There Is A Safe Way To Open The Economy Back Up Again-- And Then There Is The Republican Way... Which Could Bring On Curve Steepening, Economic Depression And Food Shortages

I started listening to Chris Martenson's daily coronavirus podcasts in late January and the posting them at DWT a few weeks later. Lucky for me and for some of the readers. Because of Martsenson's warnings I got an early understanding of what this pandemic was going to be like-- and what I could do to protect myself and my family and friends. Long before it was too late, we all had N-99 and N-95 respirator masks. I bought 3 months worth of root vegetables, pasta, dried beans, grain, cooking oil, paper goods, bottled water, etc. I moved much of my retirement savings from equities to bonds and other less volatile vehicles, like real estate investments. I bought rubber gloves and Hebiclens and consulted with my doctor about my own personal vulnerabilities and what she thought I should do about protecting myself.

Out for a stroll in the neighborhood

But there was one step that Martsenson kept talking about that I resisted... until now. It was too scary to contemplate: starting a vegetable garden. But he's been right about every single thing and ahead of every single curve, so the worry had gnawed at me from the inside. So, when Jacquie from Blue America recommended a gardening system even I could handle-- the one she uses-- I went for it. When I was a around 15-16, I had had it with America and decided to leave. I spent a whole winter stealing packets of seeds and gardening equipment and other necessities from a 5 and dime on Kings Highway in Brooklyn and making parcels for myself and sending them to me at poste restante in Nukuʻalofa, the capital of Tonga. Eventually, I hitch-hiked from Brooklyn to San Pedro in L.A. and stowed away on a ship going to New Zealand, where I intended to stow away on the mail boat that went to Tonga every other month. I got caught on the ship before it left San Pedro. I wonder what happened to all those seeds and tools and things I sent to Nukuʻalofa.

Yesterday I read a piece in The Guardian by Fiona Harvey about the pandemic causing a famine of biblical proportions. Harvey wrote that the chief of the UN’s food relief agency has warned that mankind "is facing widespread famine 'of biblical proportions' because of the coronavirus pandemic."

Covid-19 is likely to be sweeping through the developing world but its spread is hard to gauge. What appears to be certain is that the fragile healthcare systems of scores of developing countries will be unable to cope, and the economic disaster following in the wake of the pandemic will lead to huge strain on resources.

“This is truly more than just a pandemic-- it is creating a hunger pandemic,” said David Beasley [executive director of the World Food Program]. “This is a humanitarian and food catastrophe.”

According to a report produced by the UN and other organisations on Thursday, at least 265 million people are being pushed to the brink of starvation by the Covid-19 crisis, double the number under threat before the pandemic.

None of those looming deaths from starvation are inevitable, said Beasley. “If we get money, and we keep the supply chains open, we can avoid famine,” he said. “We can stop this if we act now.”

He said the situation even four weeks from now was impossible to forecast, stressing that donors must act with urgency. He urged countries not to put in place export bans or other restrictions on the supply of food across borders, which would lead to shortages.

...Also crucial is ensuring that supply chains stay open in the face of lockdowns and the difficulty of getting workers into the fields to tend crops if they are sick or unable to travel easily. “If the supply chain breaks down, people can’t get food-- and if they can’t get food for long enough, they will die,” said Beasley.

Yesterday the NY Times' Abdi Dahir reported a similar dire situation: "The world has never faced a hunger emergency like this, experts say. It could double the number of people facing acute hunger to 265 million by the end of this year." The scary headline: "Instead of Coronavirus, the Hunger Will Kill Us." He wrote about food shortages in Africa, India, Colombia. "The coronavirus pandemic has brought hunger to millions of people around the world. National lockdowns and social distancing measures are drying up work and incomes, and are likely to disrupt agricultural production and supply routes-- leaving millions to worry how they will get enough to eat. The coronavirus has sometimes been called an equalizer because it has sickened both rich and poor, but when it comes to food, the commonality ends. It is poor people, including large segments of poorer nations, who are now going hungry and facing the prospect of starving."

