Darn! We were doing a pretty good job here in Costa Rica, in terms of the collective effort towards taming the COVID-19 bug…

and then June happened!

Costa Rica now has one of the highest reproduction numbers (R₀) in Latin American at 1.97. Our daily case numbers are skyrocketing, with one day this past week setting a record 649 new cases.

Hospitalizations are also on the rise, as one might expect with an exponential increase in confirmed cases. And that’s what is most worrisome, since Costa Rica’s health care system could quickly reach capacity if this trend continues.

Deaths have been on the rise as well. But with a confirmed case fatality rate of .39%, and only 5 deaths per million of population, Costa Rica is still doing quite well compared to many nations in the statistic that counts the most.

The majority of the cases are still in the GAM, or gran area metropolitana. For that reason this area, as well as others, predominantly in the northern part of the country, have been put on orange alert and essentially locked down. At the moment residents of those areas cannot drive at all, except on certain days (depending on tag number) and then only for food and emergencies. All non-essential commercial business in those orange alert areas must remain closed under July 19.

Here in Perez Zeledon we have not seen a real increase in numbers, yet. Therefore, we remain at yellow alert status and essentially open for business. I have noticed, however, that almost everyone in the streets these days is donning a mask and you are generally required to wear one to enter any commercial establishment.

One thing Costa Rica has shown itself capable of, as opposed to the U.S., is the ability to muster a coordinated national response to this crisis in a definitive manner that informs its citizens how serious all this really is.

Nevertheless, many frequent commenters in various expat Facebook groups that I peruse continue spouting nonsensical conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 “hoax”…

Generally those who spout such nonsense do so either in furtherance of some political ideology, generally far-right and pro-Trump, or because they feel that all this government interference in their economic pursuits, in the name of collective health, is, well, just downright un-American…

But refusing to sacrifice for the less fortunate and more vulnerable is also un-American!

Granted, this is a tough situation, especially for business owners and their employees. Here in Costa Rica, the tourism industry has been decimated by the fact that Costa Rica’s borders have been closed to tourists since mid-March. We are supposed to open borders on August 1, but with the recent surge in cases, who knows if that will happen and to what extent?

This pain is real. Lives are being disrupted and if this continues much longer (and by all appearances, it probably will), maybe even permanently damaged.

Even so, the ticos, by and large, seem to be taking it in stride, while the gringos in their midst tend to be the ones complaining the loudest.

As I’ve stated before, the culture here is far less materialistic than in the U.S. It’s no surprise that ticos would take their health more seriously than their pocketbooks. And I certainly haven’t seen any ticos throwing temper tantrums about the requirement to wear a damn mask!

OK, enough of all that already…let me get to the point of the post…

What do I mean when I speak of the Costa Rica COVID-19 cleansing?

I listened recently to an interview with the legendary primatologist, Jane Goodall. Her words were very inspirational, especially for these trying times. The overall message was that everyday you live you impact the planet, so why not try to make your impacts positive.

While it’s a stretch to try to blame the COVID-19 crisis on climate change and the man-made reasons that phenomenon is occurring to the detriment of people and planet, the truth is that increasing human encroachment into the natural world can result in problems, like the passing of a novel virus from a bat to a human, as well as a warming planet.

During normal times, Costa Rica welcomes over 3 million tourists annually. Of course, this year that number will be quite a bit lower.

And even though the business of tourism is being negatively impacted by those lower numbers, the underlying reason people come here to begin with is actually undergoing some improvement.

Take away Costa Rica’s natural beauty and acclaimed biodiversity and you lose its primary appeal. Costa Rica has understood that for the most part. For that reason, Costa Rica has long been considered a world model for sustainable tourism.

Nevertheless, 3 million tourists traipsing through its verdant jungle-laden beaches, pristine mountains and national parks does tend to take its toll.

I have seen various reports about how animals are making their return to Costa Rica’s national parks and wildlife refuges. Human traffic in those areas, which has grown dramatically since Costa Rica first burst onto the scene as a highly sought after tourism destination, had begun to motivate a mass critter exodus to deeper and less accessible regions.

I don’t have any hard date to demonstrate that Costa Rica’s air quality is improving, its watercourses becoming less contaminated, and its greenery even more green, but I think it less than a wild guess that all of that is indeed occurring during this period of suppressed human activity.

And of course Costa Rica’s many delightful boutique hotels have had time and space to do some serious “spring” cleaning!

The entire world, Costa Rica certainly included, is learning the hard way that we really are all in this boat together. False ideologies that fictitiously separate are being exposed for what they are…dangerous lies, or half-truths…that are economically rationalized as “good,” but do not serve the best interest of people and planet.

