COVID-19 toll passes 50,000 in U.S.
Three states loosen lockdowns by letting some businesses reopen
SAVANNAH, GA.—Even
as the confirmed U.S. death toll from coronavirus soared past 50,000, Georgia, Oklahoma and Alaska began loosening lockdown orders Tuesday on their pandemic-wounded businesses, despite warnings from health experts that the gradual steps toward normalcy might be happening too soon. Republican governors in Georgia and Oklahoma allowed salons, spas and barbershops to reopen, while Alaska opened the way for restaurants to resume dine-in service and retail shops and other businesses to open their doors, all with limitations. Some Alaska municipalities chose to maintain stricter rules.
Though limited in scope, and subject to social-distancing restrictions, the reopenings marked a symbolic milestone in the debate raging in the United States — and the world — as to how quickly political leaders should lift economically damaging lockdown orders.
Similar scenarios have been playing worldwide and will soon proliferate in the U.S. as other governors wrestle with conflicting priorities. Their economies have been battered by weeks of quarantine-fuelled job losses and soaring unemployment claims, yet health officials warn that lifting stay-athome orders now could spark a resurgence of COVID-19.
The coronavirus has killed more than 190,000 people worldwide, including — as of
Friday — more than 50,000 in the United States, according to a tally compiled by Johns Hopkins University from government figures. The actual death toll is believed to be far higher.
New cases are surging in Africa and Latin America as outbreaks subside in some places that were hit earlier.
In Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt authorized personal-care businesses to open, citing a decline in the number of people being hospitalized for COVID-19. Those businesses were directed to maintain social distancing, require masks and frequently sanitize equipment.
Still, some of the state’s largest cities, including Norman, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, were opting to keep their bans in place until at least the end of April.
Amy Pembrook and her husband, Mike, reopened their hair salon in the Oklahoma town of Fairview after it had been shuttered for about a month.
“We’re super excited about going back, but we have caught a little flak from people who say it’s too early,” Amy Pembrook said. “We just said we can live in fear for a long time or we can trust that everything is going to be OK.”
With deaths and infections still rising in Georgia, many business owners planned to stay closed despite Gov. Brian Kemp’s assurance that hospital visits and new cases have levelled off enough for barbers, tattoo artists, massage therapists and personal trainers to return to work with restrictions.
Kemp’s timeline to restart the economy proved too ambitious even for U.S. President Donald Trump, who said he disagrees with the fellow Republican’s plan.
On Friday, Trump signed a $484-billion (U.S.) bill to aid employers and hospitals under stress from the pandemic — the latest federal effort to help keep afloat businesses that have had to close or scale down. Over the past five weeks, roughly 26 million people have filed for jobless aid, or about one in six U.S. workers.
Without a tried-and-tested action plan for how to pull countries out of coronavirus lockdown, the world is seeing a patchwork of approaches. Schools reopen in one country, stay closed in others; face masks are mandatory in some places, a recommendation elsewhere.
Kids still attend soccer practice in Sweden while they are not even allowed outside in Spain. As governments and scientists fumble around, still struggling with so many unknowns, individuals are being left to take potentially life-affecting decisions.
In Georgia, David Huynh had 60 clients booked for appointments at his nail salon in Savannah, but a clothing store, jewelry shop and chocolatier that share a street corner with his downtown business, Envy Nail Bar, remained closed.
“The phone’s been staying ringing off the hook,” Huynh said. “We’ve probably gotten hundreds of calls in the last hour.”
Four women clutching face masks were waiting outside when the salon opened for the first time since March 26.
“Yes, I am ready to get my nails fixed,” said Alina Davis, a police officer for the local school system, who kept working throughout the crisis.