COVID-19 Monitor

Last Updated:October 15, 2020

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Survey shows strong support for flexible, remote working post-coronavirus (Benefits Canada) Published on: September 2, 2020 | Category: Canadian Business

Nearly half (45 per cent) of working Canadians said they’d prefer to work remotely at least three days a week, while more than a quarter said they’d prefer to work flex hours, according to a new survey by ADP Canada Co. and research firm Maru/Blue.
The survey, which polled more than 1,500 working Canadians, also found 55 per cent of respondents said their employers have continued to allow remote and flexible working throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
About half (45 per cent) of respondents said they feel remote workers have equal opportunity for job promotion and career advancement.

Half of Americans fear a health-related bankruptcy (Axios) Published on: September 2, 2020 | Category: Global Response

The number of Americans who worry about bankruptcy if they have a serious health issue has spiked over the last year and a half — particularly among men, people of color and young adults, according to a new survey from West Health and Gallup.
15% of adults said that at least one person in their household has medical debt that they won’t be able to repay within the next year, including 20% of adults of color and 12% of white adults.
A quarter of adults say that they’d have to borrow money to pay a $500 medical bill.

Inflation Is Higher Than the Numbers Say (NY Times) Published on: September 2, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact

While government statistics say inflation is low, the reality is that the cost of living has risen during the pandemic, especially for poorer Americans.
The problem is that measures like real output, real wages and poverty are calculated using inflation adjustments that don’t reflect the higher cost of living during a pandemic.
This might help explain why measured poverty has fallen even as lines at food banks have grown.

Health officials worry nation not ready for COVID-19 vaccine (AP News) Published on: September 2, 2020 | Category: Global Response

In a four-page memo this summer, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told health departments across the country to draft vaccination plans by Oct. 1 “to coincide with the earliest possible release of COVID-19 vaccine.”
But health departments that have been underfunded for decades say they currently lack the staff, money and tools to educate people about vaccines and then to distribute, administer and track doses to some 330 million people. Nor do they know when, or if, they’ll get federal aid to do that.
With only about half of Americans saying they would get vaccinated, according to a poll from AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, it also will be crucial to educate people about the benefits of vaccination, said Molly Howell, who manages the North Dakota Department of Health’s immunization program.

New York City Delays Start of School to Ready for In-Person Classes (NY Times) Published on: September 1, 2020 | Category: Global Response

The city’s 1.1 million schoolchildren will now start both remote and in-person classes on Sept. 21, 10 days later than originally scheduled.
The new timeline gives educators more time to prepare for the country’s most closely watched reopening effort, and provides the mayor with a longer runway to pull off one of the most ambitious, and riskiest, city initiatives in decades.
While the city has made progress in distributing personal protective equipment to schools, hiring nurses for every school building and upgrading ventilation systems in classrooms, that work is far from complete.

TDSB releases tips and photos on how to set up classroom to maximize space during pandemic (CP24) Published on: September 1, 2020 | Category: Canadian Business

The Toronto District School Board has sent a series of documents to its more than 11,000 elementary school teachers with guidance on everything from how to ensure frequent hand washing amongst students to how to maximize physical distancing in classrooms.
In a section titled “tips for setting up a classroom,” the board urges educators to keep “only essential furniture” in order to maximize space and to think critically about whether it is even necessary to have larger pieces of furniture, such as teacher’s desks or storage cabinets.
The board also recommends that students be seated diagonally across from each other rather than side by side and suggests strict limits on the number of students that can be seated at communal tables – two for small tables and three for larger tables.

Shopify cutting Ottawa, Toronto offices amid work-from-home shift (The Logic) Published on: September 1, 2020 | Category: Canadian Business

Shopify is planning to vacate its former Ottawa headquarters and one of its Toronto offices, and overhaul most of its other Canadian locations as part of a shift to working “digital by default.”
The company isn’t leaving the capital, where it has more than 1,000 employees; its newer Laurier Avenue West office in the city “will be reimagined for our digital by default mindset,” said Feigelson, as will its locations in Waterloo and Montreal.
“The future of the office is to act as an on-ramp to the same digital workplace that you can access from your [work-from-home] setup,” CEO Tobi Lütke tweeted in May.

Key to Preventing Covid-19 Indoors: Ventilation (WSJ) Published on: September 1, 2020 | Category: Global Response

After urging steps like handwashing, masking and social distancing, researchers say proper ventilation indoors should join the list of necessary measures.
Driving the thinking is mounting evidence that the new coronavirus is transmitted through the air among people with prolonged exposure to the pathogen.
Especially troublesome, epidemiologists and other scientists say, is evidence from numerous indoor outbreaks suggesting the virus’s ability to spread to others even when close contact is avoided.

Goodbye to the ‘Pret economy’ and good luck to whatever replaces it (FT) Published on: September 1, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact, Global Response

The lay-offs are emblematic of the crisis now facing city centres. The CBI, Britain’s biggest business lobby, has warned they will become “ghost towns” unless office staff return to their desks soon.
The pandemic has made a different future possible. The experience of lockdown proved to many employers what they had not quite believed (and would never otherwise have tried): large-scale remote working is effective.
Cities will not die, but their benefits could become more diffuse, with well-paid workers spread further into the rest of the country.

Airports Check Passengers’ Temperatures for Coronavirus (WSJ) Published on: August 31, 2020 | Category: Global Response

Airports from New York to Los Angeles, in some cases with help from airlines, are trying out ways to take passengers’ temperatures before they fly, after the government’s plans for a national program have lost momentum.
The number of passengers streaming through airports remains down some 70% from a year ago.
A Trump administration plan to try incorporating temperature scans into the security screening process at about a dozen airports around the country stalled in May, as the agencies that would have overseen the checks raised questions about their practicality and usefulness.

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