Pandemic’s Impacts on Local Businesses
Part One: The Start of the Pandemic
On January 20, 2020, the first case of COVID-19 in the United States was confirmed by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). COVID-19 spread rapidly and on March 13, 2020, then-President Donald J. Trump declared a nationwide emergency over the pandemic. The pandemic not only affected public health but also created an accompanying economic crisis. Many businesses tried to contend with their lowered revenue and survive during the pandemic. To save the economy, different levels of governments also enacted several grant programs to help businesses go through this special period.
According to the website Economic Tracker, in the United States, as of March 15, 2020, the number of small businesses open decreased by 2.8% compared to January 2020. According to Wikimedia Commons, most of the states decided to lock down around the end of March and the beginning of April, after which, on April 12, 2020, nationally the number of small businesses sharply decreased by 30.1% compared to the beginning of 2020.
In the state of Illinois, according to the state official website, Governor J.B. Pritzker issued a stay-at-home order, requiring that, with limited exceptions, all individuals living in Illinois were to stay at home or at their place of residence. According to Economic Tracker, in Illinois, from January to after the enactment of the stay-at-home order, on March 29, 2020, the number of small businesses open decreased by 30.6%.
Locally, in the Urbana-Champaign area, the number of small businesses has also dropped. According to The News Gazette, the president of Champaign County Chamber of Commerce said that they had compiled a list and it showed that 35 businesses had closed since the pandemic started. Indeed, even those businesses that remain open have faced many difficulties since the pandemic started.
Krannert Art Museum, located at 500 East Peabody Drive, Champaign, Illinois, is affiliated with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Julia Nucci Kelly, the Assistant Director for Marketing & Communications at Krannert Art Museum, said “For a while that first year, we had to close our doors due to state-wide mitigation measures,” referring to the stay-at-home order at the state level. Another museum affiliated with the university is Spurlock Museum, located at 600 S Gregory, Urbana, Illinois. It is affiliated with the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. Its Education and Publications Coordinator, Beth Watkins, said “We have transitioned to many online programs, as well as student and senior staff working remotely during much of 2020 and 2021.”
These two museums that are affiliated with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign did not face substantial financial issues. Julia Nucci Kelly said “The Illinois Arts Council made a special effort to recognize pandemic hardships and added a section about that to the proposal we submitted for annual operating support. Finally, because the U of I is a state entity and Krannert Art Museum operates here on campus, it's worth noting that the Chancellor explicitly let public engagement units know that we would not be responsible for cutting services during the pandemic. In fact, campus poured new funding streams into our work, from which KAM benefitted.” Same with Spurlock Museum. Beth Watkins mentioned they also had a lot of help from the university. “We are lucky to have so much support and guidance from the university, which is of course part of the state of Illinois. Not all cultural organizations are as well supported, and most of them can always use more help, even in the best of times. For example, many museums have laid off visitor-facing staff with no indication that those positions and services will ever be reinstated. Others have closed permanently.”
Just as Beth Watkins said, not all museums were lucky enough to get support from a governmental entity. Champaign County History Museum is located at 102 East University Avenue, Champaign, Illinois. It is a non-profit museum run by volunteers and not affiliated with any government agency. The president of the Champaign County History Museum, T.J. Blakeman, said that “Like most museums, we were subject to the closure order in March of 2020. And because of the small size of our very small museum, we did not reopen until May of 2021. So we were closed for over a year. So, it certainly affected the museum. And we lost revenue from our suggested donation or entrance fee, which is a suggested donation. We lost gift shop sales. We lost momentum with our in-person events, we had to cancel fundraisers and the like. But on the flip side, we were able to refocus the museum. We did a lot of virtual events. Once we were able to get some volunteers and staff back in the building in a limited capacity, we actually made a tremendous amount of progress on projects that had sat dormant for a while. And yes, COVID affected us, but I like to think that we emerge from it just as strong if not stronger than when it started. Now, we were lucky enough, we owned our own building, we didn't have to pay a mortgage, we had to just pay the basic utilities to keep our business running. So there could be others, certainly that it affected greater than our small museum.”
