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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Businesses in Lake and many other counties around the region are eligible for federal loans through the U.S. Small Business Administration due to a disaster declaration due to COVID-19.
On Monday, the U.S. Small Business Administration declared the primary counties of Alameda, Calaveras, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Mateo, Sonoma and Tuolumne and the contiguous counties of Alpine, Amador, El Dorado, Imperial, Kern, Lake, Madera, Marin, Mariposa, Mendocino, Merced, Mono, Napa, Orange, Placer, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Stanislaus, Sutter, Ventura and Yolo a disaster area.
This declaration is a result of economic impacts caused by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 beginning Jan. 31 and continuing.
The assistance is made available through SBA Economic Injury Disaster Loans.
Small, nonfarm businesses, small agricultural cooperatives and most private nonprofit organizations of any size may apply.
Small businesses include those that do business directly with the growers, such as truckers and suppliers of agricultural equipment or services.
The deadline to apply for business economic injury is Dec. 16, 2020.
For more information visit https://www.sba.gov/ .
On Monday, the U.S. Small Business Administration declared the primary counties of Alameda, Calaveras, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Mateo, Sonoma and Tuolumne and the contiguous counties of Alpine, Amador, El Dorado, Imperial, Kern, Lake, Madera, Marin, Mariposa, Mendocino, Merced, Mono, Napa, Orange, Placer, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Stanislaus, Sutter, Ventura and Yolo a disaster area.
This declaration is a result of economic impacts caused by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 beginning Jan. 31 and continuing.
The assistance is made available through SBA Economic Injury Disaster Loans.
Small, nonfarm businesses, small agricultural cooperatives and most private nonprofit organizations of any size may apply.
Small businesses include those that do business directly with the growers, such as truckers and suppliers of agricultural equipment or services.
The deadline to apply for business economic injury is Dec. 16, 2020.
For more information visit https://www.sba.gov/ .
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Public Health Officer Gary Pace has issued a "shelter in place" order to take effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, March 19, 2020.
The full order is below.
Taking further steps to protect the community from coronavirus
March 18, 2020
The situation with this outbreak continues to rapidly change. We recognize the significant hardships many people have experienced with the restrictions that have already been put into place – school closures, limiting group activities, closing of bars and tasting rooms, and canceling events.
Due to the increased spread of the infection in the Bay Area, I am issuing orders that go into effect at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday, March 19, 2020, telling everyone to stay at home with their families, except for essential activities.
Taking these steps means a big change in lifestyle for most people. Several Bay Area counties, including Sonoma and Mendocino, have adopted these “shelter in place” actions in recent days. The goal is to take whatever steps possible to slow the entrance and spread of the virus in the community.
At this point, no known cases have been identified in Lake County, and we have been able to test a few dozen people. Accessing testing continues to be a problem throughout California. We are pushing for more laboratory capacity in the region, and for more testing supplies. Due to shortages, there is a need to prioritize who can actually receive the test. Local medical providers have been trying hard to provide testing for people that meet the criteria. Unfortunately, there simply is not capacity for everyone who wants a test to get one.
The intent of this order is to limit the mixing of people, so the virus has less of an opportunity to spread. The countries in Europe and Asia that adopted more stringent limits on people’s movement and gatherings have been the ones best able to control the spread. Basically, all non-essential activity is being curtailed. Staying with your family group is the best way to avoid infection. Most businesses will be closed, unless they are considered “essential business or governmental services.” Travel will be limited to essential activities.
Essential activities include:
Tasks for health and safety (i.e., doctor visits)
Necessary food and supplies
Outdoor activity/exercise
Essential business operations (defined below)
Caring for family members and dependents.
Essential business operations include.
Healthcare
Food growing, delivery, preparation
Infrastructure – utilities, transport
Finances
Services for necessities of life
Fuel and transport maintenance
Sanitation
Education – providing support for distance learning
Childcare for essential workers
Delivery and shipping
Essential government functions will continue.
Homeless people are exempted, but the warming center is open at this point, and attempts are being made to locate more options.
If you go outside the home, maintain a 6-foot distance.
