Artpartner/ANDBZ/Abaca/Sipa USA/AP

Prices of gold have soared to near record highs, with investors rushing to find safe places to park their money. Inflation is one potential long-term concern.

The whiff of inflation is in the air.

As improbable as it sounds in this low-inflation era, some signs point to a future period of rapid rises in consumer prices.

One is the price of gold. Long seen as a hedge against runaway prices, the yellow metal is trading within 5% of its all-time high. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who in the past has downplayed the precious metal, recently bought shares in a gold-mining company.

Another signal is the U.S. dollar. While still viewed by many as a haven from financial storms, its value has been sagging versus other major currencies in recent months. And Rochelle Jones, a young worker and student living near Washington is seeking alternatives to the dollar as a safeguard of her own financial future. Already a buyer of cryptocurrency before the coronavirus pandemic, she’s now buying investments in gold as well.

What’s triggered these concerns is America’s central bank, the U.S. Federal Reserve. It has won widespread praise for its recent moves to stave off a pandemic-led recession with echoes of the Great Depression of the 1930s. In so doing, however, some analysts worry that it is setting the stage in the long term for the opposite problem: a high-inflation era like the 1970s.

“I think they’ve done a great job in saving us from a depression,” says Desmond Lachman, a monetary policy expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington. But, “I think that that is inviting trouble down the road.”

His specific criticism: a subtle policy change last month, where Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the bank would be more tolerant than in the past of inflation during economic expansions.

SOURCE:

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

|

Karen Norris/Staff

Pumping the accelerator

As the central bank to the world’s largest economy, the Fed acts as a kind of chauffeur. If the economy is growing too slowly, it pushes down the accelerator by lowering official interest rates. Reducing the cost of borrowing typically causes businesses and consumers to take on more debt and spend more, which boosts the economy. By contrast, if the economy is growing too fast, and prices look to skyrocket because there’s too much demand for goods and services, the Fed eases off the gas by raising interest rates.

For now, America’s most widely watched inflation gauge, the consumer price index, shows little momentum. In July, the index showed average prices for goods and services rose only 1% from a year before. Pressure on consumer prices is similarly minimal in other industrialized nations. 

Yet both now and before the pandemic, at least a fifth of U.S. forecasters saw monetary policy as “too stimulative” – a far higher share than those who saw policy as too restrictive. (About three-fourths view current policy as “about right.”)

One risk is the potential for higher inflation. Another is that opening monetary spigots, while aimed at supporting the “real economy” of consumers and businesses, could potentially also fuel destabilizing price bubbles in assets like stocks.

“The rise in gold might be associated with people not being sure what currency to go into,” Mr. Lachman says. “You used to think that the dollar was stable. That was the go-to place when times were difficult. But now you’re not sure.”

The Fed’s dual mandate from Congress is to seek price stability and full employment in the U.S. economy. Both those goals are best achieved when a severe boom and bust, like the housing bubble and global financial crisis of the early 2000s, can be avoided. The Fed’s recent policy shift on inflation serves to affirm its commitment to supporting economic growth – better achieved when the risk of a damaging deflationary spiral can be taken off the table of public expectations. 

Many economists concur.

“There is a risk of … a vicious circle in which it’s very hard to escape a low interest rate, low inflation, low growth environment,” says Greg Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics in New York. With short-term interest rates already near zero, “these tweaks to the monetary policy framework are aimed at avoiding falling permanently into that trap.”

Around the world, central banks are largely operating in sync on that objective.

A one-paddle canoe?

But they could use some help in the form of more relief from governments to support unemployed workers, struggling businesses, and revenue-starved local and regional governments. 

“If you’re in a canoe and only one person is paddling, the other person has to paddle,” says William Spriggs, an economist at Howard University who also works for the AFL-CIO labor federation. In fact, he sees the new Fed stance on inflation in the United States as designed in part to encourage such action by Congress.

“It was necessary for the Fed to reassure everyone that there was space for a fiscal [government] response,” without worry that the Fed would feel impelled to counterbalance such efforts by raising interest rates, Professor Spriggs says. “What the Fed is saying is, ‘No. … We’re not doing that.’”

On Thursday, however, prospects for a stimulus deal before election day dimmed considerably as Republicans and Democrats remained far apart on the scale and scope of an emergency package.

Mr. Spriggs and other experts say the Fed’s shift is more than just a crisis response. It’s also a long-term change in central bankers’ outlook. In the current era of globalized labor markets and what some call a “savings glut,” inflation hasn’t been the menace it was in the 1970s. 