Indeed, some businesses had suffered greatly during the early days of the pandemic and did not survive. For small businesses like bakeries who are not chain shops, it can be hard for them to survive during this special period. A popular bakery on 611 E Green St, Suite A, Champaign, Illinois, called PvP Bakery, is among such examples. PvP Bakery opened in 2019 and closed in July, 2020. It had been operated by several undergraduate students at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Its closure was due to the pandemic. According to their official website, the owner said “Due to the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, finally, after the negotiation of our five partners and members, in July 2020 we decided to close PvP Bakery permanently.” They also said that they would be selling all of their machines and models in the store to others who are willing to buy them.
Other businesses did survive but have seen their revenue decrease. Fresh International Market, located at 505 S Neil Street, Champaign, Illinois, is a supermarket that sells international food, especially Chinese food. They have faced financial issues during the pandemic. Han Ni, an employee who has worked there for three years since September 2019, said that she thought the pandemic affected the market’s income. “The pandemic definitely affected the Fresh International Market. When the pandemic first started in March 2020, people were afraid the food would run out and they started to hoard a lot of food. But after the lockdown policy, the customers were afraid to come out and shop here. Especially after the University announced there would be remote classes for the whole semester, many international students decided to go back home so we lost our major source of customers.” However, Fresh International Market found other ways to survive during the pandemic. “The market decided to work with Chowbus (a food delivery application) and deliver food to customers. And that helped us a lot.” said Han Ni.
Similar to the case of Fresh International Market, Aplus, a karaoke at 214 W Main St, Urbana, Illinois, has faced the issue of depleted revenue due to the effects of the pandemic. Di Yu, the owner of Aplus, said “Since the pandemic started, and in March 2020 the policy (the stay-at-home order) came out, we decided to close. And we closed for a year, during that year we had reopened for a week but due to the policy we decided to close again.” Di Yu also said that, when compared to restaurants and markets, their business was harder to survive during COVID-19. “We are not quite the same as restaurants. Restaurants can do carry-out and delivery, but we have no way to do this, so we had to close. When the pandemic started, we basically laid off all the staff during that time, and then in fact, when we reopened, there were some staff who were willing to return...Since we own our building, we don’t actually need to pay rent. But although there are various other expenses, the government will have certain subsidies.” said Di Yu.
Like what Di Yu mentioned, the governments offered grant and loan programs when the pandemic began, and these grant programs have helped local businesses stay afloat during the pandemic. The CARES Act, which stands for Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, is a bill that has $2.2 trillion economic stimulus signed into law by President Donald Trump on March 27, 2020. And it was later amended by the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)’s official website, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is an SBA-backed loan program that helps small businesses survive and keep paying their employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a $953 billion loan program. The loans offered under the program have an low interest rate of 1% and will be forgiven if the businesses retain their employees and maintain their compensation levels during a eight to twenty four week period. The loans can only be used on certain kinds of eligible expenses, and according to PPP’s website, at least 60% of the funds must go to employee compensation.
The state of Illinois has several programs as well to support businesses in the state. According to Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity’s official website, the state ran the Business Interruption Grant (BIG) program in 2020 and early 2021. With a total budget of $290 million, it provided $276 million in more than 9,000 grants to small businesses located in over 600 cities and towns, and 98 counties throughout Illinois.
Locally, according to the City of Champaign’s official website, there was a grant program administered by the city to help small businesses that began on June 24, 2020. Champaign City Council revamped the City’s Small Business Incentive Program (SBIP) to allow using $520,000 of federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding to help small businesses that were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. All small businesses located in the City of Champaign that are eligible for the program can obtain up to $15,000 per grant application. The CDBG funding used in underwriting the program was from the $5 billion CDBG-CV program contained in the CARES Act.