The order will continue through April 10, 2020. We will know a lot more by then about the spread through the area, but it is very possible these restrictions will need to continue longer. The economic impacts, the disruption of life, and the real suffering that may result from all of the changes are truly heartbreaking. We do feel the possibility of a devastating outbreak to the community is real, and these steps are being taken to protect our most vulnerable community members. While all of us will be sharing in the discomfort, some will be hit harder than others. We encourage compliance with the orders, and we also need everyone to be looking out for neighbors that are isolated and don’t have family to check on them by phone or other means.
Please do not call the Sheriff’s Department, Local law enforcement, or 911 for non-emergency information regarding coronavirus.
If you have questions or concerns regarding the virus please send an email to
If you call after hours please leave a message and someone will call you back the next business day.
If you need information, you can also go the Health Department website, http://health.co.lake.ca.us/Coronavirus.htm .
Thank you,
Gary Pace, MD, MPH
County of Lake Health Officer
031820 LC Shelter in Place Order by LakeCoNews on Scribd
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County’s Public Health officer said Tuesday that testing for COVID-19 remains limited not just in Lake County but everywhere in the United States, and should the illness hit locally, it could overwhelm the capacity of health care facilities.
Dr. Gary Pace went to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday morning to update county leaders about developments in the efforts to protect the community against COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.
He acknowledged the hardship for everyone, from financial challenges to children being out of school in the wake of a countywide public school closure that went into effect on Monday and continues through April 10.
“I think it’s going to be challenging for everybody,” he said.
Pace said he doesn’t know how long the situation will continue, and hopefully the illness will pass by the community. “It’s a sobering time.”
Globally, he said the situation is continuing to unfold. There is starting to be a real rise in the number of US cases, which led to the president calling for a national emergency.
He said Bay Area counties are clamping down and encouraging people to shelter at home, as are Lake’s neighboring counties. On Monday, Pace issued two public health orders, one relating to the school closures and the other for limiting groups.
“We’re seeing this thing exponentially move,” and he said he’s taking a cue and watching what is going on in the Bay Area in order to try to stay a step ahead of things.
Pace said “a couple dozen” people in Lake County have been tested for the virus, although so far none of that testing has yielded a confirmed case.
“The testing issues are huge. And it’s not a county issue,” he said, explaining that, statewide and nationally, there have been issues with testing capacity.
Testing has been done through regional public health labs and private companies, he said.
Pace reported that the private lab company used by Adventist Health Clear Lake Hospital rejected samples sent to them by the hospital for testing because they don’t have the capacity and are overwhelmed by testing demand.
“We’re helping them find other routes,” Pace said of the hospital.
He said another private testing company has a capacity to do 1,200 tests a week for the western region but has a seven-day turnaround time, which he said is a nightmare from a doctor’s point of view.
The public health lab in Santa Rosa is now running 40 tests a day for three counties – Sonoma, Mendo and Lake. However, Pace said that testing requires the patients to meet very specific criteria, such as having had contact with a sick person or being very sick themselves, including being on a ventilator.
Pace said Lake County Public Health is getting questions about testing all day long. “There’s no good answer.”
If only about 20 people have been tested, how can we know it’s not in Lake County, Pace asked. Then, answering his own question, he said, “We have not seen a surge in illnesses or things that would make us concerned about that, but it’s certainly possible.”
He added, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it’s in the community.”
Pace said he wants to do surveillance for the illness as has been done in places like Marin and Sonoma counties, where cases have been found.
He said he is trying to get the testing capability for surveillance and he’s in communication with the regional lab, which also is having trouble with its capacity.
The California Office of Emergency Services may be able to help with drive-through testing. “We’re still very early in that conversation,” Pace said.
On Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state has made arrangements to start drive-through testing. Pace said that testing is starting at two sites, one in San Mateo County and another in Santa Clara County, which are in the hotbeds of the outbreak.
Pace said testing – from a clinical and outbreak management point of view – is the biggest problem, and it’s a problem everywhere.
The situation is very confusing and changing all the time. Pace said he hopes to have good news next week about expanded testing capacity.
The longer the infection can be kept out of Lake County and its spread minimized, the better off the community will be, Pace said.
He said his biggest concern relates to the local hospitals. “Our health care facilities are vulnerable.”
The two hospitals have a total of eight ventilators for a population of 65,000 people. Pace said that’s a concern because COVID-19 is a respiratory illness, especially in the more severe cases. Ventilators allow the more serious patients to survive, but they need to stay on the machines for a few weeks.
Pace said the Public Health strategy is to slow down the illness before it gets into Lake County, so if it does get here, it will be at a manageable level.
