This day was going to come. It was inevitable. You cannot shut down an economy on which people depend for their very survival indefinitely.
However, those in charge of such things owe it to the rest of us to make sure this re-entry is as safe as possible. This doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be anymore cases of the COVID-19 virus in our midst, and it doesn’t mean people aren’t going to die. What it does mean is that we — and that means all of us — are going to have to do everything we can to keep the carnage to a bare minimum. It is our obligation to obey every directive, honor every curfew, wear masks in public places, socially separate precisely and responsibly, and make time for multiple visits with soap, warm water, a sink, and a towel.
This isn’t going to work any other way. But we have to make it work, or else we’ll be right back to where we were in March.
And that, I’m sure, is not where anyone wants to be.
We have to accept a few things before we can go on here, and the first is that we were groping around in the dark when this virus made its unwelcome landing on our shores. Although we’d seen how badly the virus ravaged parts of China and Italy, we still didn’t comprehend what we were up against when it came here and started spreading like wildfire.
So, we responded like you’d almost have to respond to something like this: we hunkered down. Social distancing. Six feet of separation. School’s out for the spring and summer. Who are all those masked people?
I can understand why this wasn’t universally embraced, especially by business owners who saw their life’s work spiraling down the drain and by people who suddenly found themselves jobless. They got the extra kick in the pants of dealing with the unemployment backlogs.
But I say — at least in the beginning — it was a necessary step to slow the virus down. The question is whether it should have taken as long as it has.
And the answer to that, my friends, is blowing in the wind. We just don’t know.
But what wasn’t necessary was the tug-of-war that developed between people who were too eager to get things moving again and those who — like Gov. Baker — preferred a more cautious approach. It was not only unnecessary, it was dangerous.
Daily COVID-19 figures were going through the roof at the same time leaders in this country were clamoring to end the shutdowns. And, of course, that spurred on demonstrations, some of which got ugly.
Here we are now. Finally, we are ready to take baby steps. Baker picked two safe venues for the first wave of this recovery in manufacturing and construction. The third, religious venues, may be more of a shot in the dark. It’ll be more difficult to put the standards and practices outlined by the Baker administration into place. But the clergy and congregations really wanted this, so they kind of have a duty to make it work.
That is the hard part. Just as in golf, where you can’t use carts (which would be a huge impediment to anyone who isn’t spry enough to walk 18 holes with a bag on his/her back or while pushing one), there are some stringent restrictions here, too. Social distancing regulations still apply, and on top of all that, there are new “Mandatory Workplace Safety Standards” that even businesses deemed essential all through this two-month period will have to follow.
This isn’t going to be easy, and there will be a fair amount of fumbling around as we try to navigate our way out of this. And if the numbers of cases and deaths start spiking upward too dramatically, expect the governor to put the brakes on again. Caution has been his modus operandi throughout this pandemic, and I doubt he’s going to change now.
