Welcome to your plastic-protected deconfinement
COVID-19 restrictions on everyday life make us realize how good we had it before
Please stand behind the Plexiglas shield while reading this column.
Attention everyone: The new word of the month is: “deconfinement”.
After mastering the term “social distancing” in March, then “flattening the curve” in April, we’re now hearing lots about deconfinement — how to unlock our lockdown without invigorating the virus.
Here in the nation’s viral hot spot, we’ve just started opening up by permitting construction, some stores and sports like golf and tennis.
But in parts of Europe and elsewhere, they’ve opened everything from restaurants and gyms to hairdressers — and the whole world is watching from behind a Great Wall of Plexiglas.
Here’s a glimpse of what the new normal may look like:
Restaurants: Australia, New Zealand and Norway are reopening them at half capacity, with tables safely spread and separated by the usual Plexiglas.
Waiters are masked, menus disposable and the usual table condiments replaced by hand sanitizer. If there’s a birthday cake, DO NOT blow out the candles or you could be charged with germ warfare.
It may not be long before waiters are encased in acrylic, along with customers.
Clothing: U.S. department stores like Nordstrom and Saks will enlarge changing rooms and sanitize better than hospitals. They’re promising to quarantine all clothing that’s been tried on — for 48 to 72 hours — so any virus traces dissipate.
Customer: Do you have a blue Polo shirt in medium, please?
Clerk: Sorry sir, all our shirts are in solitary confinement until tomorrow. But we do have a pair of size 48 pants just released from quarantine!
Airlines: There’ll be no talking to seatmates, as experts predict mandatory masks, and yep, transparent seat dividers.
Ryanair, Europe’s biggest airline, just announced that queuing for toilets will be prohibited on board, to maintain distancing.
Instead passengers must ask cabin crew for permission, just like we did in grade school.
You: MI-I-ISSS — can I please use the bathroom?
Flight attendant: Sorry sir, the sanitation crew is cleaning it. But you’re No. 17 — so please remain seated and cross your legs.
Airports: Security checks will soon be followed by rigorous health checks, so get to the airport five hours early.
We lived through the golden age of air travel and never knew it. We were too busy complaining they’d run out of no-salt dressing for our inflight kale salad starter.
Fortunately, in this brave new Plexiglas world, one gift may save us this summer: The Great Outdoors. As spring fever strikes, we’ve instinctively swarmed patios, parks, bike paths and streets like wildlife escaping their cages.
This spring it’s not only nicer outside — it’s safer, too.
Numerous studies show COVID -19 dissipates more quickly in the infinite outdoors than in stores or workplaces — though you still must keep your social distance.
That’s why the city of Vilnius, Lithuania, is closing many major streets to traffic and converting itself to a “big open-air café,” and some European cities will copy it.
Here in Montreal, La Presse editorialist-in-chief François Cardinal has proposed closing car lanes on busy restaurant streets like Ste-catherine and St-denis — then allowing safely-spaced tables to spill all over the street.
It’s a great idea to help save our city’s renowned but desperately endangered restaurants, in a Festival of Social Distance Dining.
But why stop there when other activities might be safer and more inviting outdoors too?
For starters, everyone in Canada needs a decent haircut, instead of their current cereal bowl cut. But when hair salons finally reopen, how will we keep the proper distance, unless hairdressers use six-foot gardening shears?
In many developing countries, street barbers are a routine sight, cutting clients’ hair outside their shops on hot days. So why not let our barbers pull out some chairs and clip our curls in the Covid-cleansing breeze?
“Hello, is that Coiffure Chez Pierre? I’d like to book a haircut today — at an outside chair unless it’s raining?”
Like much of Asia, we could also allow outdoor patios at nail salons, massage parlours and beauticians — maybe fitness clubs, physios and a new “Doctors Without Offices.”
This would also provide some socially distant entertainment in a summer with no street festivals.
Him: Hey honey, it’s Saturday night; wanna go down and watch the manicurists at the Toenail Terrasse?
Her: We’ve done that the past two weekends, dear, and I’m tired of watching nail polish dry. But I hear Dr. Yankum, my favourite patio dentist, is doing an al fresco root canal tonight. There are still tickets left in the six-foot-away row.
Crazy? Many experts predict we could face two more years of social distancing, so we need to reinvent our lives and cities in safer, imaginative ways.
Let’s use Mother Nature to breathe some relief into COVID life — because the great outdoors may be our summertime salvation.
It’s time for a new pandemic mantra: “Wash your hands. Wear a mask indoors. Get a haircut outdoors.”
But don’t forget to wear your Plexiglas suit.