In the City of Urbana, according to their official website, there was the Small Business Assistance Program, which has now ended. The program has $250,000 in funding, which was also obtained from the CARES Act. The City of Urbana received 37 applications for Small Business Assistance Program grants totaling over $321,000. In the end, 28 were recommended for funding, of which 16 were minority-owned and 7 were women-owned businesses.
Aplus Karaoke said that they had applied to PPP and received loans from the program. The owner Di Yu said “First of all, you must apply for this kind of grant program by yourself, but the city government will often send you information about the grant programs that are available and then tell you what you can apply for. But even though the program is available that does not mean you can get the money from it. It is a lottery, that is, maybe only 1%, 2% of people can get it.” When the reporter tried to inquire about the amount of funding Aplus received from the government, Di Yu declined to answer.
CU Adventures is an escape room at 302 N Broadway Ave, Suite 100, Urbana, Illinois. They also received grants from the federal government, the state government, and the local government. “We were lucky enough to benefit from a variety of state and local grants - these were a lifesaver in so many ways. Not only did they help to keep us current on expenses, but they gave us the flexibility and the stability to make better choices for our staff without sacrificing the future of our business. We received the BIG grant from the state. Several grant programs required we keep the same numbers of employees or total hours worked. We were able to rehire or increase hours for staff members during the periods of grant programs like the PPP,” said the owner, Chris Lukeman. He did not tell the reporter how much money he received from each program. But, according to the City of Urbana’s official website, CU Adventures had received $10,000 from the Small Business Assistance Program, and according to the FederalPay organization website they also obtained $95,292 from the Paycheck Protection Program.
However, even with the grant programs, some organizations still did not obtain enough support to survive the pandemic’s early waves. Orpheum Children’s Science Museum, located at 346 N Neil Street, Champaign, Illinois, is permanently closed due to COVID-19. According to the FederalPay organization website, Orpheum Children’s Science Museum had applied to PPP and on April 8, 2020, they received a $19,700 loan. They spent $14,775 on employees’ salaries and $4,925 on rent. They retained five jobs during the duration of the PPP loan. However, it was not enough for them to survive the COVID-19 pandemic, and it persisted for a few months before finally shutting down on June 11, 2020. On Orpheum Children’s Science Museum official website, its Board of Directors wrote that “We had support. We received donations. We earned a PPP loan. We won grants and got support from local organizations. Since March, we have not been able to welcome guests to our museum or our camps. The impact of this pandemic has regrettably been too great. Unfortunately, the efforts that have been made were not enough. At this time, we will not be reopening the Orpheum Children’s Science Museum.”
Nevertheless, some local businesses felt that the local government did an excellent job on supporting the businesses operating during the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, Riggs Beer Company, which is located at 1901 S High Cross Road, Urbana, Illinois, expressed such sentiments. Riggs Beer Company applied to PPP and grant programs from the City of Urbana. “We received PPP funds and some local funds from the City of Urbana. We applied as soon as possible to be able to continue employment for all of our employees. The relief programs were very helpful to us.” said Caroline Riggs, who is the Tap Room, Accounting, Brand Manager in Riggs Beer Company. According to the FederalPay organization website, they received a PPP loan of $56,800 in April, 2020. However, Caroline Riggs also complained that some other local businesses did not follow the rules and policy related to the grant programs and the local government did not conduct enough inspections to enforce the rules. “I noticed other places heavily abusing [the relief programs]. For example, at first they defied any government rules and recommendations. Then they let go of all their people and closed their doors. Then new relief programs came out and all of a sudden their google business status changed from ‘permanently closed’ to ‘temporarily closed’, so they could get more funds. At no time were there any governmental or health department checkups on whether any rules were followed. We enforced all the rules tightly, and for that our staff got yelled at and cursed out. At no point did any official agency do any checkups at our place of business, or any others. So those businesses who continuously broke the rules, got out of this better than those that actually tried to follow the guidelines.” said Caroline Riggs.
