Is This REALLY The “New Normal”?

When I wrote my last post at the end of March I had no idea we would still be dealing with Covid-19 4-months later, let alone witness the the civil unrest that’s occurred in the same timespan. The divisiveness of the country is something I’ve never seen before.

I’ll admit I didn’t take the Pandemic seriously at first and thought we would all be back to work in a few weeks. It took me some time to recognize the severity of the situation and, as stated in the last post, there have been some big changes in how we live

A lot of new business projects that were in the planning stages have been put on hold and some recently completed ones are struggling to make it. We have a large complex down the street called Fishers District that was at about 75% occupancy when all of this started. All the new restaurants had to close at a time they could least afford it. Most have opened back up but the mandated reduced capacity in place can’t be helping them much.

The rioting in Downtown Indianapolis is made the situation even worse. The office workers are not returning. Some major employers aren’t bringing people back until January at the earliest. The businesses who relied the downtown workers are suffering. The businesses looted and damaged in the rioting are suffering. In a lot of cases the same business affected by both.

Fast forward 3-months from March and the infection levels appeared to be trending the right direction. Right about the time people just couldn’t take it anymore and started throwing caution to the wind. Guess what? According to the health authorities the infection rate started climbing again.

Now, one thing I wish the health authorities would do it discuss the percentage of infected tests vs the count. If you test more people you’re going to identify more positive cases. So I’m still a little suspicious of the numbers when they keep giving total infection numbers that are higher and higher. Is it the same percentage of infections based on the number of tests?

It’s currently back to school time and the plans of each district are radically different. The feedback from the parents is all over the place too. Some want to get their kids out of the house at all costs (no fear of the virus), some are concerned about their safety. Both have compelling arguments for why they feel the way they do. I’m just not sure how the schools are going to be able to manage it. Our local High School has almost 4000 students!

Now, almost 4-months later, we’ve settled into the new way of life. I don’t see it “returning to normal” any time soon. I fact the predictions are now saying it’s going to get worse before it gets better. What a weird time to be alive…

Stay safe & do what you can to stay healthy.

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