The result may be that stimulative policies can stay in place longer than was considered appropriate in the past, redefining “full employment” upward during economic expansions. While helpful across the job-market spectrum, this shift could especially expand opportunities for less-advantaged workers to build their careers, skills, and savings.

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters/File

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell speaks in Washington, March 3, 2020. Last month, he said "maximum employment is a broad-based and inclusive goal," which "reflects our appreciation for the benefits of a strong labor market, particularly for many in low- and moderate-income communities."

A more inclusive central bank 

Chairman Powell was overt about this in his Aug. 27 speech. One passage in essence acknowledged the Fed should pay more attention to economic conditions for African Americans and others who haven’t shared equally in economic gains.

“Maximum employment is a broad-based and inclusive goal,” Mr. Powell said. “This change reflects our appreciation for the benefits of a strong labor market, particularly for many in low- and moderate-income communities.” 

The shift is a win for American workers broadly, says Mr. Spriggs, a board member for a regional Fed effort on inclusive growth. 

Despite the generally warm reception of the Fed’s policy adjustment, critics still have a list of concerns. In addition to inflation or asset bubbles, one question is whether the sheer scale of central bank intervention is sustainable.

The Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, and the Fed now hold a stunning $21 trillion in bonds and other assets, largely purchased in efforts to support their economies. That figure has risen by about $6 trillion so far this year, and is up about $17 trillion since 2007.

Will those economies get healthy enough to sell those assets back to investors anytime soon? 

Helen Popper, an economist at Santa Clara University in California puts in a word for patience rather than panic. 

“When they need to unwind these positions, they are going to have to pace it, right? But there’s nothing about it that says that they have to do it in any dramatic way,” she says. 

For now, central banks are justifiably less concerned about inflation than the risk of deflation – the scourge that eroded prices, wages, and business solvency in the Great Depression.

“We need to keep treating the wounds and give [the economy] a chance to heal,” Professor Popper says. “It’s important not to overdo it, but it’s also important not to get policy fatigue.” 

For nearly a decade and a half, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have suffered under a suffocating blockade by both Israel and Egypt. Yet ironically, as the coronavirus pandemic spread around the globe this year, their isolation helped spare them a public health emergency.

In late August, however, Gazans joined the rest of the world, as COVID-19 slipped the confines of quarantine centers for returning travelers and penetrated the densely populated neighborhoods where the territory’s 2 million citizens reside.

That development has heightened worry that the Gaza Strip – with its infrastructure, economy, and health system all hobbled by relentless conflict between the territory’s Hamas rulers and Israel – stands hopelessly underequipped to fight a virus that has already burned through countries that are considerably more resilient.

“Look what corona did in the U.S. and Europe, where there is a system and a government that can support the people. There is no system like that here that can support all of the people in Gaza,” says Mohammed Aziza, a fieldworker for Gisha, an Israeli nongovernmental organization that advocates for Palestinian human rights. “The problem is not just the coronavirus. It’s the infrastructure, the water, the medical system, the electricity,” says Mr. Aziza, who lives in the town of Deir el-Balah.

“We were all in shock, because we didn’t expect that it would sneak into Gaza,” says Hana Salah, a freelance journalist in Gaza City whose family has stopped entertaining guests or going to the beach to comply with social distancing rules.

“I hope things will go back to normal, but we are afraid that the situation will not stay the same,” she says. “The map of the spread is not known. Every day it’s a new area.”

Years after the United Nations warned that Gaza would become unlivable by 2020 without improved infrastructure and basic services, international officials and residents say the dire health consequences of the pandemic could dramatically eliminate whatever resilience was left in the territory. Aside from Hamas’ battle with Israel, the militant Islamic group has bad relations with Egypt and a 13-year feud with the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank.

Mohammed Salem/Reuters

A Palestinian girl fills a container with water from a public tap during a lockdown amid the coronavirus outbreak, in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip Sept. 10, 2020.

The virus was first reported in the Strip in March among Palestinians returning from abroad, with individuals confined to special quarantine camps. But in the last 2 1/2 weeks, the number of new daily cases has climbed steadily to 195, for a total of 1,551 cases as of Thursday, according to local health authorities. 

In response, Hamas has enforced strict lockdowns in hot spots in the north, subdivided the coastal territory with a system of checkpoints, and closed schools, mosques, and flea markets. Residents say Hamas has resorted to harsh tactics such as beatings, water cannons, and dirt barriers to keep people off the streets and confined to hometowns.

