggle against deflation, an economic battle it had waged since the 1990s.

The move didn’t help. In the year that the negative rates were launched, Japan’s growth in gross domestic product was 0.61%. Two years later, in 2018, it was only 0.79%, basically nothing.  

Despite similar failures throughout the history of negative policy, we’re guaranteed more nations and central banks will jump on the bandwagon as what’s looking like a coronavirus-driven global recession intensifies.

Among the countries entertaining such an idea is our own.

For months now, President Trump has been pressuring the Federal Reserve for lower and negative interest rates as economic policy.

Last week, amid declining markets, he ramped up the pressure, taking to Twitter - his sounding board - to say, “Our pathetic, slow moving Federal Reserve, headed by Jay Powell, who raised rates too fast and lowered too late, should get our Fed Rate down to the levels of our competitor nations. They now have as much as a two point advantage, with even bigger currency help. Also, stimulate!”

By “competitors” he must not mean our biggest competitor, China, because their rate is well above ours, currently a smidgen over 4% (we’re at 1.25%). So, he must mean Japan (-0.1%) and the European Union (where the European Central Bank has the rate pegged at -0.5%)

This consideration by the President, and one that’s echoed by Wall Street, proves that the coronavirus economy is and will remain a mess. Policymakers and financiers pull out negative rates only when they feel that all other attempts to resuscitate an economy have run their course. It’s a last-ditch effort. 

They believe that an economy is enticed to grow under a negative interest rate because banks are penalized for holding reserves and, therefore, are encouraged to lend in volume at lower rates and with looser reins. Allegedly, businesses intent on growing or, in this case, resuscitating and recovering will take them up on that offer and investment in people, plant, and equipment.

Given that doomsday scenario, it’s counterintuitive that Trump has been pushing for negative rates for months, even before the coronavirus hit, because businesses haven’t been too keen on borrowing for reasons which he would likely admit he created: Businesses weren’t asking banks for help because they were flush with cash -- the economy was in great shape, consumers were spending and corporate tax rates allowed small businesses to keep more of their money and be less reliant on banks. Main Street didn’t need Wall Street.

And maybe that’s why the push is on. The bankers want relevance again.

When that happens, you’ll pay the price.

The banks will penalize their clients for saving and a negative interest rate will be charged on all savings and checking accounts, and certificates of deposit will become more irrelevant than they are now.

You -- the average account holder – will be charged a fee for keeping your money in the bank. Economists believe that this encourages people to take their money out of banks and spend it, thus exciting the economy.

Any businessperson or head of household worth their salt will tell you this is economic suicide.

It was our nation’s corporations, banks, governments and consumers spending beyond their means and not saving that led to the economic collapse that fed the Great Recession. Here we are just twelve years removed from the start of that horrific event – and heading into another one -- and the “great minds” who are the puppeteers of our monetary policy and economy have magically forgotten that.

Saving is a critical part of creating personal wealth and it’s been the only true financially secure means for a family to set aside money. So, why penalize people for being thrifty and saving and not going back into the old, bad habits of spending like mad?

What would negative interest rates do for the American economy? Would you really be spending more if you were hit with a penalty for saving? Many of you wouldn’t, and you would lose money for that very reason. If you took it out of the bank to forgo losses it’s certainly not safe under the proverbial mattress or in the dying stock market.

Simply put: Negative interest rates are insane.

They would be deadly if they worked according to plan and led people to blow their money and businesses to borrow in unusually-high volume. It would encourage the same behaviors that led to the economic chaos of 2008 and 2009. We don’t need that in this crazy coronavirus economy and whatever comes from it.

From the 16 March 2020 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News

Make unemployment work for coronavirus

During one of his daily coronavirus press conferences last week, Governor Cuomo said the following:

 
“I’m going to amend the paid sick leave bill that I sent to the Legislature to where there is a specific provision that says people, who because of this situation with coronavirus, have to be quarantined should be protected. Their employer should pay them for the period of quarantine and their job should be protected.”

If an outbreak forced a workplace or community quarantine you’d be looking at, minimally, a 14-day quarantine as that seems to be the current standard operating procedure suggested by health officials. But, it could also be longer – look at Japan, where schools were shutdown for a month, or China, where the Hubei province has been in non-essential lockdown since January 23^rd and will be until March 10^th or later.

Under any of those scenarios, mandated quarantine pay would be a recipe for disaster for businesses.

Imagine diners, tourism destinations, machine shops, auto garages and more all being shuttered for 2 full weeks. Depending on how many days rest someone typically gets, that could be 10 to 13 days of pay (given the bare bones 14-day quarantine) that the employer would have to pay their workforce in full to not work at all…at a time when the business is down and not earning any revenue and will likely see lower revenues before and after the shutdown due to consumers being hesitant about going out in public.

Yet without some income, a quarantine would be a recipe for disaster for households.

If a family is sequestered through no fault of their own for 2 weeks, maybe longer, they’ve lost that income unless they have vacation time and other paid time off to use.

What if they have no PTO left to lean on? 2 weeks lost is approximately a 4% drop in annual income, money that won’t be spent on necessities or niceties. That’s the issue that concerns Cuomo.

But, he’s going about it all wrong.

For starters, his idea will be too little too late for workers.

Paid sick leave is not yet an employee benefit mandated by the State. The Governor and the Legislature’s leaders have to iron out their versions which will appear in the state budget (the place where lawmakers hide controversial bills). The budget won’t be passed until April 1^st. From there, the Department of Labor and/or the Department of Health will likely hold public hearings to iron out the regulations. That could take 90 to 120 days. Then, it’s highly unlikely that a mandate that demands leave in annual doses and comes with corresponding requirements would go into effect this year -- it would have to have a January 1 start.   

Hopefully, by then, coronavirus would have run its course through the nature of the beast, advancements in medical science, and improved public and private health protocol.

So, in the more immediate future, how is one supposed to make sure quarantined families and businesses alike aren’t hurt?

The answer: The mechanism we’ve always had at our disposal – unemployment insurance.

In theory, everyone placed in quarantine by corporate or government decree is laid off. There’s no work available at that time.

There’s no reason why temporary emergency legislation -  minor tweak to unemployment -- couldn’t be put into play that would do three things: One, allow employers to access unemployment as an option during a coronavirus business suspension; Two, allow employees that were active before the quarantine and after it to receive unemployment benefits without the requirement that they be ”ready, willing, and able to work, and actively looking for work during each week in which you are claiming benefits”; And, three, eliminate the unpaid waiting week so impacted workers can collect unemployment benefits for both weeks of their two-week lockdown.

Workers would receive an income and businesses wouldn’t lose even more money in the depressed coronavirus economy.

It’s simple; let’s make unemployment work for everyone. Utilize the tools we have before we roll out new ones and regret having done so. In this crisis, like all that will come to be, we must approach public policy in a responsible fashion, free of knee-jerk reactions and the quest for political brownie points.

From the 09 March 2020 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News