Taking Stock One Month into Shelter-in-Place
Dear Neighbors,
Most of us have now been sheltering-in-place for more than one month. While there are signs that we’ve successfully slowed the infection rate, it also appears we have a long road ahead. In this newsletter, I’ll try to assess where we are in the health crisis, how we should start approaching an economic reopening, and what we can do to ensure that all of our young people are able to continue learning despite school closures.
I hope you and your loved ones are staying safe and, as always, I appreciate the ideas and questions so many of you have shared with me. Please keep the feedback coming.
Where are we in the Health Crisis?
Knowing where we are in the fight against SARS CoV-2 is key to beginning to relax the shelter-in-place order, pursuing economic recovery and understanding what life may look like in the months ahead. So, where are we?
First, the good news: some of the most concrete measures of the virus’ spread and severity, including hospitalizations, acute cases and ventilator use, have been relatively flat since my last update two weeks ago:
The rate of new confirmed cases per day also appears to have peaked, though it’s important to remember that testing volumes are still low and there is a lag between testing and results reporting, so we need to continue to watch these trend lines over the coming days to understand the trajectory of new cases.
Also, while we don’t have a dashboard for day-over-day deaths due to COVID-19, the reported number of daily deaths has been in the range of three to six people per day countywide since my last update and, thankfully, does not appear to be accelerating.
Taken together, we have a number of positive signs that our County may have “bent the curve” on new infections, likely mostly thanks to our early shelter-in-place order. If so, this is great news.
At the same time, we face a long and uncertain road ahead. Reducing the virus’ spread has come at a high cost. We will need to begin reopening our economy (next topic), but doing so risks additional waves of contagion, which could be deadlier than the initial outbreak. In fact, during the Spanish Influenza of 1918–1919, the second and third waves of the pandemic in the UK were the deadliest:
We are also a long way from having a vaccine, much less distributing it at scale. Some experts estimate it will take 12 to 18 months to develop a vaccine, while others think that timeline is too optimistic. Unfortunately, there are still many questions about SARS CoV-2 for which we don’t have good answers, including the rate of asymptomatic cases and their impact on viral spread, whether or not survivors develop immunity, and the actual death rate.
What seems most certain right now is that we will not return to “normal” anytime soon. We should be mentally prepared for a slow and staggered unwinding of the shelter-in-place order that prioritizes putting people back to work while minimizing the risk of new outbreaks, which brings me to a few reflections on reopening the economy in the midst of a pandemic.
Economic Reopening During a Pandemic
While it was certainly the right policy for saving lives, shelter-in-place has caused immense economic damage. In just the last three weeks, more than two million Californians have lost their jobs, pushing unemployment claims to levels not seen since the Great Depression.
Federal stimulus money (i.e. debt) can temporarily replace some lost income for individuals and businesses, but there are limits. The $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses who continued paying their workers, for example, ran out of money in just two weeks with hundreds of thousands of businesses and nonprofits receiving no relief. Even though Congress is set to replenish the fund, it will almost certainly fall short of the need.
It’s clear that we need to begin reopening the economy soon to help people resume working, earning income and engaging in economic life. SARS CoV-2 is deadly and should not be underestimated, but it is also true that unemployment and poverty have a serious human cost. The question is how to strike the right balance between public health and safety, on the one hand, and our collective economic needs, on the other.
To that end, in recent days the White House has issued a set of guidelines for reopening the economy, the Governor announced six indicators the state will use to evaluate relaxing its stay at home order, and Mayor Liccardo released a memo instructing city staff to work with local public health officials to define a clear path for putting people back to work safely.
While these plans are still being developed, there are some things I would expect to be our “new normal” as shelter-in-place orders are relaxed in the weeks and months ahead:
- People likely will be encouraged, if not required, to wear masks in public.
- Vulnerable populations likely will be encouraged to stay home as much as possible.
- Workplaces likely will reopen in a staggered way, prioritizing work that can be done with social distancing and other precautions.
- Large events and gatherings likely will not be permitted anytime soon.
