Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Reopening business does not mean victory over pandemic
Closing of our businesses was the hardest decision in which I have ever participated. As pressure mounts to re-open some businesses, achieving success will be gauged by our collective commitment to maintain voluntary and universal compliance with health and behavior recommendations. Our lives and economy depend on our ability to keep each other safe.
On March 18, the Sunrise City Commission joined a few other cities closing restaurants, with the exception of takeout or delivery, and other businesses. At the time, Gov. Ron DeSantis had entered an Executive Order allowing restaurants to operate at 50 percent capacity, with physical distancing and five employee health screening criteria. However, no matter how well-intentioned, there was simply no manner in which we, as a city, could enforce those standards every hour of every day. The day we closed, there were reports that restaurants in neighboring cities were packed. Naturally, businesses and employees wanted to make as much money as possible knowing that closure was inevitable.
If we have learned anything, a patchwork of public health policy for areas of outbreak during a pandemic, whether locally, nationally or globally, is counterproductive and unsustainable. Equally problematic, asking some to fully sacrifice without the collective sacrifice of a wartime footing is unfair and undermines confidence in decision-making.
Municipal lines became battlegrounds for skepticism and anger. When one city closed a beach, even if that was the correct decision, neighboring cities were foreseeably overrun. The state would later close down restaurants, businesses and beaches; the county followed with other closures.
National recommendations for our behavior, such as wearing facial coverings, evolved. Yet, open businesses expressed frustration far too many people were shopping for non-essential items, were treating shopping as a family outing and not wearing facial coverings. New mandatory guidelines had to be issued locally to do what was already expected.
Until now, regional cooperation emerged as the best solution to avert patchwork of policy. The momentum and pressure for re-opening makes it inevitable, perhaps sooner than we should. Business owners in Broward will look northward to operating businesses in Palm Beach County with understandable frustration and anger. Reportedly, MiamiDade County is targeting May 18th to re-open some businesses.
While we move towards re-opening, we must not underestimate the medical risks. Without an effective vaccine or treatment regimen to blunt residual injuries of the virus and prevent death, combined with lack of comprehensive testing and tracing, we are not declaring victory over the pandemic. Instead, we are making a fundamental judgment to protect jobs and the economy given the amount of sacrifice and slow relief efforts. If we do not reach a collective agreement to adhere to all standards and expectations for our conduct, the foreseeable consequence is more sickness and death.
In Sunrise, the business community has been working on strategies to protect their employees, their customers and all of our families. For instance, they know we must maintain mandatory facial coverings guidelines, with clear consequences.
As one owner said, “you can’t come in my establishment without a shirt on, why would I allow them to come in without facial covering and risk our health?” Businesses do not fear innocent or forgetful non-compliance; they are terrified by acts of outright defiance. Owners already report that when asking customers to wear facial coverings, some respond with vulgarity and general denial of the legitimacy of the pandemic concerns.
Going forward, from talking to businesses, some basic principles have been developed. First, minimize employee-tocustomer and customer-to-customer contact with queuing strategies, physical barriers, reminders and visuals prompts, as well as real-time oversight to prevent congregating.
Second, active and preventative sanitation and safety measures throughout operating hours are critical.
Third, implement repetitive and integrated messaging throughout the community to set and remind everyone of the basic rules and expectations, along with enforcement consequences.
Fourth, focus on deploying new technology to allow curbside and cashless sales; these adaptations have been warmly welcomed by businesses and customers.
Fifth, maintain work-at-home standards should remain in place for as long as possible.
At the same time, municipalities will need to consider relaxing some code requirements to allow outdoor seating, signage and innovative strategies which are necessary to facilitate recovery.
We must maintain our vigilance as the political, not medical, decision is made to begin re-opening. We must follow the medical data on re-opening, recognizing once we spot a flare-up it means we are too late for some. I fear that if we do not work together voluntarily and enthusiastically, illness, death and re-closures, as we are seeing around the world, are inevitable. Each of us must make the smart decisions to keep each other safe and protect our economy.