Silver lining: De-escalation

But there has been one important silver lining. The outbreak’s rising numbers in Gaza (and Israel) prompted the two sides to wind down weeks of escalating strife: cross-border incendiary balloon attacks on southern Israel, and retaliatory strikes into Gaza.

And to help mediate a cease-fire, the government of Qatar boosted its monthly aid to Gaza from about $25 million to $45 million – though that falls well short of the additional aid that Gaza currently needs.

“The deal [between Hamas and Israel] was done after the spread of COVID-19 was discovered. It was an important factor,” says Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science at Gaza’s Al-Azhar University. “You would have a much more disastrous situation if you had to deal with the spread of COVID in addition to the escalation with Israel.”

Some observers say the pandemic should spur Israelis, Palestinians, and international officials to act on long-discussed compromises that would boost Gaza’s economy and infrastructure in return for finding a way to disarm militants there and end cross-border attacks. 

Containing the virus is an interest shared by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Israel, and Egypt, says Eitan Dangot, a retired general who used to head Israel’s administration of the occupied Palestinian territories. “Maybe there’s an opportunity to build trust between both sides,” he says. 

Though the pandemic prompted Israel and Hamas to de-escalate for now, Gazans and Israelis alike fear the opposite is still possible – that rising unrest in Gaza over the virus prompts Hamas to lash out at Israel to preserve its power. 

Khalil Hamra/AP

Hamas police officers stop vehicles during a lockdown imposed following community spread of coronavirus cases beyond quarantine camps in the densely populated Gaza Strip, Aug. 27, 2020.

“I’m afraid we are going to collapse, and we will lose control in the street. If the government loses control, it could opt for a clash with Israel,” says Swairjo Tholfakr, a doctor who owns a Gaza City pharmacy that has been closed for two weeks. Even when the shop reopens, Dr. Tholfakr says, he will have few medicines to offer. 

“There’s no medicine in the hospitals and no medicine in the free market,” he says. “There is no money for people to buy their own medications.”

Equipment shortage

The territory also lacks basic medical equipment with which to fight an outbreak: There were only about 70 beds in intensive care units before the start of the crisis, and the number of ventilators has doubled to 100; testing kits are inadequate, and contact tracing is nonexistent. The COVID-19 challenge is compounded by a broken sewage treatment system, daily electricity outages, a 53% poverty rate, and the fact that only 10% of houses have direct access to safe water.

“We have to manage an acute situation on top of chronic long-lasting misery,” says Bassem Naim, who served in the past as health minister for the Hamas government. In addition to the conflict with Israel, Dr. Naim also complains about public-sector wage cuts by the rival Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

“The medical staff is exhausted. We are working without salaries; we have had three big wars, and continuing aggression. They are exhausted physiologically, socially, and financially.”

When the coronavirus first arrived in the spring, Israel sent several test kits to Gaza through third parties. In recent months, the U.N. has helped obtain additional medical devices. On the other hand, fewer Gazans received permits from Israel and the Palestinian Authority to leave the territory for medical treatment in Israeli hospitals or in the West Bank – further stressing the local health system. The World Health Organization recently said it would help negotiate the crossings.

Fatalistic youth

One factor that could complicate the crisis is that Gaza’s population skews young: Nearly two-thirds of Palestinians there are under the age of 24.

Growing up amid an atmosphere of repeated conflict – Hamas and Israel fought three brief wars between 2009 and 2014 – might give Gazans a fatalistic attitude toward the pandemic. 

“I have lived my entire life under occupation. Talking about fear is like talking about food. In every Gaza house, there is a story of a martyr, or a dream that is dead,” says Issam Odwan, project manager at a nonprofit that promotes creative writing.

“If people are not dying because of bombs, they are dying because of the lack of medical equipment or the economic situation,” he says. “How can people be afraid of COVID-19, when they have been living with death for so long?”

Gidon Bromberg, the Israel director for EcoPeace Middle East, says to help fuel local power plants and provide power for sewage treatment, Israel and the Palestinians should work to hook up the territory to Israel’s offshore natural gas fields and upgrade the capacity of existing power lines into Gaza. For the time being, Israel could provide additional water through a pipeline that has already been built but is not in use amid unresolved questions over who will pay for it.

“COVID should be a wake-up call that these things shouldn’t be just on the discussion table. Progress needs to be made,” Mr. Bromberg says. “If COVID gets out of control, you are going to see reactions in Gaza that could be horrific; you could see hundreds of thousands of Gazans trying to walk to the fence out of fear of staying in Gaza.”  

