CONVID-19 CONVERSATION: Florida and Cities–Open or Not?
May 15, 2020 Leave a comment
“UNLESS THE CORONAVIRUS IS OVERCOME WE WILL CONTINUE IN A DEPRESSION ECONOMY” (Jeffery Sacks, MSNBC interview, May 15)
Local governments, including Miami-Dade County and its municipalities, the City of Coral Gables (@citycoralgables) are applying relatively nonspecific, weak, general criteria to open businesses without the benefit of a strong current public database.
None of the rules is prescriptive enough to guide business behavior in opening up. Rather they are a basis for future trouble in overcoming the coronavirus. At best the rules are a conglomeration of many different proposed criteria. To this date Miami-Dade county has been incapable of publishing opening guidelines.
This picture will ensue from the near-term opening:
- There will be a push to reopen business, placing health protection on a secondary plane;
- Infections and deaths will increase, which is the true cost of returning to business operations and increasing tax revenues to local governments;
- The community will weaken social distancing and mask-using behavior;
- Small businesses–hair salons, small gyms, small stores, restaurants… will operate at a dangerous edge of coronavirus hygiene and protection for its employees and customers;
- Local authorities will find it hard to enforce social distancing and masking.
About Stephen E. McGaughey
Coral Gables Watch 