I've got a couple of friends arguing for considerably loosened restrictions, but we won't be able to open even to our governor's proposed smallest easing of restrictions until we've got considerably more testing available.
At present I think there's only one state that has looser restrictions than Utah: Tennessee, if memory serves. All public spaces are open, subject to the two-meter ("six feet") separation and cloth mask guidelines. In most public places, the separation still happens. Mask-wearing is sporadic. Businesses that can accommodate the two-meter separation may receive customers, including restaurants and bars. We're one of the States whose Governor did
not issue a stay-at-home order, although our city and county did. They expired May 1, replaced by lesser restrictions. Because our population is highly concentrated into a strip of four counties, a statewide order doesn't make a lot of sense. Except that only three of the four populous counties quarantined their inhabitants. That's the county that made national headlines for COVID-19 clusters at two businesses. Their owners forced employees to come to work even after testing positive. That's the kind of thing that makes you facepalm, if you were allowed to touch your face.
Sadly our curve is not flattening. But it was relatively flat to start with. We've had a very low infection rate and a very low mortality rate. The present trend assures us that we will have enough hospital beds to treat the infected. And we have a surplus of testing capacity. The problem, of course, is that this is American and few people can afford to go to the hospital. So those criteria for reopening the state are suspiciously biased in favor of well-off business owners. Thankfully my company's criteria for resuming non-critical onsite labor is based on a gateway criterion worked out with our state epidemiologist. We require 14 consecutive days of non-increasing positive test rates. We'll consider a staged reintegration at that time. I have to say it's such a blessing to have a company populated by people who know implicitly how to trust science, who pay attention to data, and who are already fanatics about cleanliness and compliance. It makes it so much easier to stomach the chaos I see elsewhere around me.
Sadly all the hiking trails near the city are jam-packed, and distancing is not happening. It really can't. You can't go six feet off the trail in most cases without plummeting. However our air quality is amazingly good. We suffer normally from chronic pollution, due to the geography of our valley. Ironically, because this results in year-round respiratory complaints, our hospitals are disproportionately endowed with ventilators. Luckily it's easy to throw the dogs in the car and drive out to places where there simply are no other people. Folks on the coasts don't often get that. There are big chunks of Utah that the USAF uses for target practice. That's the sort of wide-open spaces we have available when you need to stay apart from people.