Local governments also said they supported local businesses in several ways other than grant programs. Jeff Hamilton, who is the Communications Manager of City of Champaign, said that “Our assistance was primarily through helping businesses coordinate and apply for Federal and State programs.The City also was proud to launch our popular Curbside Pickup Program within days of the first State Emergency Order and our expanded Outdoor Cafe Program by the time businesses were allowed to reopen with limited capacity in May 2020.” Also, the city’s Senior Planner for Economic Development, T.J. Blakeman, explained what other help they offer to the businesses. “So, our support team, not just financially but also helping with regulatory relief. We implemented our, for bars and restaurants and retailers, we implemented our curbside program, where we took parking spaces and converted them to curbside spaces throughout downtown and campus town. We worked with those same businesses to allow them to expand citywide any bar or restaurant or retailer that wanted to expand out into their parking lot areas or onto public sidewalks. We allow that to happen as well. All at no cost to the business.” said T.J. Blakeman.
Just like what CU Adventures’s owner Chris Lukeman said, support from all levels of governments has supported their business, and lots of other local businesses, through the early days of the pandemic, the days of the earliest waves and the stay-at-home order. Some businesses failed during those days, while others survived to see the reopening. The days of the pandemic seemed edging to an end, until, that is, a new wave brought by the Delta wave of the coronavirus arrived.
Part Two: The Middle Stage of Pandemic and the Delta Waves
According to the New York Times, the first summer wave of the pandemic ended around mid-September, 2020. The first Delta wave started not long after that, which was followed by another Delta wave later in 2021. The first one lasted from November 2020 to February 2021, and the second one started in July 2021 and ended in October 2021. According to Yale Medicine, the Delta variant of the coronavirus was first identified in India in late 2020. It swept rapidly through that country and Great Britain before reaching the US. It rapidly caused a surge in case numbers and hospitalizations and became the dominant coronavirus variant, accounting for more than 99% of COVID-19 cases at the time. The first Delta wave came before widespread availability of COVID vaccines and led to an overwhelming increase in hospitalizations and deaths. The Delta variant was estimated to be more than twice as contagious as earlier variants, while also being more likely to cause hospitalizations. People who were not vaccinated were at the highest risk, and during the second Delta wave, after vaccines had become widely available, the highest spread of cases and severe outcomes generally occurred in places with low vaccination rates.
According to John Hopkins University, in the US the first Delta wave’s peak was around January 2021. At the peak, the US was adding around 250,000 cases a day and having more than 3,000 deaths a day. The hospitalization number was nearly 140,000 at the peak. The second wave peaked around the end of August and the start of September, 2021. At the peak, the newly confirmed case count was around 163,000 cases per day and around 2,100 deaths occurred per day. The hospitalization number was about 102,000 around the peak.
In the state of Illinois, according to the New York Times, at the peak of the first Delta wave in the middle of November, there were 12,000 cases confirmed per day. The peak in daily death count was in the middle of December, which numbered around 200 deaths per day. During the second Delta wave in Illinois, there were around 4,000 cases per day in early September, and the death count was around 50 to 60 at the middle of September.
Locally at Urbana-Champaign, according to the New York Times, the first Delta wave had 200 cases confirmed per day in November. The second Delta wave peaked around early September, when there were about 120 new cases confirmed everyday.
The Delta wave’s economic impact was smaller than that of the earliest wave. According to Economic Tracker, in the United States, as of January 3, 2021, at the height of the first Delta wave, the number of small businesses open decreased by 6.3% compared to January 2020. And during the second wave, nationally as of September 12, 2021, the number of small businesses open decreased by 4.3% compared to January 2020.
In the state of Illinois, according to Economic Tracker, during the first Delta wave, as of January 3, 2021, the number of small businesses open decreased by 18.1% compared to January 2020. Moreover, during the second wave, when comparing September 12, 2021 to January 2020, the percentage decreased in the number of small businesses open is around 16.7%.
