Restaurants and stores opened in South Carolina opened Monday. The stay at home order was lifted and the Governor advised that he fully expects us to use common sense – still keep a reasonable distance away from others. Some people seemed to go out and dine in restaurants; others stood in line waiting for their favorite retail stores to open. Most people are choosing to stay put because the news is still reporting new cases and deaths on a daily basis.
Unemployment checks are paying more than what some people were making on their job; so some places are having a hard time bringing their employees back to work. The fear and risk of returning is too high for some to go back to their jobs and continue business as usual. A lot of companies are offering virtual employment options that make them more competitive then places that have not adjusted to allow that level of flexibility.
Our family is choosing to stay at home; luckily my husband and I can be productive at our jobs virtually. We live near farms who deliver our meat and Amazon/Walmart deliveries make up for the rest. At the end of this month we’ll start weekly pickups with our CSA and will buy our groceries online at a grocery store nearby who will deliver your groceries to your trunk at a scheduled time.
School has been canceled for the rest of the school year which makes me think it must be tough for some people to go back to work without having a place for their kids to go during the day. My son’s teacher came to our house to visit which was a huge surprise because we live at least 10 miles away from the school. Her love for students was intense enough to drive miles to each child’s home to give them goodie bags asking them how they are doing to check into their emotional well being.
Every event my daughter was involved with in high school has been changed to virtual meetings. College entrance exams have been changed to online tests, state tests have been canceled, and in some states children with their temporary driver’s license can bypass their driving exam requirement to get their license. Although we can’t predict next school year, a lot of discussion is happening around what we will do if school doesn’t resume in the fall. What will the new normal look like at school? How will the kids adjust back into going to class after being out for so long?
Other states, including North Carolina, extended their stay at home orders for another month. Although we have similar statistics, I guess our state felt it’s worth the experiment to save the local economy. Places such as Charleston and Myrtle Beach are high volume vacation areas who would take a huge economic loss if they had to keep everything closed through the summer. Millions of dollars would be lost but would it be worth lives being lost? I guess time will tell if the decision was the best direction for us to go in or if this is too premature of a risk to take.