States begin easing, open cafés, theatres
TOO SOON, SOME SAY
• Georgia on Monday will start allowing residents to dine inside restaurants or watch a movie at a theatre, as more U. S. states from Minnesota to Mississippi took steps to ease coronavirus restrictions despite the warnings of health experts.
Colorado, Montana and Tennessee were also set to reopen some businesses to start reviving their battered economies. Oklahoma, Alaska and South Carolina, along with Georgia, previously took such steps following weeks of mandatory lockdowns that threw millions of Americans out of work.
President Donald Trump and some local officials have criticized Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp for orders that enabled restaurants and theatres to join a list of businesses, such as hair and nail salons, barbershops and tattoo parlours, he allowed to reopen last week with social-distancing restrictions.
One restaurant chain, Waffle House, was imposing seating arrangements in Georgia that will keep patrons at least two metres apart, stricter sanitization measures and a requirement that employees wear masks, CEO Walt Ehmer told WSBTV.
“I know the unemployment system has been enhanced to help take care of the most vulnerable people, but people want to have jobs, and they want to have something to do and take care of their families,” Ehmer said. “I think it’s going to give them some hope.”
Public health authorities warn that increasing human interactions and economic activity may spark a fresh surge of infections just as social-distancing measures appear to be bringing outbreaks under control.
Meanwhile, the number of known infections in the United States kept climbing on Monday, topping 970,000 as the number of lives lost to COVID-19, the highly contagious respiratory illness caused by the virus, surpassed 54,800.
Officials in some of the hardest- hit states such as New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts have been emphasizing that more testing and contact tracing for the virus needed to be in place before they could implement roadmaps for restarting their economies.
Contact tracing involves tracking down and testing people who may have been around anyone infected.
“Testing is the way forward, and it’s been a long fight just to get the testing,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said businesses including manufacturing and construction in parts of the state with fewer cases of the virus might reopen after his shutdown order expires on May 15.
Business shutdowns have led to a record 26.5 million Americans filing for unemployment benefits since mid-march with predictions that the jobless rate would likely hit 16 per cent or more in April.