The places that have been most successful in stopping the illness, he said, have put a blanket on social interaction, done testing and quickly gotten sick people into quarantine.
Later on Tuesday, county officials reported that Pace is preparing to issue a shelter in place order for Lake County. That order could come as soon as Wednesday.
Email Elizabeth Larson atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
Dr. Gary Pace went to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday morning to update county leaders about developments in the efforts to protect the community against COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.
He acknowledged the hardship for everyone, from financial challenges to children being out of school in the wake of a countywide public school closure that went into effect on Monday and continues through April 10.
“I think it’s going to be challenging for everybody,” he said.
Pace said he doesn’t know how long the situation will continue, and hopefully the illness will pass by the community. “It’s a sobering time.”
Globally, he said the situation is continuing to unfold. There is starting to be a real rise in the number of US cases, which led to the president calling for a national emergency.
He said Bay Area counties are clamping down and encouraging people to shelter at home, as are Lake’s neighboring counties. On Monday, Pace issued two public health orders, one relating to the school closures and the other for limiting groups.
“We’re seeing this thing exponentially move,” and he said he’s taking a cue and watching what is going on in the Bay Area in order to try to stay a step ahead of things.
Pace said “a couple dozen” people in Lake County have been tested for the virus, although so far none of that testing has yielded a confirmed case.
“The testing issues are huge. And it’s not a county issue,” he said, explaining that, statewide and nationally, there have been issues with testing capacity.
Testing has been done through regional public health labs and private companies, he said.
Pace reported that the private lab company used by Adventist Health Clear Lake Hospital rejected samples sent to them by the hospital for testing because they don’t have the capacity and are overwhelmed by testing demand.
“We’re helping them find other routes,” Pace said of the hospital.
He said another private testing company has a capacity to do 1,200 tests a week for the western region but has a seven-day turnaround time, which he said is a nightmare from a doctor’s point of view.
The public health lab in Santa Rosa is now running 40 tests a day for three counties – Sonoma, Mendo and Lake. However, Pace said that testing requires the patients to meet very specific criteria, such as having had contact with a sick person or being very sick themselves, including being on a ventilator.
Pace said Lake County Public Health is getting questions about testing all day long. “There’s no good answer.”
If only about 20 people have been tested, how can we know it’s not in Lake County, Pace asked. Then, answering his own question, he said, “We have not seen a surge in illnesses or things that would make us concerned about that, but it’s certainly possible.”
He added, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it’s in the community.”
Pace said he wants to do surveillance for the illness as has been done in places like Marin and Sonoma counties, where cases have been found.
He said he is trying to get the testing capability for surveillance and he’s in communication with the regional lab, which also is having trouble with its capacity.
The California Office of Emergency Services may be able to help with drive-through testing. “We’re still very early in that conversation,” Pace said.
On Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state has made arrangements to start drive-through testing. Pace said that testing is starting at two sites, one in San Mateo County and another in Santa Clara County, which are in the hotbeds of the outbreak.
Pace said testing – from a clinical and outbreak management point of view – is the biggest problem, and it’s a problem everywhere.
The situation is very confusing and changing all the time. Pace said he hopes to have good news next week about expanded testing capacity.
The longer the infection can be kept out of Lake County and its spread minimized, the better off the community will be, Pace said.
He said his biggest concern relates to the local hospitals. “Our health care facilities are vulnerable.”
The two hospitals have a total of eight ventilators for a population of 65,000 people. Pace said that’s a concern because COVID-19 is a respiratory illness, especially in the more severe cases. Ventilators allow the more serious patients to survive, but they need to stay on the machines for a few weeks.
Pace said the Public Health strategy is to slow down the illness before it gets into Lake County, so if it does get here, it will be at a manageable level.
The places that have been most successful in stopping the illness, he said, have put a blanket on social interaction, done testing and quickly gotten sick people into quarantine.
Later on Tuesday, county officials reported that Pace is preparing to issue a shelter in place order for Lake County. That order could come as soon as Wednesday.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake City Council this week will discuss the ratification of a COVID-19 emergency proclamation and discuss a letter of intent to purchase the property that formerly was the location of Austin Resort.
The council will meet at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 19, at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive.
The meeting will be livestreamed on PEG TV’s YouTube channel.
