Page 95 - FDCC Pandemic Book

Living in a Pandemic: A Collection of Stories on Coping, Resilience & Hope
flashmob singing from Freddie Mercury’s Queen, all among many fantastic programs, speakers, and other southwest American experiences in Arizona’s Paradise Valley.
Once the flight attendant delivered a towel to wipe our seats dry on the plane, we settled in for the flight home, hardly realizing the continent below was about to become at once both broader and narrower than the prior half-century or more. The day before, former FDCC President Dan Kohane flew to Washington, DC, only to find upon landing that the legal conference at which he was to speak was canceled as he was in the air. Two days earlier, the city of Austin, Texas, home to our FDCC 2019 Winter Meeting, shut down its famed South-By-Southwest Festival. It seemed odd, an overreaction perhaps? Canceling SXSW was huge.
As the desert below rose to the Rockies’ snowy mountains, my flight returning from Phoenix only six weeks earlier from the FDCC Board Retreat came to mind. On that crowded flight, there were only two people wearing masks. It seemed quaint - an elderly fellow and a younger woman of apparent Asian background, both evidently anxious about this new virus, becoming universally known as Covid-19, the “Coronavirus”,or“Covid”forshort. IthoughtofthoseAmericancruiselinepassengers quarantined in a foreign port, enduring a fearsome time as the virus ravaged their Asian cruise. The United States for the moment seemed safe from what Europe and Asia were seeing. Was the United States’ exposure delayed because our county recently closed its doors to travelers from Asia and then from Europe?
Less than a month earlier, I’d written a memo to the FDCC officers analyzing Covid, its spread and evident impact in Asia and Italy, evaluating its certain eventual spread to North America. The memo concluded the FDCC should proceed as scheduled with the Winter Meeting in Scottsdale. The analysis showed in all likelihood our members would be safe from Covid’s impact during the meeting and while traveling home. Attendance at the meeting proved very strong. So now, weeks later, as our post-meeting flight cruised east, it looked like it all worked out.
Hours later we stepped off the plane in our hometown, Cleveland, returning to work for just a few days before events across the United States canceled in a cavalcade — games in the NBA, the NCAA basketball “March Madness”, the NHL, MLB’s Spring Training. Then whole seasons delayed. Entire sectors of the economy shut down and folks started working en masse from home. My office along with others across the nation restricted reimbursable business travel for any purpose without prior approval by the firm’s highest authority. Partners were warned against any international travel at all. Travel seemed to simply disappear with the mid-March shutdowns across the nation, the continent, and the world.
In just a week or two, major travel industry companies — airlines, hoteliers, cruise lines — lost almost 50% or more of their value to investors. Different American states locked down, while others stayed open — sort of — and then the border between the
90