Happy New Year 2021. We'll see what comes...
By Lonce Lamonte - January 1, 2021
Happy New Year.
May this beginning--of the year of our Lord 2021--become a true and deeply spiritual beginning. We pray for it…
We’ve had the 20 millionth coronavirus case in the U.S as of today’s date.
As of today, there have been over 2,300,000 cases of infection in California. There have been about 26,500 deaths so far from the coronavirus in California.
It’s a frightening situation that’s going on at this time. Reading the L.A. Times each day causes overwhelming concern. The news is bad…
Hospitals are turning away ambulances. Patients are on rolling beds out in hospital corridors. Patients are encroaching upon the emergency room space. Patients are in beds in the gift shops.
From November 2020 to December 2020, the infection rates quadrupled in Los Angeles county. The spikes were alarming. More and more friends, relatives, acquaintances are testing positive for each one of us for the coronavirus. Each one of us is more and more falling prey.
Someone with the coronavirus is becoming more of a norm than an exception and a rarity.
This situation of a pandemic has happened before in human history.
In 1347, the Great Plague hit Europe hard coming in from the East. It moved along the sea ports used for trading. It came to Italy, France, Spain, England, Germany, Norway, Sweden in a circle and back around east along the north. Around the year 1345 there were about 150 million people in Europe. By 1353 there were about 75 million.
That’s a 50% loss of the population.
Now, with approximately 2,300,000 coronavirus cases so far in California, and approximately $26,500 deaths, that’s approximately 1.14% of infections that result in death. 1.14% is a world of difference from 50%. This just puts it in perspective.
The vaccine is rolling out. Give it a year. 2022 might bring us back to where we were before the pandemic.
As far as business as usual, 2021 brings the minimum wage in California to $14.00 an hour for large businesses (26 or more employees); it brings $13.00 an hour to smaller businesses (25 employees or less).
2021 starts us out with a national unemployment rate of about 6.7%. This is what it was in November 2020. This is over what it was at the height of the Recession-Depression of 2008 at 5.8%.
Pretty bad. So it can only get better. But maybe not. The global unemployment rate at the height of the Great Depression of 1933 was 24.9 percent.
We hope for better in 2021. But, yes, things could get worse. They have been worse before in human history, as about quadruple the current unemployment rate hit in the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Plague of Europe starting in 1347 killed half the population or 75 million people.
So, let us pray. Let’s have faith and positive feeling. It's in God's hands.
Happy New Year 2021.
lonce@adjustercom.com, Lonce Lamonte, writer. All rights reserved.
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