Last week, in a display of pragmatism, a delegation from the Palestinian Authority visited Gaza for rare talks with local Hamas officials, says Shira Efron, a fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. After years of talks and failed aid efforts in Gaza, it might take a severer crisis to shake Israel, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and the international community into action.

“As long as Hamas is in power, it’s very clear that Israel has its red line. The international community is fatigued, and it doesn’t see to what end it’s investing. Qatar is the only player that is investing,” she says. “You need something much bigger to change the trajectory of Gaza.”

Editor’s note: As a public service, all our pandemic coverage is free. No paywall.

Andre Borges/AP

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro greets supporters at an Independence Day celebration event in Brasilia, Brazil, Sept. 7, 2020.

Ana Valeria Braga was just getting back on her feet after five months of unemployment when the coronavirus hit Brazil.

She landed a gig selling SIM cards on the street. But when the pandemic shuttered her central Brazilian city, Goiás, the single mother lost her new job, too. What saved her was a monthly government voucher of 600 reals – the equivalent of $110.

“It was a ray of light at the end of a tunnel,” Ms. Braga says over the phone. “It made all the difference. It meant I could pay the rent. It meant my son wouldn’t have to go hungry.”

This emergency funding – which amounts to a little over half of a minimum monthly salary – has proved a lifeline for the nearly 63.5 million Brazilians who received it after having their livelihoods brought to a halt by the pandemic.

But the program, which launched in April, has also boosted the popularity of President Jair Bolsonaro to new heights. He now has his highest level of approval since taking office in early 2019, despite what many deem a catastrophic handling of the pandemic. The far-right populist is presiding over the world’s third-largest outbreak of COVID-19, which has so far infected more than 4 million Brazilians and claimed the lives of 125,000. Since the start of the pandemic, he has dismissed the threat of the virus, calling it a “little flu,” and lambasted governors who try to shut down states.

Whereas other leaders who have taken a similar approach – from the United States to Mexico – have been punished in the polls for dismissing the pandemic’s severity, Mr. Bolsonaro appears to be weathering the storm and emerging politically unscathed. 

“Many of those receiving this help see Bolsonaro as the only thing standing between them and hunger,” says Brian Winter, vice president for policy at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas. He says the voucher program has given Mr. Bolsonaro a boost among the country’s poorest citizens, a group that has historically supported Brazil’s leftist parties.

But downplaying the virus has “cost untold lives,” Mr. Winter adds. “And he may not pay a political price” for those actions.

A poll last month showed Mr. Bolsonaro’s approval rose to 37%, from 32% in June. The number of Brazilians who disapprove of the president slumped to 34% from 44%. Almost half of the population, meanwhile, says he isn’t to blame for the toll of the pandemic.

Still, his newfound popularity has come at a hefty cost. The emergency voucher program has ballooned Brazil’s eye-watering public spending bill and deepened worries about the country’s already faltering economy, which has struggled to recover from a painful recession in 2015-16. Now, experts warn the country may be edging ever closer to a fiscal crisis.

This month, the government extended the program until the end of the year. But under pressure to trim costs, they slashed the amount of each handout by half, which could put his ratings at risk.

“There has been a huge impact, a huge rise in the incomes of these families,” says Ecio Costa, an economics professor at the Federal University of Pernambuco in Brazil’s northeast. “Does this policy bear fruit politically? Of course it does. Whoever brought these families out of the misery they were living in will have political support,” he says.

“But there’s also a huge fiscal concern behind it.”

Silvia Izquierdo/AP

Demonstrators are reflected on a building as they protest against Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, featured at right, during a march coined "Scream of the Excluded," which occurs on the sidelines of annual Independence Day celebrations, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sept. 7, 2020. Activists called for a more democratic nation and an end to economic inequality.

Surge in popularity

When COVID-19 reached Brazil, the pandemic seemed poised to dwindle support for Mr. Bolsonaro. For weeks, Brazilians banged pots and pans at their windows each night, angry over the president’s handling of the pandemic. Two health ministers left his administration and motions for the president’s impeachment began to pile up.

But through each crisis, Mr. Bolsonaro’s core supporters – typically conservative, wealthier Brazilians preoccupied with issues like crime, corruption, and “traditional family values” – have remained steadfast. He has kept their focus on the issues that got him elected: crime, the economy, and culture wars.

“It has kept his base very loyal and engaged. ... That base has stood by him all along,” Mr. Winter says.