On March 12, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-25-20, which allows council members to attend city council meetings telephonically.
Community members may observe the meeting in person, but given the health risks associated with COVID-19, the city said people can submit comments and questions in writing for the council’s consideration by sending them to the City Clerk Melissa Swanson atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
To give the City Council adequate time to review your questions and comments, please submit your written comments prior to 4 p.m. Thursday, March 19.
Those who have traveled internationally, who may have been exposed or who have symptoms are asked not to attend in person.
On the agenda is the ratification of a proclamation of a state of emergency in the city due to the threat of COVID-19, which as of Wednesday had no confirmed cases in Lake County.
City Manager Alan Flora, who also serves as the city’s director of emergency services, issued the proclamation on Friday, the same day that similar actions were taken by the city of Lakeport and the county of Lake, as Lake County News has reported.
If approved, the proclamation will next be considered during the council’s regular meeting on April 2.
Also on Thursday, the council will discuss a proposal to purchase the Austin Resort property, located across from City Hall on Lakeshore Drive.
Flora is seeking the council’s authorization to sign the proposed letter of intent with Bailey Building and Loans.
In other business, the council will consider awarding a construction contract for the Pearl/Emory/Mullen Avenue Pavement Rehabilitation Project to Lamon Construction. The bid award is for $1,164,209.26, with the authorization for the city manager to approve up to 10 percent for additional unforeseen contract amendments.
On the meeting's consent agenda – items that are not considered controversial and are usually adopted on a single vote – are warrant registers and the annual housing element progress report.
The council also is set to hold a closed session about a potential case of litigation.
Email Elizabeth Larson atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
The council will meet at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 19, at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive.
The meeting will be livestreamed on PEG TV’s YouTube channel.
On March 12, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-25-20, which allows council members to attend city council meetings telephonically.
Community members may observe the meeting in person, but given the health risks associated with COVID-19, the city said people can submit comments and questions in writing for the council’s consideration by sending them to the City Clerk Melissa Swanson at
To give the City Council adequate time to review your questions and comments, please submit your written comments prior to 4 p.m. Thursday, March 19.
Those who have traveled internationally, who may have been exposed or who have symptoms are asked not to attend in person.
On the agenda is the ratification of a proclamation of a state of emergency in the city due to the threat of COVID-19, which as of Wednesday had no confirmed cases in Lake County.
City Manager Alan Flora, who also serves as the city’s director of emergency services, issued the proclamation on Friday, the same day that similar actions were taken by the city of Lakeport and the county of Lake, as Lake County News has reported.
If approved, the proclamation will next be considered during the council’s regular meeting on April 2.
Also on Thursday, the council will discuss a proposal to purchase the Austin Resort property, located across from City Hall on Lakeshore Drive.
Flora is seeking the council’s authorization to sign the proposed letter of intent with Bailey Building and Loans.
In other business, the council will consider awarding a construction contract for the Pearl/Emory/Mullen Avenue Pavement Rehabilitation Project to Lamon Construction. The bid award is for $1,164,209.26, with the authorization for the city manager to approve up to 10 percent for additional unforeseen contract amendments.
On the meeting's consent agenda – items that are not considered controversial and are usually adopted on a single vote – are warrant registers and the annual housing element progress report.
The council also is set to hold a closed session about a potential case of litigation.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
031920 Clearlake City Council agenda by LakeCoNews on Scribd
While health leaders and policymakers race to limit the spread of COVID-19, the emerging crisis is having a dramatic impact on millions of healthy Americans — in restaurants, offices, taxicabs, classrooms and other places where they work.
On Monday, six counties in the San Francisco Bay Area issued a shelter-in-place order, effectively closing all non-essential enterprises.
In the Bay Area and beyond, employees are being assigned to work remotely, using technology to stay connected to their work and co-workers.
But others — in restaurants and service industries, for example — have to be on the job in person. Those vulnerable workers may face slowdowns or shutdowns with little or no access to sick pay or unemployment insurance. Those who fall ill may be confronted with an impossible choice between their income and their health.
The workplace is a defining focus for many Americans, a place where they spend much of their lives earning an income, exercising creativity and connecting with colleagues and customers. This health emergency is sending shock waves across the working world, an impact with no precedent in modern times and no quick end in sight.