I would also expect to see a continued focus on expanding testing and the ability to trace individual contacts with infected persons, resources for quarantining those who have been exposed to the virus, and new serology tests that help identify those who have already contracted the virus and may be immune.
To be clear, these are just a few highlights based on my own educated guesses. The situation will continue to evolve in the days and weeks ahead, and you should continue to consult the County’s Public Health Department website for the most up-to-date and accurate information.
I’ll be focused on working with public and private sector leaders in the South Bay to help develop and communicate our local plan for putting people back to work safely. More on that soon.
Lost Income, Displacement and Defaults
The economic crisis also threatens widespread mortgage defaults and displacement in the housing market, which is one of the key challenges we must tackle in the months ahead. Shockingly, in April, nearly one-third of renters did not pay their rent. Temporary eviction moratoriums, such as the ones in place in San Jose and at the state level, prevent displacement in the short-run, which is important. At the same time, they only delay the inevitable question of who will bear the cost of missed rent and mortgage payments.
This debate has begun in earnest in San Jose. Two Councilmembers’ recent proposal for outright rent cancellation was pulled from the docket because it likely violates the Constitution’s 5th Amendment, prohibiting the public seizure of private property without just compensation. I was glad to see this proposal taken off the table, but the very real problems of lost income, potential displacement and loan defaults still exist.
Many of you wrote to me, asking for my position on this matter. I think the right solution needs to entail greater A) bottom-up federal stimulus for people who have lost income due to COVID-19 so they can meet their financial obligations, such as rent and mortgage payments, and/or B) top-down federal stimulus that backfills some or all of banks’ liabilities in exchange for downstream forgiveness of rent and mortgage payments for some period of time.
Collectively, we should be willing to sacrifice to prevent the displacement of our neighbors who have lost jobs and income through no fault of their own. However, solutions that simply shift the burden to the intermediaries who sit between the individual resident and the ultimate creditor are likely to violate property rights and pit one set of residents against another, which I can’t support. Instead, we need solutions that ask everyone to sacrifice.
Keeping our Kids on Track
Finally, many of you have reached out with concerns about how the pandemic will affect your children’s education. As a parent and former public school teacher who believes deeply in the power of education, I share your concern and will continue to be a vocal advocate for making high-quality online learning accessible to all students.
I was recently invited to facilitate a public conversation with our County Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Mary Ann Dewan, via an online webinar hosted by The Silicon Valley Organization. We discussed the current status of schools’ online learning efforts, which are still far from where many of us would like to see them. Dr. Dewan outlined a number of challenges, including a shortage of devices, lack of internet access, and gaps in teacher readiness to implement online learning.
We should expect our school districts to embrace this crisis as an opportunity to accelerate the adoption of new tools and teaching practices that provide greater flexibility, resiliency and personalized instruction. Districts should require teachers to provide high-quality online learning to all students, and they should ensure that teachers have the extra training and support they need to make this transition.
There are also ways that the rest of us can contribute to this effort. For one, San Jose faces a significant digital divide that each of us can play a role in closing. Today, approximately 19,500 students from low-income families in San Jose lack access to broadband internet at home.
Broadband internet is a vital utility that most of us not only rely upon, but take for granted. San Jose’s Digital Inclusion Fund recently launched a program that allows anyone to sponsor a student in San Jose. For $30, you can provide a low-income student in our city with access to the internet for the entire summer so that they can begin learning from home. Silvia and I are sponsoring five students this summer. I hope you’ll consider joining us at whatever level you can by clicking here:
In closing, I hope you and your loved ones are staying safe and finding ways to stay socially connected while physically distant. Please continue sending your feedback, ideas and questions my way. I value the two-way dialogue and have learned a great deal from it.
Sincerely,
Matt
Councilmember-elect, San Jose District 10; matt@mahanforsanjose.com, 408–891–9708
Matt is Councilmember-elect for San Jose District 10, which includes the Almaden, Blossom Hill, Santa Teresa and Vista Park neighborhoods. Matt and his wife, Silvia, are proud to be raising their two young children, Nina and Luke, in District 10. You can subscribe to Matt’s newsletter here: https://forms.gle/ycvcf3fbKSFU2JfA6