Since the Delta wave did not hurt the economy as much as the earliest waves of COVID-19, there were several businesses that reopened during this time period and even new businesses began to emerge. Suzu’s Bakery, a Japanese style bakery located at 114 N Walnut St, Champaign, Illinois, opened on November 17, 2021, which was around the beginning of the first wave of Delta. The owner Nan Goggin talked about how they operated during the pandemic. “We opened during the pandemic, so in some ways it’s hard to know as we have not existed during a time without the waves. However, yes, it has [affected local businesses], as you can see by the number of businesses that have closed. Luckily our business was designed to have a large kitchen to create more products. We have some seating but we do not depend on people coming to eat inside. We also have patio seating which served us well for people to be outside. We did see a difference with the different waves, except for people beginning to use more cash again instead of credit cards.” said Nan Goggin. She also shared her thoughts on local governments’ support and grant programs, “We did get a small grant through the city that paid for a few things we needed for the pandemic, a card reader and sanitizer stand. The city was wonderful. There was no fee for a carry out parking spot during the first two years - now that space has been turned back into a parking spot, there was no curb fee for seating outside, they came by several times to get input from us.”
At 232 Burwash Ave, Savoy, Illinois, there is a movie theater called Savoy 16 + IMAX, and it was closed during the pandemic since March 2020. The previous owner of Savory 16 + IMAX, Goodrich Quality Theaters (GQT) in Kentwood, MI, has gone through bankruptcy and sold the theater to Phoenix Theatres Entertainment LLC. After Phoenix Theatres Entertainment took over Savory 16 + IMAX, they decided to reopen it on January 22, 2021, around the end of the first Delta wave. Unlike Suzu’s Bakery, Savoy 16 + IMAX did not receive any grants from local governments because of the change in ownership. The CEO of Phoenix Theatres Entertainment LLC, Phil J. Zacheretti, said that “The pandemic absolutely affected our theater… The Hollywood studios delayed many films until the pandemic became under more control and consumer confidence recovers. Since the Savoy 16 + IMAX Theatre went through a change of ownership and was closed pre-pandemic, The Savoy was not eligible for the SVOG grant program from the SBA.” The Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) program was established by the Economic Aid to Hard-Hit Small Businesses, Nonprofits, and Venues Act, and amended by the American Rescue Plan Act. It includes over $16 billion in grants to shuttered venues and is administered by SBA, according to its official website.
Since the pandemic has been going on for a long time, many businesses learned to live with it and in doing so generally followed CDC recommendations to enact their own policies. The Tap Room, Accounting, Brand Manager, Caroline Riggs, of Riggs Beer Company said that “We have two groups of customers and I don't think their outlook has changed much. There are those who ignored fact and science and didn't want to wear a mask, even at the height of the pandemic. And those who still wear a mask fully vaccinated by themselves in a car for a curbside pickup. Those two camps are very divided and tend to stick with their opinions. A large group is in the middle and has, and continues to, follow CDC recommendations. We've always followed all CDC recommendations and continue to do so. We don't expect to ‘know better’ than the highest authority on these types of diseases.”
According to CDC’s official website, after the first Delta wave but before the second Delta wave, on March 8, 2021 CDC announced that people who are fully vaccinated can gather indoors without masks. However, when the case number started rising again, CDC said on July 17, 2021 that due to the case number increase caused by the Delta variant, they decided to update their guidance for everyone in areas with substantial or high transmission of COVID to wear a mask while indoors, even if fully vaccinated. The policy change created some confusion and uncertainty. Businesses began to take divergent paths on policies, both toward customers and employees, for example on the topic of COVID vaccines, which came out on December 11, 2020.
Most of the local organizations and businesses would like to have their employees get vaccinated or test for COVID-19 frequently. For example, Krannert Art Museum’s Julia Nucci Kelly mentioned that “We are part of the University of Illinois, which developed the SHIELD test. It was implemented here in summer 2020. Employees and students were required to be vaccinated by the start of school in fall 2020, and testing compliance was monitored through the Illinois App to ensure that buildings were entered only by those who were not currently infectious with COVID-19.” At the same time, the Spurlock Museum which is also affiliated with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is following the same rules as the Krannert Art Museum.
