Metal fabricators: Looking ahead of COVID-19, looking back to 1918

I never met my maternal grandmother’s brother. Nor have I met my paternal grandmother’s mother and two brothers. All four died in the 1918 so-called Spanish flu pandemic.

Fifty years later, one of my grandmothers still mourned the loss of her 17-year old brother, Wendell. Only 6 years old at the time, she had idolized him. “He went to take care of his girlfriend when she got ill; three days later, he was dead,” she’d recount, tears in her eyes, even five decades later.

“Entire families died,” she relayed. “Houses would be empty up and down the street.”

My other grandmother wouldn’t talk about her dead mother and brothers. At all. The loss and hardship she experienced were too severe to speak of, I guess, even decades later. Only she and her father survived. Because in 1918, there were no daycare centers, my grandmother, also only 6 years old, had to accompany her father to his workplace and occupy herself in the bathroom all workday long. Eventually, a neighbor with daughters her age let her stay with them while her father worked.

And because in 1918, there was no unemployment insurance, everyone not ill had to keep on working, getting exposed to the deadly virus, and abandoning their children at home. There were no federally backed loans or business support as is available today. Businesses suffered. Some went under.

Still, when we look back at 1918, what stands out the most is not that businesses suffered. It’s that tens of millions of people died worldwide; 675,000 in the U.S. alone. The U.S. population at that time was 103.2 million, less than a third of today’s 327.2 million.

Business, Economic Anxiety

My husband and I own two rental properties. They don’t bring in a lot of income, but we do depend on it.

April 1, just days after the government proclaimed that no renter could be evicted for five months for not paying rent, I looked at our rental business account. Not one of our six tenants had paid their rent. We still had to pay the mortgages, escrowed taxes and insurance, water, sewer, and trash bills, plus a payment on a loan for a major repair on one of the buildings, two plumbing repairs, and a furnace repair. That left $8.24 in the business account. I felt a little panic set in.

Then I read that we can apply for a forebearance on our mortgages, which protects us from losing our properties if we cannot pay the mortgages. A forbearance is not a deferment, so we’ll still have to pay interest accrued, but if our tenants don’t pay rent, inhibiting us from paying those mortgages, that won’t generate late penalties, ding our credit, or cause us to lose our properties. We will have time to catch up.

Three of the six tenants made rent payments on April 2. Those not working can apply for unemployment benefits and all will probably receive a stimulus payment. They can use that money to pay their rents next month.

Small businesses can apply for grants through the Small Business Administration, via the CARES Act, which appropriated $376 billion. The grants will stand without repayment as long as 75% of the money is used to pay employees. Loans are also available.

Other financial assistance tools are available to businesses as a financial shield against the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic. They are designed to sustain them through this time period until the pandemic is halted. Many of you have told me that this past year, tax cuts and the robust economy put more on your bottom lines than ever before. Hopefully, you can access those funds to stay afloat and support your employees.

At some time in the future--be it a month or several months--this will be behind us. According to IHS Markit director John Anton, as in 2010, there is likely to be a pent-up demand for vehicles and other products and services. In his presentation at FMA's Leadership Summit in early March, Anton said that conditions point to a resurgence based on that pent-up demand, and that factories, businesses, and consumers are positioned to be able to get back to a normalized function.

Death Is Permanent

Yesterday, my daughter, who is a general practice nurse, found out that she will be moved to a position in her clinic where she will be intaking every patient, whether or not they are exhibiting symptoms. Infuriatingly, the shortage of N95 masks at that clinic means that she’ll only be allowed to wear one if a patient is symptomatic.

Please do all you can to minimize the human losses stemming from this disease. No doubt, they will affect those of us fortunate enough to survive for decades to come.

Got thoughts? I’d love to hear from you.