This hunger crisis, experts say, is global and caused by a multitude of factors linked to the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing interruption of the economic order: the collapse in oil prices; widespread shortages of hard currency from tourism drying up; overseas workers not having earnings to send home; and ongoing problems like climate change, violence, population dislocations and humanitarian disasters.

Already, from Honduras to South Africa to India, protests and looting have broken out amid frustrations from lockdowns and worries about hunger. With classes shut down, over 368 million children have lost the nutritious meals and snacks they normally receive in school.

There is no shortage of food globally, or mass starvation from the pandemic-- yet. But logistical problems in planting, harvesting and transporting food will leave poor countries exposed in the coming months, especially those reliant on imports, said Johan Swinnen, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington.

While the system of food distribution and retailing in rich nations is organized and automated, he said, systems in developing countries are “labor intensive,” making “these supply chains much more vulnerable to Covid-19 and social distancing regulations.”

And in the U.S.? There are reports that "an emerging shortage of carbon dioxide gas (CO2) caused by the coronavirus pandemic may affect food supply chains and drinking water, a Washington state emergency planning document has revealed. The document, a Covid-19 situation report produced by the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC), contains a warning from the state’s office of drinking water (ODW) about difficulties in obtaining CO2, which is essential for the process of water treatment... 'Several [water plants] had received initial notification from their vendors that their supply would be restricted to 33% of normal.'" This seems solvable. But what about the food supply chain in the U.S.? Meat seems like a big probem, albeit not for vegetarians (like myself). I noticed that grocery stores this week that had been missing organic produce two weeks ago-- like roma tomatoes, belgian endives and melons-- were amply stocked this week. Boxes of pasta are back on the shelves... as is seaweed, rice and, yes, toilet paper. But... this is California. What about other parts of the country?

The nation’s food supply chain is showing signs of strain, as increasing numbers of workers are falling ill with the coronavirus in meat processing plants, warehouses and grocery stores.

The spread of the virus through the food and grocery industry is expected to cause disruptions in production and distribution of certain products like pork, industry executives, labor unions and analysts have warned in recent days. The issues follow nearly a month of stockpiling of food and other essentials by panicked shoppers that have tested supply networks as never before.

Industry leaders and observers acknowledge the shortages could increase, but they insist it is more of an inconvenience than a major problem. People will have enough to eat; they just may not have the usual variety. The food supply remains robust, they say, with hundreds of millions of pounds of meat in cold storage. There is no evidence that the coronavirus can be transmitted through food or its packaging, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Still, the illnesses have the potential to cause shortages lasting weeks for a few products, creating further anxiety for Americans already shaken by how difficult it can be to find high-demand staples like flour and eggs.

“You might not get what you want when you want it,” said Christine McCracken, a meat industry analyst at Rabobank in New York. “Consumers like to have a lot of different choices, and the reality is in the short term, we just don’t have the labor to make that happen.”

In one of the most significant signs of pressure since the pandemic began, Smithfield Foods became the latest company to announce a shutdown, announcing Sunday that it would close its processing plant in Sioux Falls, S.D., after 230 workers became ill with the virus. The plant produces more than 5 percent of the nation’s pork.

“The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply,” Smithfield’s chief executive, Kenneth M. Sullivan, said in a statement.

As of Saturday, the plant’s Covid-19 cases were more than half South Dakota’s active total, Gov. Kristi Noem said. She called the outbreak an “alarming statistic” and asked Smithfield to shut down the facility for two weeks.

The problems at the Sioux Falls pork plant show the food processing industry’s vulnerability to an outbreak. Employees often work shoulder to shoulder, and some companies have granted sick leave only to employees who test positive for the coronavirus. That potentially leaves on the job thousands of other infected workers who haven’t been tested, hastening the infection’s spread.

Other major processors have had to shut down plants. JBS USA, the world’s largest meat processor, closed a plant in Pennsylvania for two weeks. Last week, Cargill closed a facility in Pennsylvania where it produces steaks, ground beef and ground pork. And Tyson halted operations at a pork plant in Iowa after more than two dozen workers tested positive.

“Labor is going to be the biggest thing that can break,” said Karan Girotra, a supply-chain expert at Cornell University. “If large numbers of people start getting sick in rural America, all bets are off.”