However, some businesses chose not to impose a mandate requiring all of their workers to get vaccinated. CU Adventures’s Chris Lukeman said that “All of our employees are fully vaccinated. We didn’t have to impose a mandate - all of our staff members were excited to get the shots.” Aplus’s owner Di Yu is different from CU Adventures’s owner. He mentioned that they require all their employees to get vaccinated. “We ask all of our employees to get the vaccine, and till now all of our members get the booster shot,” said Di Yu. However, a University student who once worked part-time at Aplus, Tianbin Chen, said that Aplus preferred its employees to get vaccinated, but never imposed an explicit vaccination mandate. Aplus’s manager Yang has also talked about the resources they offered to the employees and the policies during the pandemic. “We offer masks, hand sanitizers, and cleaning supplies to our employees for free. And we ask them to wear masks all the time.”
At Savoy 16 + IMAX, according to their website, they require all employees to undergo daily health screenings and check their body temperature frequently. All its staff members are required to wear gloves while working, and change the gloves at least every 60 minutes, and they also need to wash their hands every hour.
Due to the pandemic, there are not only personal sanitation and health rules for employees, such as wearing masks or getting vaccines, but also rules for them to clean the business premises more often. As an example, for the workers at Aplus Karaoke, they need to wipe and clean the public area every 15 minutes, and each individual room requires full cleaning after a group of people leaves the karaoke room. They also have to change the covers for the microphones after each group has left. They are also required to enforce a mask mandate in the public area all the time.
From a labor perspective, according to FRED Economic Data by St. Louis Fed, nationally the number of employees in private businesses dropped from 128 million in March 2020 to 108 million in April 2020, which corresponded to the earliest stage of the pandemic and lockdown policies. Locally in Champaign county, FRED Economic Data mentioned that the unemployment rate rose to 11.0% in April 2020 from 2.9% in March. The number has been gradually recovering after that.
The Anita Purves Nature Center, located at 1505 N. Broadway, Urbana, Illinois, laid off part-time workers during the pandemic. According to their human resource manager, Alex Ivanoa, “Part-time was not scheduled when programming was canceled. Now back to normal levels.” The CU Adventures escape room has also laid off workers during the pandemic, but the owner Chris Lukeman did not give a specific time of when they laid off the workers. Due to the Paycheck Protection Programs, the businesses who applied for the loan program cannot lay off employees during the pandemic for the loan to be forgiven, so it has helped keep down the unemployment rate in the US. Chris Lukeman talked about how they had to keep their staff because they applied for the Paycheck Protection Program. “We did reduce hours and/or layoff employees at some points during the pandemic, but we always prioritized hours for employees who needed hours to make their budgets work. All of our staff is hourly, but we were able to raise wages twice over the course of the pandemic, to stay well ahead of the Illinois minimum wage. Several grant programs required we keep the same numbers of employees or total hours worked. We were able to rehire and/or increase hours for staff members during the periods of grant programs like the PPP.” said Lukeman.
According to the Small Business Administration (SBA)’s official website, the Paycheck Protection Program was extended throughout early 2021, and it ended on May 31, 2021. It therefore straddled the first wave of Delta. Not only did the federal program extend through the middle of the pandemic, the local grant programs mostly started around the same time. “The City of Champaign rolled out our grant programs toward the end of 2020, with two programs to help small businesses. The first was the Small Business Incentive Program COVID-19 Relief Grant, which used Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds and that was led by our Neighborhood Services Department. Then we applied for CURE-ES funds through the State of Illinois and rolled out the City's CURE-ES Program, overseen by our Planning and Development Department in November 2020. Those funds were distributed over three rounds of funding that lasted through the Spring of 2021. We dispersed a little over $700,000. The State reimbursed the City of Champaign for those funds.” said Jeff Hamilton, who is the Communications Manager of City of Champaign. The Coronavirus Urgent Remediation Emergency (CURE) program was introduced in 2020 by the state of Illinois to support local governments during the pandemic. A subprogram, the CURE Economic Support Payments Grants Program (CURE-ES) provided local governments with funding to design and administer their own grant programs to support local businesses.