For those reasons, UC Berkeley experts said, an extended campaign against COVID-19 amounts to a vast experiment, undertaken in conditions of extreme uncertainty, that could bring temporary and permanent changes, large and small, to American working life.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved a measure last week to provide broad new support to workers affected by the health crisis. Some food and restaurant companies already have reversed longstanding practices and now are providing paid sick leave for their workers, said Saru Jayaraman, director of Berkeley’s Food Labor Research Center.
Still, millions of workers are “absolutely nervous” about their income, their families and their health, she said. “They’re not making enough money to stay home, even if they got minimum wage for every hour that they’re off sick,” she explained. “It’s not enough to pay rent and bills.”
For white-collar workers, orders to work from home will raise a host of questions about motivation, productivity and the impact of isolation. But it may also inspire workplace innovation, said Clark Kellogg, a lecturer at the Haas School of Business.
“As it goes on longer and longer, there will be a rush to do workarounds,” Kellogg said. “When what we usually do doesn’t work anymore, we invent something new. And that innovation is usually done by line workers who just have to get the job done. They get out the proverbial baling wire and duct tape and make something happen.”
Service workers, knowledge workers: a troubling divide
At many workplaces, the reality of the crisis has only begun to hit home in recent days, as the number of infections rises and health experts promote social distancing to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
This is forcing owners, managers and staff to fundamentally re-evaluate what works at work. And it has created a jarring new perspective on the gap between the working poor and workers in more secure positions.
Service workers are essential to the economy: They cook in restaurants, take care of our children, drive sick people to medical appointments and deliver food from farms to distributors. If they can’t they get sick, or if they are laid off, their families struggle, and so do their companies. If too many can’t work, the whole economy suffers.
Jayaraman said there are 14 million restaurant workers in the United States and another 10 million to 15 million in retail. “You’re talking about at least a third of the working population,” she said. “That’s low-wage workers, working full-time and living in poverty.”
Many are working poor, some holding down two jobs. In California, they have at least three sick days, but in other states they may have none. Often they lack health insurance. They can’t afford to be sick, and if they are, they often go to work anyway. But if they’re cooking or providing childcare while ill, they risk transmitting illness.
A teacher can work from home, said Jesse Rothstein, director of Berkeley’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, or IRLE, and formerly chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor.
“But you can’t tell the store cashier to work from home. You can’t tell the food service worker to work from home,” he said. “It’s disproportionately the lowest income people, and they can’t live for a couple months without income.”
In a March 10 op-ed in the Washington Post, Rothstein and co-author Jared Bernstein warned that “avoidance, social distancing and panic may have enormous economic consequences,” especially for low-income workers. They proposed a solution: a temporary program under which employers would continue to pay idled employees, with reimbursement from the federal government.
Days after the op-ed was published, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a coronavirus-response measure that Rothstein described as “very similar” to what he and Bernstein proposed. It would provide two weeks of paid leave to people who get sick or quarantined, and to those caring for a sick family member or for kids whose schools are closed. If that runs out, the measure would pay up to three months of family or medical leave. Employers would pay those benefits but would be reimbursed by the government. The U.S. Senate is expected to consider the bill as early as this week.
Jayaraman urged even broader support for low-wage workers. Paid sick leave and long-term disability leave will be essential to get through the crisis, she said. But such workers also need higher wages and health insurance, to assure that they can stay home and get care if they get ill.
“This crisis should tell us that it doesn’t work to have some people with access (to health care) and some people who don’t,” she said.
Navigating risk in a white-collar world
For workers in technology and communication fields, the idea of working remotely is well-established. But the coronavirus crisis forces further change, said Don A. Moore, the Lorraine Tyson Mitchell Chair in Leadership and Communication at Berkeley Haas.
Tools such as video conferencing are already in place to support the shift. But a basic question remains hard to assess: What will the impact be on productivity for individual employees, or whole workforces when they’re suddenly moved to the digital realm?
“You can imagine that, for some jobs, that facilitates people’s productivity, but it undermines productivity in other ways,” said Moore. “Tech workplaces like Pixar, for instance, where its facilities (in Emeryville, California) were specifically designed to facilitate face-to-face interaction — that gets lost when people are collaborating online, each one working from the café or from home or the vacation spot where they’re most comfortable. … The magic of collaboration is sometimes lost.”
Isolation brings other risks, both to the employee and to the business or organization, said Cristina Banks, director of Berkeley’s Interdisciplinary Center for Healthy Workplaces.