Maybe the Costa Rica COVID-19 cleansing will prove in the end to have been worth it…

Perhaps that goes for the rest of the world as well…

I guess that only time will tell.

The Definitive Guide to Costa Rica Expat Living – 2nd Edition is now available on Amazon!

I hope you thoroughly enjoy this new edition. It is structured much like its predecessor, but I’ve gone through each chapter and changed what needed to be changed and added what I felt should be added. I also added a new whole section on Costa Rica’s southern zone…

Costa Rica’s borders remain closed, officially through July 30. However, most folks in the know will tell you that borders will probably not reopen then…

When will Costa Rica reopen is anyone’s guess at this point.

And that’s a problem, especially for tourism…

Tourism represents an important chunk of Costa Rica’s overall economy. It is also married to other sectors, especially foreign investment. According to the OECD, around 150,000 ticos are directly employed in tourism. If you add in both direct and indirect employment, that number swells to around 450,000, or 28% of total employment.

Just this week the Costa Rica unemployment rate reached 15.7%, the highest in its history.

Costa Rica has only 12 COVID-19 related deaths. That represents 2 deaths per 1 million in population, which is one of the lowest figures in the world. Compare the U.S. rate of 369 deaths per 1 million.

Nevertheless, cases have been on the increase as of late. Much of that trend seems to be stemming from problems with Costa Rica’s northern border with Nicaragua. No one knows for sure what the real situation is in Nicaragua, but by all accounts, it’s very bad.

The Costa Rica government seems to be willing to allow its vital tourism industry to suffer, if necessary to protect the health of the overall population. The logic of that becomes clearer when one considers that Costa Rica’s health care system does not have the capacity to handle a huge wave of hospitalizations related to COVID-19.

Countries around the world with strong tourism industries are beginning to open back up, albeit cautiously. Check out this article from CNN Travel to see what countries are opening up and to what extent.

You’ll notice, however, that Costa Rica is not on that list.

I am being asked daily by my real estate interested customers, many of whom are considering a move to Costa Rica, when will borders reopen so that they can make their exploratory trips? I don’t know what to tell them.

I recently interviewed Casey Halloran, the founder of Costa Rica Vacations, one of the largest independent tour agencies in the country, for my World Changers Expat Podcast. I asked Casey, when will Costa Rica reopen? He thought the date would be August 1st. However, that interview took place prior to the recent wave of new cases.

Just today, Sunday, June 21, Costa Rica reported 86 new cases. On Friday 119 new cases were reported, the highest daily increase since the very first case was reported on March 6th. The Costa Rica government quickly throttled back on its plan to go into a Phase 3 of relaxing restrictions on economic and other activity. This weekend they imposed the same stringent driving restrictions that we endured during Semana Santa, basically meaning no driving except for emergencies and to buy food.

Health Minister Daniel Salas said that an eventual reopening of Costa Rica to international tourism will be “gradual and controlled”, only allowing visitors from locations with low coronavirus transmission. He did not provide an estimated date on when that could occur.

Does gradual and controlled also mean imminent?

Will folks from the States be allowed in?

What restrictions will be imposed and will those restrictions discourage travel to such an extent as to make an opening meaningless?

I am very concerned about the situation, especially as it relates to tourism. Businesses and workers who have been sidelined by this crisis cannot endure this much longer. Surely the government understands that. Hotel owners in particular are urging the president to open the country back up! In a letter published this week by the Costa Rican Hotel Chamber (CCH), its president, Javier Pacheco, said the hotel sector “can no longer endure” the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

What are the restrictions likely to be imposed once the country does open back up? I believe what might be imposed could be similar to what Iceland has done…

Iceland opened back up on June 15. Travelers have the option to either submit to a COVID-19 test on arrival, provide proof of a recently taken test with a negative result, or agree to a two-week quarantine. A $112 testing charge will be implemented from July 1.

Visitors to Iceland will also be encouraged to download the app, Rakning C-19, designed to help trace the origin of transmissions, which is available in seven languages, including English, Polish, German, French, Spanish and Italian.

And that doesn’t bode well for the tourism industry, or for the economy of Costa Rica as a whole.

How will this effect the real estate situation?

In my “silver lining post” I predicted that the COVID-19 crisis, coupled with the political and social unrest occurring in the States, would drive demand for Costa Rica real estate. Even though borders remain closed, we realtors are already seeing that prediction come to fruition…

Just in the last week I’ve had two situations where offers that I submitted on behalf of my clients were met with competing offers from other buyers! That rarely occurs, even during the best of times.

I also predicted that real estate that is more closely tied to tourism, especially high-dollar homes in normally high tourist traffic areas (such as Costa Rica’s popular beaches), that are marketed as “income producers”, will face a tougher time selling in this environment.