But the president’s repeated lambasting of quarantine measures has also resonated with frustrated informal workers, who make up 40% of the labor market in Brazil. Social distancing and quarantines dealt devastating financial blows to those who clean homes, drive taxis, or sell fruit on the street.

“This is the public that benefits the most from a reopening of the economy – people working in service jobs, in informal work,” says Cecilia Machado, an economist and professor at the Fundação Getulio Vargas. “He is talking to an audience that is sympathetic to his ideas.”

Meanwhile, the emergency aid – which Mr. Bolsonaro did not spearhead, and initially criticized as too generous – won the president new fans in regions badly hit by the pandemic’s economic toll.

Brazil’s poorest regions, “where there was strong rejection of Bolsonaro,” according to Professor Costa, benefited most from the aid. He recently analyzed the program’s reach and found that in the northeastern municipality of Central do Maranhão – in one of Brazil’s poorest states – the area’s economic output surged by a quarter following the implementation of the voucher program.

Mr. Bolsonaro’s popularity soared in the poorer north of the country, where social welfare programs like Bolsa Familia once fueled fierce loyalty to the leftist Workers’ Party ousted in 2016.

Jose Daniel Lima da Silva doesn’t like the president’s “arrogant” comments about the virus or his refusal to wear a mask. He doesn’t credit the president fully for the emergency aid, but the locksmith from Recife – a city on Brazil’s northeastern coast – says Mr. Bolsonaro has done more good than harm during the pandemic.

“The truth is that he has helped people,” says Mr. Lima da Silva, whose wife received emergency aid early on in the pandemic. “Finally, a politician who is giving to the people instead of robbing them.”

Political opportunity

The emergency aid was initially supposed to last only a few months. But with the pandemic still ravaging Brazil nearly six months on, it was extended until December – at an estimated cost of $16.8 billion.

The government has tried to tackle the bill by slashing the monthly payments by half. But the move has angered many of those who rely on it.

Before the crisis, Camilla Gomes received $30 in government assistance through the Bolsa Familia welfare program, which delivers cash transfers to poor Brazilians who send their children to school. But she also had income from her job as an office clerk at a university. When she lost her work due to the pandemic, the new emergency voucher became her family’s only source of income.

“Bolsonaro wants to lower the [pandemic] payment” to $56, says Ms. Gomes, who lives just outside Rio de Janeiro. “How far is that going to go with three kids? Do I pay the bills or do I buy food?” she asks.

“Can he survive on that much?”

Mr. Bolsonaro appears to be scrambling to keep cash in the wallets of needy Brazilians. The government is now mulling a plan to create a permanent voucher program, effectively rebranding and replacing the Bolsa Familia project that’s become synonymous with the country’s left.

Finding a way to continue the program may help him maintain support among the country’s poorest, but it could alienate his more traditional supporters, as demands grow to get the economy back on track.

“If he is seen as steering the economy in the wrong direction, it could cost him the reelection,” says Professor Costa.

For Ms. Gomes, the former university clerk, the financial aid is not enough to put her support behind the president.

“This is all just to gain votes in the next election,” Ms. Gomes says. “We will see him as a good president only when he starts caring about the Brazilian people.”

A month ago, Brad Thorpe had never heard of a learning pod. 

Within a week, the Toronto father was busy converting a spinning room at a gym he owns into a classroom for his sixth grade daughter and seven classmates.

The entrepreneur who holds 15 patents describes himself as a “solutions guy” who had a problem: Schools are opening across Ontario Sept. 15, but with 27 students per class in his daughter’s age range, he worried about the school’s ability to maintain social distancing. So he hired an Ontario-certified teacher, shaped a curriculum, and “in a day and on a dollar” created a website launching the Girls Only Academy.

That kind of entrepreneurial spirit has undergirded the rise of a “micro-schooling” movement across North America, where parents are coupling with other families to offer an alternative to in-class schooling they feel is unsafe or remote learning that they feel is inadequate. 

Across the United States and Canada, families are experimenting with alternative schooling arrangements. Parents are taking to Facebook to inquire about tuition models, insurance policies, and potential podmates for their children while tutors and teachers offer their services. Start-ups are offering new platforms, hoping to tap the emerging market built by parents who say they are hustling to do whatever they can for their children this academic year.

Laura Cluthé/Special to the Christian Science Monitor

Brad Thorpe and his wife Colleen McCay stand in a workout area in Mr. Thorpe's gym, Striation 6, which is now also home to their daughter's sixth grade "learning pod" called Girls Only Academy, in Toronto, Sept. 8, 2020. Athletic activity, which is part of the curriculum, will take place in certain areas of the gym.

