4 HAWAII FILIPINO CHRONICLE JANUARY 9, 2021
COVER STORY
HFC’S BIGGEST STORIES OF 2020 IN REVIEW By Edwin Quinabo
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EAR-IN-REVIEW: 2020 will be a marker in history, the year COVID-19 devastated communities around the globe with the US posting the highest infections and death rates in the world. 2020 was rocked with the worst public health crisis not seen since the early 1900s. Lockdowns, curfews, fear of contracting the virus led to historic job losses and business closures, the worst in the history of the US that prompted a historic response – government stimulus packages of unprecedented proportions. In just two months into the pandemic, 22 million jobs nationally were wiped out. Hawaii’s bread and butter industry, tourism, tanked in what felt to many like an overnight bust – from a scale of 10 (prosperous and reliable over many decades) down to 1 (on life support, dismantling decades of gains). The economic blackhole of Hawaii’s tourism had a gravitational pull on all sectors of Hawaii’s economy. Hawaii’s overreliance on tourism and the need to transition to a diversified economy was a top talking point in the 2020 Honolulu mayor’s race that resulted in the election of TV executive Rick Blangiardi, a newbie to politics who #1: 330,000-PLUS AMERICANS DIE TO COVID-19 As of Dec. 26, 2020, there were 18,819,581 confirmed cases and 330,884 deaths from COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering. Hawaii is second to last in the nation (behind Vermont) in COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths at 21,147 cases and 1,494 deaths. Hospitalization due to COVID-19 averaged above 100,000 patients daily since the first week of December. Capacity at hospitals nationwide averaged between 80 percent and beyond 100 percent at peak times of COVID-19. Hospitalizations hit a record high for the seventh day in a row, Dec. 26, registering 108,487 patients in hospitals
outdrew at the polls marquee veteran politicians. His victory sent a strong message that occupying a seat at the highest level of local government is no longer reserved for career politicians. An outsider, can in fact, beat the odds and win. Also on elections, 2020 saw the most contentious presidential race ever. All records for voter turnout were shattered as millions voted for a first time by mail or risked contracting the deadly virus to vote in-person at polls for either Democrat Joe Biden or incumbent Republican Donald Trump – that is how passionate voters were over the presidential race. The result: a landslide victory for Biden; and a losing candidate in Trump who set off a series of failed challenges contesting the election. And in the process, shaking the foundation of the nation’s democratic institutions. Amid the pandemic came yet another momentous historical event. Not since the 1960s have our nation seen civil unrest that spilled onto city streets across the country. The death of George Floyd in police custody -- a killing replayed on networks and social media again and again
around the country, according to the Covid Tracking Project. The numbers of cases, deaths, and hospitalization are expected to continue to post record highs throughout the pandemic’s winter peak. The COVID-19 battle often has been referred to as our nation’s invisible war. For a perspective comparing casualties due to the pandemic versus other major US disasters, the coronavirus pandemic eclipses most of them combined: Sept. 11 attacks, 2,997 deaths; Revolutionary War 4,435 deaths; Post-9/11 War on Terror operations, 7,024 deaths; H1N1 flu pandemic, 12,469 deaths; Korean War, 36,574 deaths; Vietnam War: 58,220 deaths; World War 1, 116,516 deaths. Only WWII, the US Civil War and the 1918-1919 flu
pandemic have had more US casualties. Based on projections, by the time the coronavirus pandemic is over, it’s possible that it could have the highest casualty due to one event in all of US history. This is how major a tragedy the US has experienced in just one year and why COVD19 deaths alone is hands down the number one news story for 2020.
#2: US, HAWAII ECONOMY TANKS (GDP DROPS, UNEMPLOYMENT REACH RECORD HIGHS, BUSINESSES CLOSE AT RATES NEVER SEEN BEFORE) The damage to the US economy caused by COVID-19 hit with a speed and ferocity unseen in US history. The recession is often described as being worse than
-- sparked protests over racial justice. It is time for a racial reckoning, protestors demanded, that police brutality end and that Black Lives Mattered. The civil unrest was far from just a Black community effort. Millions of Americans of all races, including many in Hawaii, showed their solidarity for this ongoing movement. HFC chronicled all the historic events of 2020. The following is a top 11 Year-inReview that appeared in the HFC as cover stories, editorials, news or topics written about by our columnists. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic was all-encompassing that it had to be broken down into five areas: health, economy, stimulus packages, the vaccine and social impact. In each of them, a Filipino-community angle were included in the original articles (see our archives of articles on our website).
the 9/11 and 2018 recessions combined; and nothing ever has come close in magnitude since the Great Depression. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) declared the COVID-19 pandemic recession had started in February 2020 as US GDP declined 5% in the first quarter of 2020. By the time businesses started to shut down largely due to lockdowns and stayat-home orders, the pace of devastation to the economy accelerated and had become officially a national emergency. By the second quarter of the year, there was a 31.4% decline in GDP. Again for historical perspective, quarterly GDP has never declined greater than 10% since record keeping be-
gan in 1947. Already in a full recession by March 2020, the Department of Labor reported 3.3 million Americans filed for unemployment in the week ending March 21; and in the following week 6.9 million more. For comparison of how big a number these were, prior to 2020, the highest report of individuals filing for unemployment in a week was 695,000 people. And following the peak unemployment claims of Spring 2020 (national unemployment reached 14.7%), millions more of Americans filed for unemployment. Small business closure reached a peak of 43 percent nationally. According to an analysis by online business-rating platform Yelp, Ha(continue on page 5)