An Open Letter on COVID-19
Every morning I wake up and it feels like I am preparing anew for a hurricane about to hit the shore. The difference is this storm is unseen and the devastation is the illness called COVID-19 rather than wind and water. What isn’t different is the sense of community where we rally around one another. We try to keep each other’s spirits up on social media, we share and support the restaurants that have had to move to take out only menus, the schools adapt by going to online learning and meal delivery, and we collect needed items for the elderly.
My specific professional interest lies with the business community and how they survive this. They will survive, as they have always survived, with American ingenuity and optimism: businesses change and adapt to any situation. Yes, there will be financial pain in the short-term, but the business community will come out of this crisis even stronger than before. As businesses adapt to deal with the crisis, I think they will find new revenue streams once operations return to normal. Food delivery services that have previously only been an option in urban areas, and have been created here now out of necessity, will be an option here. Once we normalize, how many restaurants will continue delivery and find a profit stream in this new venture? This creativity from crisis can extend to other critical areas of our lives locally. How many places of worship have seen declining membership in recent years? This crisis has forced innovation by pushing churches to social media worship services, which will open them up to new people and potentially grow their membership, especially if they continue to offer online options after the crisis has abated.
In the midst of this crisis the Currituck Chamber of Commerce is fighting for businesses behind the scenes. We remain in constant communication with your local, state, and federal officials. We share government programs as they become available. We are moving to online trainings to keep business skills current and fresh. We advertise the businesses that remain open and have had to adapt and ask the public to support these new ways of doing business.
We all pray each morning that this virus passes and we can get back to business as usual, but with a stronger, brighter future of innovation and creativity that we learned from crisis.
Josh Bass
President
Currituck Chamber of Commerce
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