But Mr. Thorpe says he’s had every insult lodged at him from opportunistic to elitist. His favorite: “disaster capitalist.” 

In fact, many parents, education experts, and community advocates worry that “pandemic pods” could have unintended consequences that further widen gaps in achievement between socioeconomic groups. The conversation has surfaced new thinking about those long-standing inequities – examining people’s own privileges and access – that have long persisted but may not have been as overtly apparent. 

“These pods are highlighting the kind of advantages that some have over others that are less visible maybe when there’s not a pandemic occurring,” says Agata Soroko, a doctoral candidate and part-time professor in the faculty of education at the University of Ottawa. “We’re often told that we live in a meritocracy and every person has an equal opportunity to succeed,” she adds. “These pandemic pods are troubling this narrative and bringing into light the inequities that various communities face.”

On the northwest corner of Toronto – far from the neighborhood where Mr. Thorpe was assembling desks past midnight the other night – Anna-Kay Brown was doing her own organizing. Her community event would highlight inequities in housing, schooling, and public transport. She, like Mr. Thorpe, has struggled with what to do with her two school-age children, an elementary and middle schooler. Her neighborhood, Jane and Finch, is one of Toronto’s worst hit by COVID-19. Here schools are reducing sizes to 15 and 20 per classroom in her children’s age groups. But she doesn’t feel safe and still hasn’t decided what to do two weeks before classes are to resume. 

Co-chair of the Jane and Finch Education Action Group, Ms. Brown doesn’t know a single parent forming a pod and while she doesn’t blame parents who want to, she worries about what will happen to public school funding if this becomes a long-term trend. 

“The gap is widening,” she says. “I believe that collectively parents should be advocating for every school and every place that children live to be safe for back to school.”

These inequities have been deepening in her own community for years. Private tutors and expensive extracurriculars have long given the advantage to families of means. Those disparities have only grown when public education funding is eroded and programs like music or arts get cut. And they grew further during the pandemic when households with working parents couldn’t support children with remote learning; some didn’t even have the technology to get online.

Now pods represent a new advantage for some – and a challenge to the system. Some groups are supplementing remote learning from schools with additional support from a private teacher or tutor. Others are going as far as starting their own private schools. Mr. Thorpe found that registering as a private school was the only way to meet Ontario regulations and enroll enough learners to make the program financially viable.

Eloise Tan, research program director at People for Education in Toronto, says pitting parents against one another is counterproductive, even as she is wary of some of the implications for privatization. 

Laura Cluthé/Special to the Christian Science Monitor

Hayley Pile, an Ontario-certified teacher, poses in her new "learning pod" classroom in Toronto, Sept. 8, 2020. Ms. Pile was hired by Brad Thorpe to teach his sixth grade daughter and a handful of her classmates.

“Of those families that are creating learning pods, which they are financing themselves and with other parents, it’s not just a school outside of the system. We’re creating a mini-economy for education,” Dr. Tan says. “We don’t know how much this is going to take off; we don’t really know where it’s going to end. … Where is the confidence in public education going to be for parents? Where will the government’s commitment to protecting and enhancing public education be if we don’t have that superstrong and diverse enrollment from different kinds of families? Where are we going to be at the end of this? We don’t know.”

The unknowns abound as “pandemic pods” gain force. One Facebook group, Learning Pods – Canada, formed just a few weeks ago, has already attracted more than 11,000 members. At a recent virtual “town hall,” members were breathlessly discussing insurance policies and pitfalls. They bristle at criticism that they are widening divides between haves and have-nots and brainstorm ways to keep costs down so that it’s an accessible movement.

One start-up based in Iran, Pods Match, says that in the first two days that it went online in late August, 200 people signed up to the free service, mostly from the U.S. and Canada. The group is planning to expand beyond matchmaking to include an option that allows pods to welcome families from lower socioeconomic brackets for free or a discount. “We are worried and completely aware of this situation,” says Iman Davoodian, who started the company. 

A father in Toronto, who wants to remain anonymous because he works with clients in medicine and education, says he’s a proponent of public school and its equalizing aims. But he says that by not reducing class sizes to adhere to social distancing required by the rest of society the government is shifting the burden to parents. He’s looking for a pod for his middle school-age son because he is a widower at home with a full-time job. “There are no good choices,” he says. 

