Unity, action during a time of uncertainty

In addressing the impact of the coronavirus earlier this month, Gloria Guevara, President and CEO of World Travel and Tourism Council, talked about the importance of building cooperation between public and private sectors.

She said that the public and private sectors working in tandem is essential to helping contain the spread of the disease and urged immediate action in helping limit the lasting damage and the economic impact on the global travel and tourism industry which generates 10.4 percent or $8.8 trillion to global GDP.

“The resilience of the private sector is shown in its determination to overcome whatever challenges are thrown its way to minimize the economic impact of such events,” she said. “But there is always more that can be done in what is a rapidly changing situation.

Last Friday, President Trump joined with executives from top corporations such as Walgreens, Walmart, Target, Becton Dickinson, Roche Diagnostics, Quest Diagnostics, CVS, LHC Group, and LabCorp to address the challenge.

Along with declaring a national emergency, the president announced a monthlong travel ban on inbound travelers from Europe, and said he would offer billions worth of low-interest loans to small- and mid-sized businesses getting hit by the coronavirus.

The news conference came just before the closing bell on Wall Street, and was a day after the market suffered its steepest one-day decline since the 1987 crash.

The show of strength and unity from the president and business leaders fueled a late-day surge and the market rallied nearly 2,000 points.

Before delivering his first State of the Union address, Trump said that he wanted to unite the country amid “tremendous divisiveness” and hoped he could do it without a traumatic event affecting Americans.

“I would love to be able to bring back our country into a great form of unity,” Trump said.

“Without a major event where people pull together, that’s hard to do. But I would like to do it without that major event because usually that major event is not a good thing.”

Given the political polarization, partisanship has produced Washington gridlock, and Trump’s hope of uniting the nation remains a daunting challenge.

Unfortunately, it sometimes takes a “major event” like the coronavirus outbreak to pull Americans together.

Business CEOs joined the president in stepping up to the plate last Friday. Target CEO Brian Cornell assured Americans the retailer would continue keeping stores open amid consumer efforts to stock up on household goods.

To ensure ample testing equipment was available, Tom Polen of Becton Dickinson assured us that the medical device maker was “ramping up manufacturing capacity.”

Walmart will also be making portions of its stores’ parking lots available for drive-thru testing.

Quest Diagnostic, Target, CVS, Walgreen and Roche CEOs also announced their coronavirus response efforts.

These are all positive actions that rekindle optimism, just what investors wanted to hear in order to calm the jittery market and a concerned populace.

On the national front, coordination by the federal government and private industry is not only essential in confronting the present threat but it sets a template for tackling future outbreaks.

On the individual front, Americans seem to be at their best whenever the core principles of freedom are challenged. After the attacks on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the 9/11 terror attacks of 2001, we sharpened focus and united.

America is a beacon of hope to the world and it’s critical that political differences are put aside to battle the present global pandemic.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com