“One of the basic human needs is the need to belong, to have social connections,” Banks said. “What we’ve done through social distancing is break those social connections and basically scattered people to the wind. … It could lead to people caring less about their connection to the institution.”
In Banks’ view, the leaders of a business or organization must respond with strategies to preserve connection and esprit de corps. “The operative principle here is certainty and predictability, making conscious efforts to connect people and maintain those connections,” she said. “Management just has to make it happen with great diligence, with great discipline.”
What if this lasts awhile?
Opinions are divided on the impact of extended social distancing. Experts predominantly believe that as governments act to restrict peoples’ movement, as they have in China and Italy, that might effectively slow the advance of COVID-19; others worry about the cost to businesses, workers and the larger economy. At Berkeley, some say that changes imposed by the crisis could spark lasting innovation.
This may be a black swan event; the future, even a few months away, is unpredictable. But Kellogg expressed a cautious hope for the innovation that arises from American workplaces. “How creatively can we think in responding to this?” he asked. “What opportunities does this hand us for thinking differently for teaching and for building communities of learning and living life?”
Edward Lempinen writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.
On Monday, six counties in the San Francisco Bay Area issued a shelter-in-place order, effectively closing all non-essential enterprises.
In the Bay Area and beyond, employees are being assigned to work remotely, using technology to stay connected to their work and co-workers.
But others — in restaurants and service industries, for example — have to be on the job in person. Those vulnerable workers may face slowdowns or shutdowns with little or no access to sick pay or unemployment insurance. Those who fall ill may be confronted with an impossible choice between their income and their health.
The workplace is a defining focus for many Americans, a place where they spend much of their lives earning an income, exercising creativity and connecting with colleagues and customers. This health emergency is sending shock waves across the working world, an impact with no precedent in modern times and no quick end in sight.
For those reasons, UC Berkeley experts said, an extended campaign against COVID-19 amounts to a vast experiment, undertaken in conditions of extreme uncertainty, that could bring temporary and permanent changes, large and small, to American working life.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved a measure last week to provide broad new support to workers affected by the health crisis. Some food and restaurant companies already have reversed longstanding practices and now are providing paid sick leave for their workers, said Saru Jayaraman, director of Berkeley’s Food Labor Research Center.
Still, millions of workers are “absolutely nervous” about their income, their families and their health, she said. “They’re not making enough money to stay home, even if they got minimum wage for every hour that they’re off sick,” she explained. “It’s not enough to pay rent and bills.”
For white-collar workers, orders to work from home will raise a host of questions about motivation, productivity and the impact of isolation. But it may also inspire workplace innovation, said Clark Kellogg, a lecturer at the Haas School of Business.
“As it goes on longer and longer, there will be a rush to do workarounds,” Kellogg said. “When what we usually do doesn’t work anymore, we invent something new. And that innovation is usually done by line workers who just have to get the job done. They get out the proverbial baling wire and duct tape and make something happen.”
Service workers, knowledge workers: a troubling divide
At many workplaces, the reality of the crisis has only begun to hit home in recent days, as the number of infections rises and health experts promote social distancing to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
This is forcing owners, managers and staff to fundamentally re-evaluate what works at work. And it has created a jarring new perspective on the gap between the working poor and workers in more secure positions.
Service workers are essential to the economy: They cook in restaurants, take care of our children, drive sick people to medical appointments and deliver food from farms to distributors. If they can’t they get sick, or if they are laid off, their families struggle, and so do their companies. If too many can’t work, the whole economy suffers.
Jayaraman said there are 14 million restaurant workers in the United States and another 10 million to 15 million in retail. “You’re talking about at least a third of the working population,” she said. “That’s low-wage workers, working full-time and living in poverty.”
Many are working poor, some holding down two jobs. In California, they have at least three sick days, but in other states they may have none. Often they lack health insurance. They can’t afford to be sick, and if they are, they often go to work anyway. But if they’re cooking or providing childcare while ill, they risk transmitting illness.
A teacher can work from home, said Jesse Rothstein, director of Berkeley’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, or IRLE, and formerly chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor.
“But you can’t tell the store cashier to work from home. You can’t tell the food service worker to work from home,” he said. “It’s disproportionately the lowest income people, and they can’t live for a couple months without income.”
