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 Colorado, Mississippi, Minnesota, Montana and Tennessee were set to
join several other states in reopening businesses without the means
to screen systematically for infected people who may be contagious
but asymptomatic, and to trace their contacts with others they might
have exposed.
Many merchants have voiced ambivalence about returning to work
absent the prerequisite public health measures authorities have
advocated.
"I would stay home if the government encouraged that, but they're
not. They're saying, 'Hey, the best thing to do is go back to work,
even though it might be risky,'" Royal Rose, 39, owner of a tattoo
studio in Greeley, Colorado, told Reuters.
Rose said she was reopening her shop after closing a month ago, not
because she wants to but because bills are piling up and she feels
she has no choice.
Georgia, Oklahoma, Alaska and South Carolina have already forged
ahead to restart their economies following weeks of mandatory
lockdowns that have thrown nearly one in six American workers out of
their jobs.
Public health authorities say increasing human interactions and
economic activity now - without the means to do so safely - will
only backfire, sparking a new surge of infections just as
social-distancing measures appear to be bringing coronavirus
outbreaks under control.
Medical experts say strict adherence to business closures and
stay-at-home orders imposed over the past several weeks by governors
in 42 of 50 states have worked to level off rates of
hospitalizations and admissions to intensive care units.
Still the number of known U.S. infections climbed higher on Sunday,
topping 960,000 as the number of lives lost to COVID-19, the highly
contagious respiratory illness caused by the virus, surpassed
54,700.
The continuing rise in the number of U.S. cases has been attributed
in part to increased diagnostic screening. But health authorities
also warn that testing and contact tracing must be vastly expanded
before shuttered businesses can be safely reopened on a wide-scale
basis.
'TERRIBLE' TOLL ON JOBS
The economic fallout from the unprecedented social distancing
requirements has been devastating.
Business shutdowns have led to a record 26.5 million Americans
filing for unemployment benefits since mid-March. The nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office predicted on Friday that the economy
would contract at an annual rate of nearly a 40% in the second
quarter.
Even next year, the CBO forecast calls for an unemployment rate
averaging above 10%. Before the pandemic struck, the U.S. jobless
rate was hovering at a 50-year low of 3.5%.
White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told reporters on Sunday
the jobless rate would likely hit 16% or more in April.
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"I think the next couple of months are going to look terrible," Hassett said.
"You're going to see numbers as bad as anything we've ever seen before."
Against a backdrop of scattered protests across the country calling for
stay-at-home orders to be lifted, some of the states hardest hit by the public
health crisis were taking a more cautious approach to economic reopenings.
New York state, the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic, reported 367 new deaths on
Sunday, its lowest loss of life in a single 24-hour span since March 20, but has
extended its business restrictions through mid-May.
Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo said construction and manufacturing would be
the first workplaces permitted to reopen and could restart after May 15 in the
upstate region with certain precautions and if cases continue to decline.
By and large the states forging ahead with reopenings this week are concentrated
in the South, the Midwest and mountain West, where outbreaks have been far less
severe than in the Northeast. Most are led by Republican governors.
Tennessee said it will allow restaurants to reopen on Monday. Mississippi's
stay-at-home order expires the same day.
Montana, which reported three new cases on Sunday, is allowing businesses to
reopen Monday if they limit capacity and practice social distancing, while
Minnesota is clearing the way for 80,000 to 100,000 workers in industrial and
office jobs to return to work on Monday.
In Colorado, Democratic Governor Jared Polis has given the green light for
retail curbside pickup to begin on Monday. Hair salons, barbershop and tattoo
parlors can open on Friday, with retail stores, restaurants and movie theaters
to follow.
Even within states, the lifting of restrictions may vary from place to place.
Denver, for example, extended stay-at-home orders to May 8 but city dwellers can
drive to a nearby county for a haircut. Georgia, on the other hand, has
prohibited any local measures stricter than the state orders.
Eight states never ordered residents to stay at home -- Arkansas, Iowa,
Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.
Opinion polls have generally shown a bipartisan majority of Americans want to
remain at home to protect themselves from the coronavirus, despite the impact to
the economy.
(Reporting by Nick Brown in New York and Brendan O'Brien in Chicago; Additional
reporting by Tim Ahmann in Washington and Maria Caspani in New York; Writing by
Lisa Shumaker and Steve Gorman; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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