Of course Corona (aka Covid-19) will take its toll on many things.

Today I heard about the death of a 30 year old boy working in a friend’s office. Actually corona did not kill him. It just hastened his death. He was suffering from renal failure. Maybe he would have died in September or October. Or maybe doctors would have paid better attention..and he would have had a transplant. That was not to be. He died this morning.

Is the family sad? I do not know. In lower middle class (aka Poor) families it is more a sense of relief – because treatment takes its toll. A kidney investigation, treatment, dialysis…costs 10L to start with. It is not easy to sell your assets regularly to pay for a person who cannot earn enough to cover his cost of medicines. I do not know this family, but I know of another case where the death of a young patient was not taken too badly.

Corona will also take its toll on small business. And of business that will anyway die. NGOs are likely to be killed first, then restaurants, small boutique shops, then slightly bigger shops. As a landlord my friend has already offered a 50% discount for 6 months. He feels it is better to anticipate the loss, and offer it up front. Another friend has taken the offer and says “I have decided to give up the go-down after 5 months instead of 4.

Another friend has decided to use his 9000sft office to give it to 3-4 start ups in exchange of equity. He feels even if one of them makes money, he will be happy with the gamble.

Some businesses will anyway die – instead of September it will die in May. I just saw 2 famous print magazines – both have had their final printed copy.

Dentists, hair stylists, masseurs, priests, cooks, – better be ready for a real long fast. Your Ramazan / Pradhyushan / Lint/ Shravan is going to last far beyond the 40 days. Be ready for a 2 year intermittent fast. Hopefully if you had kept some money in debt funds, some of that money could be useful over the next 18 months when you battle with poor quality of veggies. Small hospitals are not paying the doctors salary- how long will the doc decide to ….Right now, it is damn salary…

We might be in a better shape….90 days from now.

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