Mr. Thorpe says he too was a proponent of public education but not the way it is currently operating. He hopes learning pods will force the education ministry to think better about how they spend, especially because Ontario funds students at more than $12,000 per year, slightly more than what his Girls Only Academy costs per student at full enrollment. “The naysayers say we’re dismantling public education ... that we’re having a negative effect on long-term equity,” he says. “I have no interest in that. But I’m happy to help offer solutions.”

Editor’s note: As a public service, all our pandemic coverage is free. No paywall.

For Carly Kraft, Justin Bartlett, and their dog, Maggie, a new and more mobile life is coming into view. As musicians with bands and day jobs in technology, the couple recently purchased a “skoolie” – a school bus – to convert into a camper-meets-tour-van. Eventually, they hope to live in it and tour the country playing music. 

For now, they’re staying in West Virginia as they outfit it themselves, and are in the early phases of demolition.

The pandemic has in a way propelled them into pursuing a longtime dream.

“We didn’t want to be tied down to any specific place [and] we wanted to be able to tour America playing music,” says Ms. Kraft. 

Her job and Mr. Bartlett’s were in-person before the pandemic, but now they’ve both been told they’ll be working remotely indefinitely. For them, that was ideal. “COVID provided the perfect storm,” says Ms. Kraft.

And even though they don’t have much experience with creating a home on wheels, “there are so many forums online, there are so many Facebook groups, and people are just incredibly helpful,” says Ms. Kraft. 

A niche community before the pandemic, the number of people devoted to what many call “vanlife” is now growing rapidly. For many, this lifestyle has appeal as a relatively safe way to travel and to prize experiences over home ownership. The pandemic interrupted vacationing, socializing, and freely interacting with others, but van life offers a way to have new experiences and feel part of a community. 

“The pandemic is really accelerating it,” says Jonathon Day, an associate professor at Purdue University’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. “People are keen to travel [and] frustrated with being stuck at home. When they’re traveling, they want to control as much as they can.” 

The trend comes in many flavors. Sometimes exotic destinations like Bermuda are marketed as places from which to work remotely. Sometimes the nomadic life is coupled with full-time work; sometimes it’s more of a part-time lifestyle – finding respite in rolling vacations or weekend getaways. But a common thread is the goal of blending quietude and community in a mobile lifestyle. 

And Dr. Day sees van life as a subset of a larger trend during the pandemic: Local travel and road trips are parts of tourism showing a strong recovery, as opposed to travel by plane or to crowded places like big cities.

Mary Mickler is one of the people looking to roam. She works as a nurse in Arkansas, and always planned to put down roots. But after the pandemic began, she started to rethink travel nursing as an option – spending three-month stints working in hospitals around the country. 

It was pretty simple: “If I’m going to buy a house anyways, why don’t I buy something that’s mobile?” 

She found an outfitter in her town and is having a van custom-outfitted before she hits the road in January.

She figures that if her travels land her in a spot she loves, she’ll settle down there. Or, she’ll return to Arkansas. Ms. Mickler is keeping her future open. For now, the “off-grid” aspect and peacefulness of spending time in her van parked on open land is appealing.

Travelers across the board want to spend time with loved ones, are prioritizing nature and avoiding crowds, and are pursuing relaxation and peace of mind, finds an Aug. 24 update from Destination Analysts, which tracks travel and tourism data. 

Courtesy of Isabelle Richard and Antoine Gagne

The Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van owned by Isabelle Richard and Antoine Gagne shows a "vanlife" penchant for customizing the interior to make the most of tight space.

“Relaxation is always important in travel,” but it’s valued differently right now, and people are seeking peace of mind through nature, says Erin Francis-Cummings, the firm’s president and CEO.

“The wariness of other people is a big consideration,” says Ms. Francis-Cummings. “Sprinter vans – that’s an easy way to achieve these things.” 

The Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans, along with some similar competitors, are more affordable than recreational vehicles but large enough to be called a home on the road.

Not every community rolls out the welcome mat.

Van life is growing “to the point where it’s getting [to be] an issue in popular destinations,” and cities like Squamish, British Columbia, are passing bylaws to ban van life within town limits, say Antoine Gagne and Isabelle Richard, who were interviewed by email from their life on the road. 

Three years ago, the Canadian couple quit their engineering jobs, sold their house, and hit the road in a Sprinter van. They’ve been loving “van life” since, blending remote work maintaining their website, faroutride.com – a go-to resource for people interested in converting vans – with mountain biking and other adventures. The website has seen nearly double the traffic since the pandemic.

For a time they rented an apartment in British Columbia, partly because of travel restrictions within the province. “As opposed to what you would think, it’s easier to isolate in an apartment than in a van. Indeed, we need to go more often to the grocery store and access facilities when in our van,” they wrote.

