USA TODAY International Edition
Hunger to reopen hasn’t shaken fear of unknown
Over the coming days, life in some states will start returning to a version of normal.
In South Carolina, the governor announced that many stores and flea markets will reopen. In Florida, beaches can welcome sun worshippers. In Minnesota, golf courses, marinas and shooting ranges are getting primed for sports enthusiasts.
Some officials may feel we’re ready to rebound from the coronavirus crisis, but many citizens aren’t so sure.
Though a depleted economy needs businesses to reopen, the nation remains in a defensive crouch. Whether it’s patrons who aren’t quite ready to party with friends or business owners who need weeks to implement safety measures, the overall feeling seems to be one of deep- set culture shock.
“I don’t know one person who feels we’re ready to rock and roll,” says Atlanta- based Jamie Weeks, CEO of Honors Holdings, which operates 120 Orangetheory gyms across six states, including many in Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp has even drawn fire from President Donald Trump for reopening gyms, bowling alleys and hair salons.
“If the ball’s now in my court, I’m going to use that 24- second shot clock,” says Weeks, who hopes to unlock his doors gradually by mid- May. “I’ll dribble around before making a decision.”
An NBC News/ Wall Street Journal
poll published Sunday found that 58% of voters are concerned restrictive measures might be lifted too soon, risking a second wave of outbreaks, compared with 32% who are more concerned the measures would stay in place, risking further economic hardship.
“Societies are founded on social contracts, which we all must agree on for them to work,” says Jeff Hancock, professor of communication at Stanford University. “For some time, we have been following the same set of selfquarantine rules. Without them now, there will be some pushing of boundaries and some tension.”
Hancock has been doing regular studies on behavior and attitudes throughout the coronavirus crisis. One early finding revealed that when states enacted shelter- in- place rules, anxiety levels actually dropped. People felt good there was a unified plan.
Broadly speaking, we have all been in this together, staying 6 feet apart, wearing masks, being good neighbors.
Now that governors have announced an imminent reopening of select businesses, value judgments may kick in. Is a business owner who chooses not to reopen to be commended for safeguarding his employees and customers or criticized for not helping the economy?
Is a shopper who fails to wear a mask or keep at a distance helping usher in a new freedom from fear or risking infecting others in the store?
If employees’ jobs have returned but they remain concerned about catching the virus, are they to be commended and financially compensated for staying at home or penalized for it?
“There’s a beauty when we all have the same rules, but if now some people are creating their own new rules, it will be very tricky and even perhaps hostile,” says Elissa Epel, professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco.
“In a few weeks, everyone will be able to say, ‘ I told you so,’ one way or the other.”
Michelle van Dellen University of Georgia in Athens
Epel describes that now- routine ritual of two people passing each other on a sidewalk, when one perhaps even steps into the street to maintain distance. Polite smiles are usually exchanged.
“If that same scene starts happening with someone without a mask getting too close, people may feel others are careless, and it will make them angry,” she says. “We can’t all just do our own thing.”
Reopening requires ‘ scalpels’
Another looming concern about gradual reopenings is that they put business owners and patrons in a position of having to possibly open and close numerous times if the virus surges again this fall in combination with the regular flu.
“There’s a price for reopening too soon that’s beyond the economic, and it’s measured in lives,” says Gregory Poland, professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
“The great tension lies in how we manage this,” he says. “It should be a delicate and deliberate choreography to begin opening back up, not a place for blunt hammers but for sharp scalpels.”
Some groups could pay a much higher price for a botched reopening.
While some held onto jobs that allow working from home, others toiled in health care and blue- collar positions that placed their lives at risk. Still others – about 26 million Americans in the past few weeks – filed for unemployment.
Although a slow reopening of publicfacing businesses could be a critical step to restarting the economy, it could also be “a way for the government to shift the economic burden off itself and its services and onto the people,” says
Joshua Greene, professor of psychology at Harvard University and author of “Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them.”
Greene says that for many citizens, reopening before there is a vaccine or treatment for those who get COVID- 19 will introduce moral dilemmas that add to the pandemic’s emotional and financial toll. “Officials are essentially now telling us, ‘ OK, you’re now free to go do this,’ but some will say ‘ I don’t want to risk the harm to me or those I love,’ ” he says. “It’s as if government is now saying, ‘ Well, if you stay home, it’s your problem.’ ”
That quandary may fall hardest on the poor and people of color, a population that has taken an outsize hit of viral infections and deaths.
“Those of us with privilege who can stay home and keep our families safe are in a very different position from those who now have more pressure to go back to work and risk exposure, and here in Georgia, that falls along race and class lines when you’re talking about service industry jobs,” says Michelle vanDellen, associate professor of social psychology at the University of Georgia in Athens.
VanDellen is concerned that the state’s gradual reopening will further heighten the inequality gap. She expects the verdict will be stark.
“In a few weeks, everyone will be able to say, ‘ I told you so,’ one way or the other,” she says. “Success means an absence of problems. If we made a bad decision, a second wave of infections will spike.”
‘ I need the revenue’ but can’t rush
Justin Amick doesn’t want his upscale Atlanta night spots to be part of a coronavirus resurgence. That’s why as much as he’d love to open up the Painted Pin and the Painted Duck, he’s holding off.
“I’m itching, I need the revenue, but I feel like we have one chance to get reopening right,” Amick says. “If I’m forced to reopen before the public is ready to support my business, we may never reopen again.”
For his gyms, Weeks plans to distribute upward of 50,000 masks to employees and members. There will be longer gaps between fitness classes to allow for deep cleaning.
“I’d love to do nothing more than run around in public with my wife and two young daughters, but a lot of people feel the way I do, which is, I don’t need this right now, things are still too hot,” Weeks says. “Next week will be interesting.”