We hope you engaged in some simple pleasures this weekend. Baking pies, hiding eggs, sewing masks, or staring off into space as the sun rose and set and rose again. Herewith, the 411/911 of the day, plus some music and poetry.
Today’s Coronavirus Briefing is 1,053 words and will take you four minutes to read.
Top news
- All 50 U.S. states are under disaster declaration for the first time in history.
- After a fall in daily death tolls, Spain and Italy began easing lockdown measures.
- In South Korea, anyone caught defying self-quarantine can face up to one year in prison, be fined up to $8,200 or have an electronic wristband slapped on them.
- At the daily White House coronavirus briefing on Friday, President Donald Trump explained what metrics he would use to decide when to reopen the country. “The metrics right here,” the president said, pointing at his head. “That’s my metrics, that’s all I can do. I can listen to 35 people. At the end, I’ve got to make a decision.”
- Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson was released from hospital on Saturday after contracting COVID-19 and spending time in intensive care.
- Pope Francis live-streamed Easter Sunday Mass, promulgating a “contagion of hope.”
The Takeaway:
The news feels worryingly un-histrionic this morning, as if we’ve maxed out on misery and find ourselves in muted stasis. Or perhaps we’re just bracing for impact, uncertain of what comes next.
Power to the people
While there are a handful of federal initiatives helping businesses stay afloat, many industries are taking matters into their own hands, finding creative ways to retain staff and develop new ways of thinking.
- PRWeek’s Thomas Moore spoke with an adviser to some PR shops as they navigate the $350 billion federal Paycheck Protection Program meant to help small businesses retain employees. The initiative guarantees loans of up to $10 million from banks and other lenders for businesses with 500 employees or fewer, or that fit the Small Business Administration’s small business size standard.
- McKnight’s Long-Term Care News takes a look at the various strategies long-term care providers have implemented in order to maintain a steady workforce during the pandemic. Bonuses, staple grocery items at cost and a paid time-off bank with donated hours for staff members are all on tap.
- In People Management U.K., legal experts Kirsty Churm and Mathew Hardcastle take a look at bullying and harassment in the era of WFH during COVID-19. While social distancing by its nature means less inappropriate touching and misbehavior, our workplace is now rife with communications we could never have envisaged: virtual team drinks, figures of authority sharing memes, photos and videos — the lines are blurring between ill-judged or, worse, unwelcome communication.
- Introduced by the U.S. Army War College following the end of the Cold War in 1990, the acronym VUCA — Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity — is more appropriate than ever before for HR professionals, posits Opemipo Koshemani in People Management. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to develop, getting comfortable with ambiguity and thinking creatively to define solutions offers opportunities to think beyond the usual parameters.
The Takeaway:
We nominate VUCA as today’s clarion call.
Essential and tactical
As the WFH experiment continues we refine as best we can — discarding what doesn’t work and underscoring what does.
- Steve Barrett, VP, editorial director of PRWeek U.S., investigates why the smart move in a recession may be to double down and rebound stronger. Barrett uses Edelman — the largest PR firm in the world — as a case study to consider the pros and cons of keeping teams intact through the pandemic for as long as possible.
- While many organizations have successfully transferred meetings and water cooler moments to the digital landscape, they must now do the same for training solutions. Elizabeth Howlett for People Management U.K. describes how industry leaders are creating diverse, inclusive and accessible learning and development programs online.
- Fast Company reports that working from home has been a wake-up call for many companies, bolstering their flexibility options, improving their technology and cybersecurity, and proving that remote work is essential to their continuity plan.
The Takeaway:
Our entrée back into the office workplace is going to be slow — no one’s going to want to cram themselves into public transportation, then spend the day in rooms filled with even more people. Whether that means shifts for travel regulated by the state, and/or shifts for work structured by individual companies, it’s highly possible our work weeks will become permanently, partially remote.
Rites of Spring
But there are flowers! At least, in some places…
- U.K. business minister Alok Sharma is not ready to reopen garden centers. Horticulture Week takes a look at Sharma’s public responses, along with those of TV gardening legend Alan Titchmarsh, environment minister Victoria Prentis and National Farmers’ Union president Minette Batters regarding reopening and potential grants to save stricken growers, whose perishable plants will soon die.
- Matthew Appleby reports that online garden retailers are struggling to keep up with demand since garden centers and shows have closed and been canceled. But help is on the way — a list of sites available with support are listed.
- Demand for tulips in the Netherlands has slumped as flower shops around the globe have shut. About 400 million flowers, including 140 million tulip stems, were destroyed over the past month. The millions of visitors who trek annually to blooming tulip fields in the flower-growing region of Lisse have canceled trips; and Keukenhof, the largest flower park in the Netherlands, which typically welcomes 1.5 million visitors a year during the blooming of the tulips, is closed — an estimated $25 million loss in revenues.
The Takeaway:
My own family bike ride to the nursery for plants, seeds, and one highly glossed, speckled black-and-white pot was the highlight of the weekend. Do what you can to support your local garden store.
Three songs + a poem
It’s a sci-fi dystopian absurdist world we’re living in and in keeping with that, here are three fantastical songs and out-there videos plus a poem (April is Poetry Month) that isn’t defined as a poem, but is pure poetry.
- Ty Segall, Goodbye Bread
- The Flaming Lips, Do You Realize
- St. Vincent, Cheerleader
- Daniel Mallory Ortberg’s “Everything That’s Wrong of Raccoons”
‘Til Tuesday.
