(Tim)

TOPIC: Reopening Has Begun. No One Is Sure What Happens Next.

Areas of study: Finance

Types of reading strategies:

Posing questions to predict the content

Searching keywords
Identifying main idea and details

Applications of reading strategies:

Posing questions:
1. The highest peak of this pandemic in the US has gone?
-> Because it tells there is a “reopening”
2. Do the people in the US know how they should react to post-pandemic
situation?
-> Maybe not but still makes me curious. By the topic: “no one is sure. ”
3. Is the pandemic over? or is it possible that it’ll get worse?
-> I think a decrease on the number of confimed cases may not 100% mean
that the crisis is ending.

Searching keywords:
1. Sparred
2. Complicated
3. Complex
4. Rough schematics
-> We can know that the situation is still not under fully control.

Identifying main idea and details:

Main idea: Although the pandemic seems to slow down in the US, people are
still unsured whether this is going to end soon or not.

Major detail 1: The US are beginning the reopening progress, but everything
remains unstable and unpredictable.

Because the restart will be gradual, with certain places and industries
opening earlier than others, it will by definition be complicated. The U.S.
economy is a complex web of supply chains whose dynamics don’t
necessarily align neatly with epidemiologists’ recommendations.

Minor detail 1: Reopening is a massive issue because all industries are

actually connected with each other.

And it isn’t clear what, exactly, it means to gradually restart a system with as
many interlocking pieces as the U.S. economy. How can one factory reopen
 when its suppliers remain shuttered? How can parents return to work when
schools are still closed? How can older people return when there is still no
effective treatment or vaccine?

Major detail 2: There is a possibility that reopening may lead to another peak
of infections.

Then there is the public health threat: If states reopen their economies too
quickly, or without the right precautions in place, that could lead to a renewed
outbreak, with dire consequences for both safety and the economy.

Minor detail 2: This second-wave of virus attack may affect people more even
if it weren’t as serious as it is now.

“If you were profitable before and your business was growing, then you need
to hold tight and hope that there’s light at the end of the tunnel and things will
come back,” Mr. Smith said. But if you were losing money before, “you really
have to ask yourself, are you digging a deeper hole?”

Major detail 3: Citizens are losing confidence.

The public debate has focused on government mandates: When should city
and state shutdown orders be lifted? But just because businesses are
allowed to reopen doesn’t mean that they will or, if they do, that customers
will return.

Minor detail 3: People take self-protecting actions far before the govenment
tell them to do so.

Evidence from Sweden and other countries that have avoided formal
lockdowns likewise shows that people have sharply reduced their activities
even without government mandates.

Source of the reading:

Reopening Has Begun. No One Is Sure What Happens Next by Ben Casselman on
The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/25/business/economy/coronavirus-economy-
reopening.html