Amrit Bhavinani always loved camping and cherishes the memories that come with it – like the time a bear looted his family’s provisions for s’mores.

When the virus held his travel plans at bay and grounded his work in events and online marketing, confining him to his home in Atlanta, Mr. Bhavinani started his own livestreamed show on StreamYard, Camp Quarantine, as a way to connect people, encourage outdoor activity, and raise money for charities. 

Courtesy of Isabelle Richard and Antoine Gagne

The backdoor view of the van owned by Isabelle Richard and Antoine Gagne. They're able to store equipment for a favorite activity on their travels – mountain biking.

But he yearned for more person-to-person interaction. And in June, Mr. Bhavinani realized the pandemic may continue to alter life for some time, so he purchased a van. He’s found a new community in van-lifers. “Everyone wants to help each other” with their van projects, he says. “I’m reconnecting with people ... and seeing things that I definitely otherwise wouldn’t have.” 

Many millennials are purchasing vans, but so are retirees, and rental demand is up substantially too, says Janet Pace, marketing manager at Warner Vans of Utah, an authorized Sprinter dealer. 

For Rafi Caroline in Houston, van life has long been appealing, but his wife is training as a physician – not the most conducive to life on the road. They like to travel, but are avoiding planes right now, so using a van for weekend getaways is a good solution. Plus, their dog can join them. 

Mr. Caroline worked from home before the pandemic, but now that his wife is working and studying remotely as well, he plans to use his van as an office during the day. Since he and his wife aren’t planning on living out of their van, it’s more of a luxury item. “It makes sense, because otherwise I would have to rent an office space.”

It’s also appealing to have a change of pace, says Dr. Day of Purdue University. “This notion of the pandemic being Groundhog Day and being stuck in your home, doing the same thing every single day – the ability to get out and explore a little bit with a camper or a car” is popular. 

National and state parks have had strong attendance since the pandemic, so “I think there’s a real need just for people to get short breaks and still be safe. The van sort of gives you the ability to do both.” 

Ms. Mickler from Arkansas, who considers herself a “people person,” is excited for what the future may hold. “My favorite thing is meeting strangers and hearing their stories,” says Ms. Mickler. “I can’t wait for the people I will meet in that way.”

AP

Social worker Chinnika Crisler in Tougaloo, Miss., sees her role as more than treating a patient's physical health. She makes sure people in isolation have access to food, transportation, etc.

Perhaps little known to most Americans, the United States was already in a health crisis long before the pandemic. Every year since 2017, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has declared opioid misuse to be a nationwide emergency. Since January, when the agency made its latest declaration, the problem has worsened. From January to June, abuse of synthetic and illegal opioids rose 13%. Fatal overdoses have already topped last year’s record-setting figures.

What’s different about the increase so far in 2020, however, is that the causes are pretty clear: social isolation and high joblessness brought on by COVID-19. Now instead of focusing mainly on stopping the flow of drugs or improving addiction treatment, the U.S. has gained a new perspective on prevention. And that doesn’t just mean loosening isolation rules, opening businesses, or boosting federal economic aid. Those measures will be needed for some time to stop the pandemic.

No, the broader lens now is on the many primary solutions that can forestall drug use. And it’s being helped along by this year’s social justice movement, which is exposing once again the roots of poverty and despair that lie behind much of the drug problem.

In August, the American College of Preventive Medicine took up arms for this cause. It issued a statement that said a “deep ethical imperative” exists to address all the “social determinants” of drug misuse, from race to education to crime.

Prevention programs must expand far beyond popular approaches like anti-drug education in schools and the campaign to reduce opioid prescriptions. Current trends toward opioid misuse favor a pharmacological approach rather than one that deals with the complex societal issues that drive the problem, the American College of Preventive Medicine stated. The U.S. must find better ways to strengthen families, end child abuse, provide affordable homes, train people for jobs, and improve mental health services.

To be sure, the nation’s focus on addiction recovery already looks at underlying causes. Many treatment programs take a “whole person” perspective. And the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration points to four dimensions that support recovery: health, home, purpose, and community. It would be natural, the statement said, to focus on how these moral and spiritual aspects of life can be used to identify and prevent opioid misuse.

After many years of a national drug emergency – now made worse by the pandemic – a bright light has finally fallen on the need to find better ways to help people steer clear of drugs. Treatment can begin long before addiction starts – by bringing health, home, purpose, and community to everyone.