There will likely be some very good deals coming available, however, especially with tourist properties, such as boutique hotels.

I still believe, perhaps even more strongly, that things will play out exactly as I predicted.

I can only hope, for the good of Costa Rica’s tourism industry and economy as a whole, that Costa Rica can open back up and revive the industry before it’s too late…

The clock is ticking!

P.S. Since this article was written the government has vowed to open up in some form or fashion on August 1, 2020. However, with cases surging in the GAM (San Jose metropolitan area), which is currently completely locked down under an “orange” alert, who knows. There may be only a partial reopening, which does not allow certain countries (with high infection rates) in. The U.S. could very well be on the “out” list. We shall see.

The clock is still ticking…

I recently posted in my other blog my opinion about why the U.S. is failing the COVID-19 test…

By the way, that blog is called Revolutionary Misfit. It’s far more political than this one, which is focused on Costa Rica expat living and real estate investment. Just wanted to give anyone contemplating a visit over there a fair warning…

How about Costa Rica?

I won’t post any statistics, since they change moment by moment. But Costa Rica has had more recoveries than new confirmed cases for 3 weeks running. If we can keep this trend up, we’ll have eradicated the virus from our country at a time when it’s still raging in others, especially in the U.S.

I say “we” since I am a newly minted tico, naturalized just last month! Yes, I still retain my U.S. citizenship and I am very concerned with what’s going on in my country of birth.

And with only 6 deaths, Costa Rica has one of the lowest fatality rates in the world, even lower than New Zealand, which seems to be getting all the credit as the world model for how to collectively deal with the coronavirus.

How is Costa Rica doing it?

To put it short, it’s the flip side of what’s going on in the U.S. You see, Costa Rica is choosing health over economics. That should come as no surprise. Most know that Costa Rica doesn’t even have a military, having long ago chosen to invest money that would otherwise go to the military into health and education.

Costa Rica’s decision to choose health over economics was made much to the chagrin of many entrepreneurial expats who are clamoring for the government to open the country up for business, like now!

I would venture a guess that the majority of those expats are from the U.S. and Canada.

Being in the real estate business, I’ll have to confess it was a let down to hear this week that the government extended the restriction on entry into the country by foreigners to June 15. And it could get extended again.

It’s hard for me to sell real estate when my buyer clients can’t visit the country to see the properties they keep asking about online. Online inquiries have been going through the roof. I’m talking record numbers…

I can only suppose it’s due to the fact that almost everyone in the U.S. and Canada is at home starting at computer screens and dreaming of a future in pura vida paradise.

The funny thing is, while I’ve been hearing and reading online a lot of complaining about the government not opening up from gringos, I haven’t been hearing or reading nearly as much of the same from the ticos…

After all, it’s their country and they have been negatively effected, far worse than the gringo expats, most of whom have significantly more resources to weather this storm. And many of whom have already received their $1,200 stimulus checks…

By the way, Costa Rica doesn’t have the ability to send the poorest and most affected anywhere near that kind of money…

And yet, the ticos seem content to stay at home and quarantine in a way that puts those in the U.S. to shame. Most in the U.S. seem already to be suffering from severe cabin fever as their materialistic pursuits have been put on hold for a couple months.

When I first arrived I was the typical hard-charging American capitalist, chasing a buck at the expense of my inner peace and well-being. However, it didn’t take a whole lot of exposure to these strange folks down here, who seemed to be much happier without, for me to gradually come to my senses.

Oh sure, I still grasp for the almighty dollar. After all, my family has to eat. But I’m not nearly as all about making a buck as I once was. And I believe that just might add a few years to my meager existence on this planet.

As the U.S. clamors to open up at a time when new cases and fatality rates are still rising, Costa Rica contemplates a more gradual and cautious approach. The tourism industry, which represents anywhere from 6 to 8% of the total economy, has been completely shut down by this. Many of the tourism assets around the country, specifically the boutique hotels, restaurants, bars, and other touristic attractions, are owned by gringos. I guess that’s why the largest outcry against gradualism is coming from them.

Nevertheless, Costa Rica seems reluctant to take chances with its national health, compared to Donald Trump and many governors throughout the states (especially the republican ones).

Of course, Costa Rica will never be the economic powerhouse that the U.S. is…

And you know what, I don’t think they care to be. They’d rather be healthy and happy…

I guess that really gets at the deeper meaning behind the national motto…pura vida.

The ticos get that in a much deeper way than North Americans seem to have the capacity to grasp.

After posting I came across this BBC interview with President Carlos Alvarado, which I believe bolsters (in spirit) a lot of what I am saying above…