Large Fierce Mammal

The Management does not endorse overly aggressive shopping. (Source: https://www.facebook.com/adam.the.creator/photos/a.1056298644491922/2743937492394687/?type=3&theater)

“Some years ago, in 1936, I had to write to a very dear and honored friend of mine, who has since died, Sir Austen Chamberlain, brother of the present Prime Minister, and I concluded my letter with a rather banal remark ‘that we were living in an interesting age’. Evidently he read the whole letter, because by return mail he wrote to me and concluded as follows: ‘Many years ago I learned from one of our diplomats in China that one of the principal Chinese curses heaped upon an enemy is, ‘May you live in an interesting age.’ ‘Surely’, he said, ‘no age has been more fraught with insecurity than our own present time.'” ~ Frederic René Coudert, Jr., source: May you live in interesting times

While the origins of the so called “Chinese curse” are still debated today, one thing that isn’t is the origin of the present one. Nevertheless, Goode Reader, I speak today to effects of the COVID-19 virus that are not medically measurable, and promise to be far more damaging to individuals, families, communities, and society as a whole.

As I write this from rural Nova Scotia, three “presumptive” cases of COVID-19 have been announced today in the province, all related to travel and subject to containment by self-isolation. Confirmation and greater spread is only a matter of time.

From the measures Mrs. LFM and I already have in place, both personally and professionally, we have a reasonable certainty of no exposure. One of our three sons is of school age, and all three attend daycare during the work week, the last day having been Thursday, the twelfth. The school March break has just begun and we are prepared to maintain our distance as evolving conditions and circumstances dictate. From our perspective, barring intervention by the Dread Prophet Murphy who seems for the most part to be busy elsewhere, the timing couldn’t be better.

That being said, the silent syllable in “no exposure” is YET, and that is a boon we will exploit in our planning for the second most important factor — business. Mrs. LFM and I own and operate the security consulting firm I started in 1983 while she was unavailable for work through the double whammy of being a year old and still living in Poland. Our clients include public facilities and offices at all levels of government, museums, ports of entry, factories, assembly venues, places of worship, small businesses, inns, and all manner of private situations. As technology has evolved to permit, more of our support services, and most of Mrs. LFM’s taskings, can be done from our office which is not now, nor ever has been, open to the public. Due to the fact that this situation has landed near the end of the winter season, most of the work currently on the books is scheduled to be done in vacant buildings that won’t be occupied by anyone but us until April or May, with all project coordination from start to final billing and payment done electronically. This is also nothing new — we have clients we’ve had for years and never actually met. The rest can be triaged to prioritize projects in remote locations where the number of people to be interacted with is small and decidedly local, and the work to be performed is either outdoors, limited to restricted service spaces, or both. So until the internet fails, or this leads to complete collapse of the banking system, our revenue stream is as secure as it ever was. Time is of the essence though because personal appearances can only happen while there is reasonable certainty we won’t be bringing anything nasty to the party.

Naturally, the fear driven effects on world stock markets will be having an attendant effect on those of our clients who are retired and derive their income from investments. Those will either continue to call upon our services for business as usual or fall by the wayside, depending on whether or not their need for those services makes us the Paul that Peter gets robbed to pay. The same goes for hospitality clients — many of which are seasonal and tourist driven — who are looking down the barrel of a season in the wasteland. For them, time will tell if they even survive, and their involvement with us is usually not a matter of choice but rather a condition of license, occupancy, insurance, or a combination of those.

And then there is the fact that the population of Nova Scotia is made up of a large percentage that is even older than me, if the boundaries of your credibility can stretch far enough to grasp the gravity of that statement. A lot of those people are clients, as are no small number with compromised immune systems due to age and associated infirmities, on post organ transplant anti-rejection drugs, and chemotherapy. We need to stay “clean” as long as possible and physically distance ourselves from them as soon as doubt enters the equation, and fortunately our quality control conditions and nearly 40 year old policy of no-cost preventative maintenance inspections makes our physical presence on site at less than 12 month intervals unlikely. All things considered, we’re confident we won’t stand for killing any of our clients with pestilence. It’s irresponsible to the point of rudeness, and no way to stay in business.

All joking aside though, as things are shutting down it will take a dexterous combination of finesse and fortune to get through the oncoming months of financial obligations, incoming and outgoing, for anyone and everyone.

The inexorable transition to a global economy has made China the world’s factory, and that is presently shut down by a contagion that now also threatens every part of daily life that runs on people, everywhere, which even in this technocratic world is still pretty much everything. Everywhere.

In the mean time for us here at Fort LFM, our measures are motivated out of pure self-interest, but not the way you might think. We intend to extend our period of non-exposure as long as possible to maintain uninterrupted provision of professional services, with attendant cash flow, as long as possible until the inevitable happens. For the happiness of all, this will have the collateral benefit dictated by social responsibility. With the presumed arrival of COVID-19 on these shores we expect an escalation of declared closures, most likely beginning with an extension of the school March break to get those coming back through the established two week incubation period.

We think there is a 100% probability that COVID-19 is the new reality, and absent an effective vaccine, something that will sicken and kill people as long as there are people to sicken and kill. That being said, its lethal aspects have been shown to manifest where age and/or preexisting conditions render the victim ripe for the picking, so more are sickened than killed. Taking no action to stay out of the loop as long as possible will hasten its spread and result in more infections in an abbreviated period of time instead of the ideal — the same number infected over a longer term. If you’ve ever spent 6 hours + in an ER waiting room here, you will have a grasp of how stressed our health care system is under what passes for “normal” conditions. Do what you can to get this thing later rather than sooner so, if it does go south on you (and not in the fun way), there’s an ICU bed, ventilator, and staff of well rested medical professionals to see you through.

I will have more to say on this in coming days so stay tuned. In the mean time, I would encourage you to read this from the 2012 incarnation of my annual Dark Sentiments series.

And now, here’s Great Big Sea to sing us out, complete with lyrics for those who like to sing along.