Kickstart: He knows if you've been quarantining

You had to know this was coming: Your (or your child's) visit with Santa will be a little different this year.

Many stores and malls have canceled in-person visits this holiday season due to COVID-19 as well as restrictions limiting crowds. A few stores are opting for virtual visits instead.

And some locations, such as Bass Pro Shops, have installed acrylic panels around Santa, so you can see him, but not actually sit on his lap.

The measures are meant to improve safety for visitors as well as store Santas themselves.

"Santas are also nervous," writes Abha Battarai in the Washington Post. "Many are in their 70s and 80s and have health conditions such as diabetes that put them at particularly high risk of coronavirus complications."

But of course, that only refers to Santa's helpers. As Anthony Fauci, the U.S.'s top infectious disease expert, explained, Santa himself is immune. For kids at least, some traditions must remain.

The pandemic has forced a lot of groups to pivot. For auto supplier Cadillac Products Inc., it has also led to another business.

Don Loepp has the story of how CPI went from making medical gowns to help fill the pipeline when COVID-19 first hit the U.S. into now developing that work into a new brand, ProTEC-USA, dedicated to supplying gowns on a permanent basis.

CPI has in-house capabilities in film production and machinery — and has been looking for a chance to diversify beyond the auto industry — so the gown business made sense, the company said.

When it comes to changes brought on by the coronavirus, would moving to a new state make sense?

Economic development groups in Southwest Michigan were interested in bringing new residents to the region, targeting people who are now working from home.

At the heart of the Move to Michigan program from Cornerstone Alliance: Incentives of up to $15,000 and gifts if the people selected bought a home worth at least $200,000 in select zip codes in St. Joseph, Benton Harbor, Bridgman and other communities. To collect, applicants had to agree to become full-time residents and certify that they will work remotely for a company outside the area.

"If you can't recruit Google," Cornerstone CEO Rob Cleveland said, "go recruit a Google engineer."

The program was so popular it stopped taking applications after two weeks, our sister paper Crain's Chicago Business writes.