In a March 10 op-ed in the Washington Post, Rothstein and co-author Jared Bernstein warned that “avoidance, social distancing and panic may have enormous economic consequences,” especially for low-income workers. They proposed a solution: a temporary program under which employers would continue to pay idled employees, with reimbursement from the federal government.
Days after the op-ed was published, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a coronavirus-response measure that Rothstein described as “very similar” to what he and Bernstein proposed. It would provide two weeks of paid leave to people who get sick or quarantined, and to those caring for a sick family member or for kids whose schools are closed. If that runs out, the measure would pay up to three months of family or medical leave. Employers would pay those benefits but would be reimbursed by the government. The U.S. Senate is expected to consider the bill as early as this week.
Jayaraman urged even broader support for low-wage workers. Paid sick leave and long-term disability leave will be essential to get through the crisis, she said. But such workers also need higher wages and health insurance, to assure that they can stay home and get care if they get ill.
“This crisis should tell us that it doesn’t work to have some people with access (to health care) and some people who don’t,” she said.
Navigating risk in a white-collar world
For workers in technology and communication fields, the idea of working remotely is well-established. But the coronavirus crisis forces further change, said Don A. Moore, the Lorraine Tyson Mitchell Chair in Leadership and Communication at Berkeley Haas.
Tools such as video conferencing are already in place to support the shift. But a basic question remains hard to assess: What will the impact be on productivity for individual employees, or whole workforces when they’re suddenly moved to the digital realm?
“You can imagine that, for some jobs, that facilitates people’s productivity, but it undermines productivity in other ways,” said Moore. “Tech workplaces like Pixar, for instance, where its facilities (in Emeryville, California) were specifically designed to facilitate face-to-face interaction — that gets lost when people are collaborating online, each one working from the café or from home or the vacation spot where they’re most comfortable. … The magic of collaboration is sometimes lost.”
Isolation brings other risks, both to the employee and to the business or organization, said Cristina Banks, director of Berkeley’s Interdisciplinary Center for Healthy Workplaces.
“One of the basic human needs is the need to belong, to have social connections,” Banks said. “What we’ve done through social distancing is break those social connections and basically scattered people to the wind. … It could lead to people caring less about their connection to the institution.”
In Banks’ view, the leaders of a business or organization must respond with strategies to preserve connection and esprit de corps. “The operative principle here is certainty and predictability, making conscious efforts to connect people and maintain those connections,” she said. “Management just has to make it happen with great diligence, with great discipline.”
What if this lasts awhile?
Opinions are divided on the impact of extended social distancing. Experts predominantly believe that as governments act to restrict peoples’ movement, as they have in China and Italy, that might effectively slow the advance of COVID-19; others worry about the cost to businesses, workers and the larger economy. At Berkeley, some say that changes imposed by the crisis could spark lasting innovation.
This may be a black swan event; the future, even a few months away, is unpredictable. But Kellogg expressed a cautious hope for the innovation that arises from American workplaces. “How creatively can we think in responding to this?” he asked. “What opportunities does this hand us for thinking differently for teaching and for building communities of learning and living life?”
Edward Lempinen writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday announced that he has placed the California National Guard on alert as part of a commitment to mobilize state personnel and assets to protect local communities and fight the spread of COVID-19.
The National Guard has been directed by the governor to be prepared to perform humanitarian missions across the state including food distribution, ensuring resiliency of supply lines, as well as supporting public safety as required.
“As Californians make sacrifices over the coming weeks and stay home, we are immensely grateful for medical providers, first-responders and National Guard personnel who are assisting those who are most vulnerable to COVID-19,” said Gov. Newsom.
Tuesday’s announcement, made in the governor’s capacity as the commander-in-chief of the California National Guard, is consistent with duties routinely performed by the California National Guard during natural disasters and other emergencies within the state.
The National Guard has been directed by the governor to be prepared to perform humanitarian missions across the state including food distribution, ensuring resiliency of supply lines, as well as supporting public safety as required.
“As Californians make sacrifices over the coming weeks and stay home, we are immensely grateful for medical providers, first-responders and National Guard personnel who are assisting those who are most vulnerable to COVID-19,” said Gov. Newsom.
Tuesday’s announcement, made in the governor’s capacity as the commander-in-chief of the California National Guard, is consistent with duties routinely performed by the California National Guard during natural disasters and other emergencies within the state.