"Reopening" is a Misnomer

A friend shared this article* about "reopening" the country, which puts into words the thoughts that have been swirling around my head for months, while I just kept saying "it's going to be really hard for a really long time." Just because a governor announces an "opening date," that doesn't mean everything will be instantly back to the way it was the next day. The reopening comes with new requirements and restrictions, and many people will still be maintaining social distancing practices even after businesses are "open." And with fewer customers in various industries, and requirements for cleaning, distancing, etc., many may not be able to justify staffing and operating at the level they had been before. There are going to be far-reaching effects of a prolonged shutdown, that will continue even once a vaccine is available and widely administered. The world really is not going to be the same after this - some things just will not come back. For example:

📽 Is this the end of large groups of people going to theaters to watch a movie together on a big screen? Why bother, when actually operating theaters is so unprofitable, and people can watch the same movies from the comfort and convenience of their homes?

✈ Leisure travel is definitely going to be on vacation for a while (pun intended). And there are so many cities and whole countries whose economies rely primarily on tourism. If that shuts down, and the people who support it shut down, then the other local business that support them shut down, and so on...

I think the solution is that people are going to have to get really creative with modifying existing industries and starting new ones. Delivery and home-based services are going to be huge. Extra support will be needed in healthcare, of course. How about the people who will be installing partitions and more widely spaced seats in public spaces? Or even shifting people to process unemployment claims - my own state laid off many of these people in the last year due to falling unemployment, and the people who are left can't keep up with the huge number of claims now being submitted.

I also just read this NPR article on when models say it will be safe to ease social distancing in each state. Their criteria is based on a rate of 1 new infection per million people, which is more strict than the proposal for my state of 50 new infections per 100,000 people over 14 days. And the results of the study recently conducted by New York that found that there may be far more asymptomatic carriers than previously suspected might change the recommendation as well. That said, based on this IHME projection, my state shouldn't relax distancing policies for at least another month. However, this is just looking at the state level - my governor has already said the policies will be regionally based. There are probably areas or counties of my state that could be relaxed sooner, whereas my "hotbed" area is probably looking at a much longer lockdown.

The problem with any of these "relaxing" policies is that people in areas with closures will just travel around to neighboring areas that are open, continuing to potentially spread the virus. The state of Georgia just opened some businesses like gyms, hair salons, and nail services, and I've already seen one social media post from someone in a neighboring state bragging about how she traveled to Georgia to get a pedicure 🙄

I keep swinging between thinking "everything is going to turn out fine" vs. "we are witnessing the slow ending of the human race." Humans are remarkably resilient. I'm hoping for the former, and I think everything will be fine, if people can be flexible and not stuck on the way everything used to be, because it's already changed forever.

* I'm not really familiar with this site or its ideological leanings, but it describes itself as "providing political analysis and reporting free from the constraints of partisan loyalties or tribal prejudice;" if anything, its officers and contributors seem to come from a republican background.