CALIFORNIA: THE REOPENING THAT WASN’T

After an initial rush of pent-up consumer spending last month as the state’s lockdown order eased, California businesses are losing the hope the initial surge brought.
Capacity restrictions and distancing requirements often do not allow enough trade to cover costs.
Stringent requirements around cleaning protocols and strict, often conflicting, rules imposed by various state and local government agencies also impinge on businesses’ operations.
Additionally, business owners fear liability suits from customers as well as endangering their health and that of their workers.
On 13 July, governor Gavin Newsom reimposed shutdowns on bars, gyms, indoor dining in restaurants, and other locales where people congregate closely without adequate personal protective equipment.
The new order was effective instantly, giving business owners no time to prepare or to find creative ways to keep serving customers.
Many of the locations suffering under the new shutdown had reopened less than a month earlier.
If the length of the shutdown had been specified, “we could put our heads down and forage,” said the owner of a now-defunct Los Angeles nail salon. “But we’re looking at two or three years before getting back to full capacity.”
TRENDPOST: Beyond California, states, cities, and countries around the world are re-locking down economies, destroying businesses, and putting people out of work.
For example, in Australia, with a population of 25.5 million and the grand total of 126 deaths or 0.00049 percent of the population… there are now re-lockdowns.
The New South Wales state implemented restrictions on what the dictators-in-charge declared “high-risk activities” such as weddings and going to restaurants, cafés, and bars. Premier Gladys Berejiklin declared, “We absolutely need everybody seated when they are in a venue. No dancing, no singing, no mingling.”
Victoria’s Premier Daniel Daniel Andrews mourned the three latest COVID-19 deaths – a man in his 70s and man and woman in their 80s.
We note this since, as we long have been reporting, in Italy, for example the average age of virus deaths was 80 years old.
In the U.S., 70 to 80 percent of the virus victims were elderly citizens, some 50 percent from nursing homes, suffering from compromised immune systems and chronic pre-existing health conditions.
It’s the same across the world.
Yet, entire nations are shut down and tens of millions business and hundreds of millions of lives are being destroyed.