Jodi’s Journal: The anything but ‘back to normal’ plan

May 2, 2020

The sculpture tells the story.

The young girl in the piece titled “All the World” was spotted wearing a mask earlier this week from her “home” at 11th and Phillips, as she is depicted looking at whatever is ahead of her.

“Life will be a marvelous journey for this strong young girl, as she looks to the future for paths of her own choosing,” reads the description included in the piece.

Photo by Paul Schiller.

In the coming weeks, it appears our collective approach to COVID-19 will be to walk, as that sculpture says, on paths of our own choosing.

I continue to be asked my opinion on our community and state approach to COVID-19 and its resulting cultural divide, essentially over what is considered to be the role of government in preventing the spread of disease.

Some think government should do more, and some think it should do less. Here, our leaders have viewed mitigation efforts as an attempt to ensure that if we became sick there would be a hospital bed for us, a ventilator if we need one, and a health care team with proper personal protective equipment to care for us.

If too many people had gotten sick at once, those things might not have been possible.

So now that modeling, which we have to acknowledge is only as good as the data entered into it, shows our community has achieved that hospital scenario for you if you become sick — at least right now and going forward as best we can project. So your approach to living in a society that still has many months ahead of dealing with this disease now appears to be largely up to you.

I have no idea if that is the right or wrong mentality at this point in time, but that’s the course we’re on.

I do know that the notion that our state is entering a “back to normal” plan is a total misnomer. I guess it’s in quotes to suggest we shouldn’t take it literally, not like anyone looking at this rationally ever would.

Instead, we enter what The Wall Street Journal last week appropriately referred to as an “unprecedented national experiment,” determining the health of 328 million people and a $22 trillion economy.

There’s little to no cohesiveness in the approaches being taken nationwide. In some places, nearly any business can be open. In others, very few can. The standards for reopening, capacity allowances and even large events totally vary.

“There’s really no right answer here, unfortunately,” said Crystal Watson, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in The Wall Street Journal piece.

“There are definitely different appetites for risk. People are going to have to weigh the pros and cons of remaining closed for longer.”

As someone who talks with business owners and hears from readers every day, the mood and mentality shifted last week. There’s an increased appetite for more accessibility to common spaces, from many business owners and some residents. That’s understandable, and the community’s approach seems well-reasoned. But it will depend on the execution.

Case in point: Opening day Saturday at the Falls Park Farmers Market, which I had fully intended to use as a positive example of ways our community can still enjoy a bit of “normalcy” despite caution and restrictions around us.

Its approach seemed right on, with vendors spread out, visitors asked to limit attendance to one shopper per household and a drive-thru pickup option.

Great ideas. In theory.

Not so easy to execute. When our photographer and I showed up — at different times — we found many examples of people struggling to follow basic guidelines — keep distance between one another, wear masks, etc.

I have a lot of photos I’m not going to share, because the idea here isn’t to call anyone out but instead to use this as a small learning experience.

By the end of the day, the leadership of the market had gotten back to me with some new practices for next time:

  • Patrons need more communication, via email, social media and advertising, that they are supposed to come individually — one shopper per family.
  • Once there, shoppers need to practice distancing and stay at least 6 feet from one another.
  • Directions will be added for traffic flow, so it’s one way on each side of the market.
  • Vendors will make a better effort at marking space so people know what 6 feet is when they form line.
  • All vendors will wear masks.

Again, it shows that this isn’t “back to normal.” We’re not yet at a time when your whole family can come to the market, listening to live music and hanging out at the playground. We’ll get there, but this isn’t it. For now, our role is to use the market as it was truly intended — as a way to support our small growers and makers.

There’s going to be a learning curve here going forward for all in business and all consumers, and this was a good start. As we begin to offer more ways people can come to the same place, beginning this week, all those involved need to take the same approach the farmers market did once best practices begin blending with actual human behavior.

It doesn’t seem like it should be that hard to space more apart, limit attendance by household and wear a mask. But I think it is going to require a lot of adjustments and a certain risk tolerance. And it does make me wonder what will happen when tons of bars and restaurants are allowed to start serving more than 10 patrons this week. Or when shoppers can begin congregating inside The Empire Mall. Or when worshipers can begin returning to churches.

I feel confident this is the answer: We don’t know what’s going to happen. It is a great experiment. We don’t know how pervasive COVID-19 still is in our community, how quickly it could spread, which populations might contract it and how sick they will become.

We have some idea, though, of what we can do to lessen the chances it will flare up here again. We can stay 6 feet apart from others. We can limit how many people from our household go one place at the same time. We can wear a mask when close to others, even if we would rather not, understanding there’s at least a decent chance we could be helping the broader community. I realize there’s no definitive research on this, but current Centers for Disease Control guidelines recommend it.

I know so many businesses can’t wait to execute the “back to normal” plan. I can’t wait for their business to rebound too. But that won’t happen if customers don’t feel safe. It won’t happen if our community sees a spike in cases that then causes more shutdowns. There’s a big part of me that hates to even point the shortcomings out because I just want to see businesses recover as much as possible. But I think the best chance for that is if the community collectively makes the best effort possible to follow the guidelines.

Businesses, I again will say, this starts with you. As you prepare to welcome more customers, be sure to do more than you think is necessary to ensure they and your employees feel you are doing the most you can to protect their health. That ultimately is going to help the health of your business. The safer your employees feel, the more productive they will be for you. The safer your customers feel, the more business they are likely to give you.

We cannot pretend that the “back to normal” plan is starting at anything close to a normal time. By our own numbers, we still have not seen the worst of COVID-19 in our community. We owe it to those we know might have a more difficult time fighting it off to do our best to limit the spread as we try to go back to more normalcy in our lives – not because anyone in government tells us we have to but because it’s the right thing as businesses and individuals to do.

Maybe it will come back that these mitigation efforts really don’t do much. Maybe the spread won’t be that bad, the hospitalizations nothing close to projected, the need for ventilators minimal. Maybe we really can go back to normal, for real, sooner than we might think. But until we gain a lot better knowledge, I don’t see how we go wrong by taking easy, small steps that could limit the spread.

I think we need to be like the little girl standing on Phillips Avenue: Look to the future. But wear a mask.

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Jodi’s Journal: The anything but ‘back to normal’ plan

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