City of Urbana also has their grant programs to help local businesses, according to Sheila Dodd, who is the Interim Community Development Services Director, Department of Community Development Services of City of Urbana. She said that “The City of Urbana administered CURE-ES grants to businesses to reimburse businesses for expenses incurred from the pandemic. Some of the grantees were cultural institutions with most being local businesses and organizations in general.” Overall, with various grant programs already in place and later widespread vaccination available, the impact of the two Delta waves on the economy was relatively minor compared to the earliest waves. Local businesses have also become more familiar with the pandemic and learned how to deal with it.
Part Three: Omicron Wave and Present
According to CDC’s official website, Omicron is a variant of coronavirus first reported by scientists in South Africa. The variant has several mutations in the spike protein that alarmed scientists around the world. According to the New York Times, the Omicron wave started in December 2021 and ended in about February 2022. It is the biggest wave in terms of case number since the COVID-19 pandemic started.
According to John Hopkins University, nationally, the peak of the Omicron wave was in January when there were as high as about 800,000 cases confirmed per day. At the end of January, there were about 2,500 people dying each day due to COVID-19, and there were 158,000 people hospitalized due to COVID. According to the data, even though there were substantially more cases confirmed during the Omicron wave than the first Delta wave, fewer people died compared to the first Delta wave.
In the state of Illinois, according to the New York Times, the peak of the Omicron wave was in the middle of January, and there were 30,000 cases confirmed daily. The peak of death count was at the end of January, when about 150 people died to COVID per day in Illinois. In Champaign county, from the New York Times, the peak of the Omicron wave was around January 10, 2022, and the number of new cases was around 800 per day.
The Omicron wave did not affect the economy like the start of the pandemic or the Delta waves. According to Economic Tracker, in the United States, as of December 26, 2021, the number of small businesses open increased by 8.6% compared to January 2020. And the number keeps increasing when it comes to January. In Illinois, the percent change in the number of small businesses open from January 2020 to December 26, 2021 was an increase of 8.6%.
Similarly, the Omicron wave has practically no impact on the number of weekly unemployment benefit initial claims, according to FRED Economic Data. Also, it did not affect personal consumption expenditure.
As the Omicron wave faded, even more remnants of the policies from the early days of the pandemic began to vanish. In the state of Illinois, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health’s official website, the indoor mask mandate was terminated on February 28, 2022. Before that, the policy regarding restaurant indoor dining had varied from time to time, and the process of reopening was often interrupted by new COVID-19 waves.
Now, local businesses are constantly getting more and more used to living with the pandemic and most of them got back on the right track. Han Ni, an employee at Fresh International Market said that she felt the number of customers had come back to the pre-pandemic level. “Now, people do not care about, nor are they afraid of COVID-19 anymore, and everything feels like going back to normal. While I was working, I saw a lot of people come here and buy ingredients for Chinese hot pots. It is just like before, and it is still lively now.” Ni said.
Suzu’s Bakery’s owner, Nan Goggin, said that “Because we were new and cater to a specific taste… people were wonderful about supporting us, even when we first opened. We still encourage people to wear masks and we still have a hand sanitizer at the door (though it is used less). At the beginning we asked that only two people come in at a time unless they were a common group, now we do not limit people.”
Not only does Nan Goggin feel the worst has passed, but also does Caroline Riggs, who is Tap Room, Accounting, Brand Manager at Riggs Beer Company. She felt the pandemic is no longer affecting their business. “I think it affects different businesses differently. Some thrived, others hurt badly. Once there was large scale vaccination, it didn't really affect our business much any more. Long term effects that might be felt is how employers treated their employees. Those that kept all employees and worked through this together, even if it caused a financial loss for the business, have built stronger relationships with their employees. Those who laid everyone off, may have a hard time finding new employees.”