At the other end of the supply chain, grocery stores are also dealing with increasing illnesses among workers, as well as absences by those afraid to go in to work.

Even as company officials called them “essential” for their role in feeding the country, grocery store workers went weeks without being provided with face masks and other protective gear.

Some food companies have been slow to provide the gear, while others tried but found that their orders were rerouted to the health care industry, where there is also a dire need. A few grocery workers say they are still waiting to be supplied with masks, despite federal health guidelines that recommend everybody wear one in public.

The workers also face a threat from their exposure to customers, who continue to stock up on food. Some, the workers say, don’t wear masks and fail to keep an adequate level of social distancing.

There are no government agencies tracking illnesses among food industry workers nationwide. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents 1.3 million grocery store, food processing and meat packing employees, said on Monday that at least 1,500 of its members had been infected with the virus and that 30 of them have died.

“The Covid-19 pandemic represents a clear and present danger to our workers and our nation’s food supply,” U.F.C.W. International’s president, Marc Perrone, said.

Even before the illnesses began to spread through the industry, the supply chain had been tested intensely. Truck drivers, who were already scarce before the pandemic, couldn’t make deliveries fast enough. Hot dog factories and dairy farmers ramped up production in response to waves of panic buying.

Those surges continue to take a toll on a system that had been built largely for customers seeking speed and convenience, not stockpiling. On Sunday, Amazon said it was getting new customers seeking online grocery delivery from Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh to effectively sign up for a wait list. It’s an unusual concession for an internet giant that is used to unimpeded growth.

On some days, shoppers still cannot find flour, eggs or other staples that are in high demand. Retailers and manufacturers have offered reassurances that these shortages are temporary and merely reflect a distribution and production network that cannot work fast enough.

The parts of the food system that will suffer the worst disruptions are the ones dependent on heavily consolidated supply chains that employ large numbers of people, Mr. Girotra of Cornell said.

The Smithfield plant in South Dakota is a stark example of a vulnerable link in the chain. On its own, it produces 130 million servings of food per week. It employs 3,700 people, many of whom work closely together deboning and cutting up meat.

Last week, South Dakota officials watched the number of cases there increase at an alarming rate. Smithfield said it would shut down the building for three days to sanitize the facility. But as the number of Covid-19 cases surpassed more than half of all cases in Sioux Falls and the surrounding county, state officials asked the plant to close for 14 days “to protect the employees, the families, the Sioux Falls community and the people of South Dakota,” Governor Noem said on Saturday.

The next day, Smithfield said it would shut down “until further notice” and pay its workers for the next two weeks.

As of Wednesday the U.S. had 820,600 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 2,479 cases per million in the population. South Dakota, unfortunate to be burdened with one of America's least competent governors, has 1,755 cases.

A couple of days ago the AFL-CIO sent out a press release about how to safely reopen the economy-- as opposed to how nitwits like Brian Kemp (R-GA), Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Greg Abbott (R-TX) and Señor Trumpanzee are going about it. Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO president: "We must do what the federal government has refused to: protect America’s workers. We should not be focusing on when we can reopen the economy but rather on how we should reopen it to ensure the health and safety of working people."

Safety First: Working People’s Plan for Reopening the Economy the Right Way:

1- Workers must have a say in these decisions at every level: workplace, industry, city, state and federal.
2- Decisions must be based on worker safety and sound science.
3- Strong, clear, and enforceable workplace health and safety standards must be in place.
4- Workers must have stronger protections against retaliation.
5- There must be a massive increase in adequate levels and types of personal protective equipment for workers currently on the job-- and then for those returning to the job.
6- There must be a massive increase of rapid and reliable coronavirus testing.
7- The federal government must oversee a system of recording, reporting and tracking worker infections.
8- Employers, in coordination with local and state public health departments, must trace the contacts of infected workers and remove exposed workers from work with pay and without retaliation.

“Worker safety, economic recovery and public health are intertwined,” Trumka said. “Moving too fast or doing too little on one front poses an extreme danger to everyone.”

Trumka emphasized how a premature reopening will endanger lives and livelihoods and lead to a rapid subsequent reclosing.