With the sports world to a screeching halt (along with the rest of the world) due to the coronavirus pandemic, athletes, coaches, and other sports professionals have found themselves totally out of their normal routine.

Sports commentators are included in that lot. It’s a little hard to commentate on a sport when there are no sports happening.

But that hasn’t stopped rugby commentator Nick Heath from doing his job in a creative, unpaid, but highly entertaining way anyway. Heath has started posting videos to social media of his color commentary on everyday life—much to the delight of everyone.

His #LifeCommentary posts include a video of two dogs—whom he refers to as “Vanilla” and “Chocolate”—racing around a park.

“The Interminable Wait” highlights people running the “supermarket gauntlet challenge” and waiting for the trolley as “the warm-up event for the international airport boarding gate heats taking place all over the world.”

Clearly, some of the people he’s filmed are not practicing proper social distancing measures, but don’t let their fueling of humanity’s demise stop you from enjoying Heath’s commentating.

Who knew that a handful of moms pushing their kids in a stroller could be so thrilling?

Heath just has a way of making the most mundane everyday actions sound exciting and entertaining, such as this “Find a Bargain Steeplechase.”

Even just watching people crossing the street becomes an exciting event. Who’s going to get across first?

People are loving Heath’s color commentary on life as they sit in their homes deprived of live sports commentary, as evidenced by his Twitter following growing by more than 50,000 in just a couple of days.

“It was just going and having a bit of fun and keeping my followers on social media entertained,” Heath, 41, told USA TODAY Sports. “But it obviously has blown up a bit since.”

Thank goodness for people like Nick Heath, who have the ability to make the most of a sincerely crappy situation and use their unique talents to keep people’s spirits up in creative ways. We need these people now more than ever.

The coronavirus pandemic is drastically changing the economy minute by minute. Businesses such as restaurants, bars, and brick-and-mortar retail stores have been hit hard and, in some states, are totally shut down.

However, other businesses such as grocery stores, online retailers, and food delivery services are thriving in the new normal.

The good news is that displaced workers from one part of the economy have opportunities for jobs in another sector. Papa John’s and Dominoes are looking to hire thousands of delivery drivers due to the high demand for pizza.

Amazon is announced it’ll hire an additional 100,000 employees to help keep up with the surge in online shopping.

Walmart has seen a huge surge in business as people stock up during the pandemic.

“It is quite frankly, unprecedented, the type of sustained pressure that we’re seeing,” Dan Bartlett, Walmart’s executive VP of corporate affairs, told CNBC. “It is like Black Friday day after day after day in some respects.”

The surge in business has inspired the notoriously thrifty employer to hand out bonus checks to its hourly employees for their hard work during a dangerous time. On Thursday, it announced it will provide more than $550 million in cash bonuses to its hourly employees.

Full-time hourly associates will receive $300 and part-time will receive $150. The bonuses will be paid out starting April 2.

“It’s almost like a mini stimulus package for Walmart associates,” Bartlett said.

Walmart is the largest employer in the United States with 1.3 million employees, so the bonuses will have a positive economic effect on the country as a whole.

“Walmart associates have gone above and beyond the call of duty in serving our customers during these unprecedented times,” President and Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon said.

Walmart is looking to hire 150,000 new associates to work in stores, clubs, distribution centers and fulfillment centers through the end of May to meet the demand caused by the pandemic.

The retailer has also announced that it will raise the entry wage at its e-commerce warehouses by $2, which adds up to between $15 to $19 an hour.

The company has fast-tracked its hiring process to “dramatically expedite” hiring for key roles, such as cashiers and stockers, shortening the application process from two weeks to just 24 hours.

Walmart’s decision to raise wages and provide bonuses for employees is a great gesture during these uncertain times. However, it should be mentioned that while Walmart is providing a “stimulus” right now, it’s also been historically guilty of putting a drag on the economy by paying low wages.

“When Walmart comes to town, it is going to reallocate sales [from existing grocers], and its impact is going to be a function of the difference between what is currently being paid in wages at the existing stores and what Walmart pays,” Christopher Fowler, a researcher for Puget Sound Sage, told Business News Daily.

“These impacts stem from the low wages Walmart pays to its hourly associates compared to the wages earned by comparable employees of existing retail grocery stores,” the researchers said.

“The difference in wages, which we estimate to be at least $3 per hour, has the capacity to impact not only the workers themselves but also the people from whom they purchase goods and services,” the researchers continued.

They say a crisis brings out the best and the worst in people. It also reveals the best and the worst in our leaders.

A city commission meeting in Lake Worth Beach, Florida has gone viral after Commissioner Omari Hardy took his fellow city officials to task for their seeming indifference to their constituents during the coronavirus crisis.

Hardy confronted Mayor Pam Triolo and City Manager Michael Bornstein, who he said refused to call an emergency meeting last week, per Hardy’s repeated requests, to discuss issues coming about from the coronavirus crisis. And he let his frustrations show.

“You’re calling me disrespectful because I’ve interrupted people, but this gentleman has turned off people’s lights in the middle of a global health pandemic,” Hardy said, referring to Bornstein.

When Triolo tried to call a recess, Hardy wasn’t having it. “A banana republic is what you’re turning this place into with your so-called leadership,” Hardy said.

“We cut people’s utilities this week and made them pay—with what could have been their last check—to turn their lights off in a global health pandemic! But you don’t care about that. You didn’t want to meet.”

Triolo walked out, saying “Out of order. You’re done.”

Coronavirus Florida: Lake Worth Beach city commission meeting turns ugly

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Hardy is being hailed a hero by people who have watched the video and see him as a staunch supporter of the citizenry he serves. He wrote a post on Facebook about how overwhelmed he was by people’s responses to the video.

“It was not about me. It was about the people in our city who are struggling, whose futures are uncertain, whose finances are unstable, who may be wondering if they will be able to work and earn a paycheck during this pandemic, and who came home on Tuesday or Wednesday to find the lights off, or the water off, at a time when water and lights couldn’t be more important. It was about them. It is still about them.”

“I was heated, yes. I was loud, yes,” he wrote. “But I was trying to get across an important point: that elected officials work for the PEOPLE. The PEOPLE put us on that dais. The PEOPLE put us in those chairs. The PEOPLE put those titles before our names. Everything we do is for the PEOPLE, and when the PEOPLE need us, it’s our job to step up for them. I was frustrated with three of my colleagues because they had forgotten who we work for.”

Thank you, Commissioner Hardy, for showing us what a true public servant looks like.

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