Our governor, the one with a science and medicine background who doesn't have to worry about running for re-election, laid out a tentative timetable for Virginia's reopening. Older son is not sure it goes slow enough, but it's a lot slower than most other states.
Originally, beauty salons, barbershops, restaurants, and the like were set to reopen in late April. That got moved to May 1 and then to May 8. The date has been moved again, to May 15. There will be various restrictions put on specific types of establishments. For example, restaurants will only be able to serve half the number possible in pre-coronavirus days, and service personnel will have to wear masks. The May 15 reopening conditions will be evaluated in terms of disease incidence, hospital capacity, and so on before Phase 2 starts. Phase 2 will also last from two to four weeks, with certain restrictions relaxed further. Maximum group size, for example, will go up from 10 to 50. Finally, there's Phase 3 which the governor figured was 10 to 12 weeks away.That's when things will really open up.
All the phases strongly suggest wearing masks in public. And as the phases progress, "stay at home" is supposed to transition to "safer at home." I guess that means I can continue to hermit should I feel safer that way. Which I do, at least for now.
I watched the beginning of the governor's press briefing and conference on C-SPAN. When that feed got wonky, I switched over to Facebook. I was pleased to see that there were very few angry emoticons wafting up the screen. I think I saw one comment about reopening sooner. Several commenters agreed with older son that even this timetable moved too quickly.
While we have had some "liberation" protests here, they have not been as large as in some other states. One was combined with a gun rights protest. I can't really say why there has not been as vocal or threatening a reopening protest here as there has been in other states. We do have a large military presence. Northern Virginia is home to much of the federal workforce as well as a very tech savvy workforce. (Consider that Amazon.com is building their second headquarters in Northern Virginia; that should say something about the general climate of the place.) There is a large rural population several hundred miles away in the state's southwest regions. Is that too far away for people to travel to the capital to protest.
All in all, I'm happy with what the governor laid out. Even slower might be better, but we are at least slow in comparison to a lot of other places. How things proceed there will likely help guide the decision-makers here as we move through our own reopening phases.
1 comment:
We still don't know what we're doing yet, the announcement is due later this week. It won't make a difference to me, I'll be hiding away until it's safe for the grannies to come out and that isn't going to be anytime soon. It may well be two steps forward and one back, if we open up and the infection rate shoots up then it will be closures again. That means that there needs to be a targetted testing regime rather than chasing a number.
I'll know it's safe to go out when the hospital allows unrestricted visiting, they are only interested in the health aspect rather than the economy or a political agenda.
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