Grand Reopening?

So there we have it. President Trump, not quite understanding the Constitution he swore to uphold four years ago, is proclaiming he has “total” authority to reopen the country. The Governors push back saying it was the States who implemented the shutdown and stay-at-home orders and it will be they who decide when and how their individual States start making the return to whatever the new normal will look like.

I humbly submit that both the President and the nation’s Governors have it wrong.

It will be you and I, and millions of individual Americans, who will decide when and how the nation ‘reopens’. Perhaps you, like I, are starting to think about the level of risk you’re willing to accept going forward. The risk, of course, being catching the COVID-19 virus and possibly dying from it. There’s also the risk of passing it unknowingly to our loved ones as well as others in our communities.

My wife and I have been to the grocery store just twice in the last six weeks. We’ve supplemented that with ordering groceries online thereby transferring most of our personal risk to some Braver than We Instacart or Amazon shopper. How quickly will we regain our comfort level to return more frequently to our neighborhood grocery store? The President or the Governor of our great State can’t make that determination for us; only my wife and I can do that.

We haven’t eaten at a restaurant since late February. How soon will we be comfortable going back to our favorite eateries that more often than not before the Pandemic were standing room only. Neither Mr. Trump or Colorado Governor Polis can force us to start eating out again. There’s talk that when restaurants do reopen the wait staff will continue wearing PPE (masks and gloves) as they serve us and that establishments will take the temperature of their patrons before allowing them to enter. Yum.

The good news is that Apple and Google, those twin bastions when it comes to protecting our privacy, are developing phone apps that will alert you when you (or at least your phone) has been in close proximity to someone carrying COVID. Are you going to self quarantine every time your phone pings with an alert? How many times will that alert go off as you stroll down a crowded street? If it pings, how safe will you feel returning home to your family?

Do you have kids? What calculations are going through your mind as you try to determine what will make you feel ok about having them return to crowded classrooms, or after school soccer practice? Take your child to a packed daycare because your employer has reopened? I’d bet it’s not going to be automatic just because some government bureaucrat or even your boss insists its suddenly safe for the schools and daycares to reopen.

A tough calculus will come in the decision to return to your place of work once your employer says to come on back. There’s talk about continued social distancing in the workplace. Great. How are you going to get up to your office on the 10th floor? Use a crowded elevator? That contact tracing phone app that tells you you've been exposed to the virus - picture it going off on everyone's phone all at once in the elevator. Twenty people suddenly looking around wondering who's the Carrier.  Climb the slightly less crowded stairwell? Will you return to using Light Rail or public transit for your commute? How about attending all those lovely face to face meetings you’ve been missing so much?

The litmus test, the canary in the coal mine, for me will be when I feel comfortable going to, of all things, a movie theatre. Stadium seating, comfortable as it may be, is the antithesis of social distancing and I used to cringe long before COVID when the person sitting next to me was obviously under the weather. For you it might be returning to Coors Field or Empower at Mile High Stadium or the Pepsi Center. What’s going to make you feel safe crowded in with 80,000 of your closest friends? Just Mr. Trump's or your local elected official's say so?

I fear the last to gain back trust in their own sense of safety will be the elderly, especially those in assisted living and care facilities. I’m going out on a limb here but I’ll bet the directive from Big Brother to reopen will come way, way, way before it’s anywhere close to safe for us to resume visiting grandma and granddad in person again.

Of course, everyone is waiting for the promised vaccine for COVID. Yet no vaccine is 100% effective. 80-90% effectiveness would be considered outstanding but that leaves ten to twenty percent of us still at risk of catching this nasty bug. And if COVID has demonstrated anything its that it is not your grandaddy's flu.

On a societal level Mr. Trump may have a point when he argues the cure can’t be worse than the disease. Whether Americans are going to automatically trust his judgement about when things are safe enough to resume 'normal' activities is another question. Of course I could well be wrong. Lots of folks are just itching to get right back into the old swing of things. Heck, there's a sizable population of less than civic minded people who never stopped. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

Nor will we likely knee-jerk our acceptance of what Dr. Fauci or other Health officials tell us. Everyone, from Mr. Trump to the scientists, to government officials, to us as individual citizens, underestimated to some extent the severity of what was about to hit us.  The old adage says 'fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.' Ultimately the choices will not be  made by those who think they have the power to decide. Each of us, individually, in our own time and our own way will have to decide for ourselves. Collectively, over the next days, weeks, and months, we'll be making millions of these decisions. May they prove to be the right ones. America, lets look before we leap; the waters ahead are uncharted and likely to be deep.