Unlike the restaurants and bars which can do pick-up or delivery, entertainment venues have faced capacity problems and revenue issues. CU Adventures decided to create games that customers can purchase online and play at home. “It has been a tough two years for everyone. Service industry businesses have had to adapt or go out of business. During the strictest of the stay-at-home orders, restaurants and retail were able to provide curbside options, but for an in-person experience like CU Adventures, we had to completely rethink our business model and create 100% new ways of providing entertainment. Aside from accessibility and safety of customers visiting us, we also had to provide for the safety of our staff. When we were closed, we developed a series of now award winning play-at-home escape room games. A set of games that were purely digital + print & play, and a set of mailable puzzle kits called Solve Our Shirts, which are ordered online and mailed internationally. Ever since we reopened, we continue to have reduced customer capacity to limit the number of groups in the building and provide extra time after the escape room is over to let the experiences air out before our staff has to reset the game for the next team. Due to the ways our staff interacts with players, we have also been fairly intense about enforcing mask wearing in the building. Going forward, revenue continues to be lower than before the pandemic, which is tough but workable. Many customers will continue to have hesitancy about in-person entertainment, and that's a perfectly valid view. We just want to continue making art and entertaining our audience so anything that supports that is appreciated.” said Chris Lukeman, the owner of CU Adventures.
Same with Lukeman, Phil J. Zacheretti, who is the President & CEO of Phoenix Theatres Entertainment LLC and Aplus Kareoke’s owner Di Yu have similar feelings that the pandemic has changed people in a fundamental way and that their revenues could not go back automatically to the pre-pandemic levels.
Phil J. Zacheretti mentioned that “Specifically, our theatre was closed for many months and once re-opened, we are still not doing the levels of business we were pre-pandemic. The Hollywood studios delayed many films until the pandemic became under more control and consumer confidence recovers.”
Di Yu thought that people were no longer interested in attending entertainment venues. He said that, “It is possible that the pandemic may have completely changed people or their lifestyles, their habits of gatherings and having parties. They still did not come out of the fear of the pandemic, and they are unwilling to go to places with a lot of people. That is to say, some people didn’t care anymore, but there were still many people who would mind.” The majority of Aplus’s customers are international students, and due to the pandemic many international students decided to go back home with a fully online course load, and that hurt the revenue of Aplus. “According to my observation, the number of visitors right now, even on Fridays and Saturdays, is only half of that before the pandemic began. It could only be eventually only about 60% of what it was before the pandemic started.” said Di Yu.
For non-profit museums, they are excited to have their visitors back. Julia Nucci Kelly, the
Assistant Director for Marketing & Communications at Krannert Art Museum shared her opinion. “Once we were able to open, it was only at partial capacity. Now in Spring 2022 we’re able to hold in-person events and exhibitions at greater frequency and full capacity. Once we were able to gather in person again, we added health and safety measures, like mask wearing, hand sanitizer, and enhanced daily cleaning. We also removed all touch-based interactives from the galleries.”
Even though the Omicron wave did not have a huge impact on the economy, there are still grant programs available for local businesses to apply. After the state of Illinois Business Interruption Grant (BIG) program came out in 2020 and early 2021, it was followed by the Back to Business (B2B) grant program, which is a part of Governor J.B. Pritzker’s state economic recovery plan and aims to deploy small businesses recovery grants for those most heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The program has provided $201 million to 5,333 small businesses and is still continuing.
CU Adventures received funds from the B2B program, according to Chris Lukeman. He did not provide a specific number for the funding he obtained. But, according to the Back to Business grant program’s official website, the reporter found that CU Adventures had received $55,000 from the B2B program, which is about half of what they had previously obtained from the Paycheck Protection Program ($95,292).
After the vaccines became widely available and people became more and more used to the pandemic, the economy has begun going back to normal. Even though now, for some industries, it has not yet reached back to the pre-pandemic level, most local businesses have found the way to solve the problem and thrive during the new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.
