April 24, 2020

Reopening a Small Corner of the U.S. in Shadow of Virus Deaths
(Bloomberg) -- The owner and manager of a Bodyplex fitness center in Cartersville, Georgia, were convinced Friday was too soon to open their doors. By early afternoon, they were surprised how many customers disagreed.“The thing that's shocked me is 13 people have come in to join in four hours,” including several from a competing gym that didn't reopen, said Manager Keith Turner. He said he and the franchise's owner were stunned by Governor Brian Kemp’s decision to allow businesses like theirs to reopen. They wanted to wait until May 4, but felt forced to change plans. “We probably would not have opened up if our competitors had not opened up,” Turner said. So open they did, making a grid on the floor to keep people six feet apart, wearing masks and continuously wiping down equipment. With a mix of eagerness and trepidation, Georgia reopened for business on Friday — more aggressively than any state in the U.S., after being one of the last to order a statewide shutdown. On Monday, Kemp blindsided businesses and mayors alike when he announced that nail salons, hairdressers, bowling alleys and gyms could open Friday as long as they follow protocols to protect the public. Restaurants and movie theaters can do so three days later.Two other southern states — South Carolina and Tennessee — are also moving fast, though neither has had nearly the number of Covid-19 cases as Georgia, which had 21,512 confirmed cases and 872 deaths as of Thursday.Kemp’s plan has been widely criticized as risky, even by fellow Republicans including President Donald Trump. In a tweet Friday, Trump said he and Vice President Mike Pence never gave the governor “an OK on those few businesses outside of the Guidelines,” adding that “Spas, beauty salons, tattoo parlors, & barber shops should take a little slower path.”Democratic mayors in Atlanta, Savannah and Albany, which had one of the worst outbreaks in the U.S., have complained about the order itself and the fact that they didn’t know it was coming.The reopening also has ignited racial tensions in the state, where about a third of the population is black and yet deaths of black residents have outnumbered those of whites. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said she was “dumbfounded” by the move: “I am extremely concerned, especially for the African-American community where there’s a barber shop and a hair salon on every single corner.”The mayor retweeted an anonymous text addressing her with a racial slur and saying “just shut up and RE-OPEN ATLANTA!”In suburban Atlanta on Friday morning, Tangles hair salon was open for business, the phone was ringing and two hair stylists were working on cuts and color. “My customers are all wanting to get their hair done,” said Mark Glover as he touched up a client’s roots. Glover said hair salons are already held to stringent sterilization and cleanliness regulations by the state: “We’re used to having sanitary conditions.”Across metropolitan Atlanta, many barber shops and beauty salons appeared open although at least one asked customers to sign waivers. Nail salons, tattoo parlors and bowling alleys in the area mostly looked closed. An hour’s drive north in Bartow County, where Cartersville is the county seat, 87% of the residents are white and more than three-quarters of voters supported Kemp in 2018. His move this week was met with a largely favorable, if measured, response.Elaine King, working the register at DiPrima’s Shoes, said she doubts the governor’s decision will hurt him politically. ”You can’t just stop the world,” she said. “You did for a while, but it can’t go on.”Husband and wife Andrew Tran and Kathy Luong worked late into the evening Wednesday, affixing acrylic partitions to the nail-technician stations at their business, Bartow Nails & Spa, in Cartersville, Georgia.When they open for business on Monday after a nearly month-long shutdown, they’ll hand out face masks to a limited number of customers who will slip their hands under the partitions to staff wearing face shields. Eager to return to work, the couple is also nervous: This well-off, heavily Republican part of Georgia suffered a fast-moving outbreak of Covid-19 last month — and one of the highest death rates in the state.They would have preferred to wait a few weeks, but “we feel like if other nail salons open and we don’t, we’ll lose customers,” Tran said. Cartersville Mayor Matt Santini shares their concern. “There have been a lot of businesses that people have built over the years that have been brought to their knees,” said Cartersville Mayor Matt Santini. “I support the governor in trying to do what he thinks is best for Georgia. But I was surprised.”He hopes churches — which Kemp is allowing to reopen if they follow safety precautions — keep their doors shut. There’s a reason for that. The county’s deadly outbreak of Covid-19 began at Cartersville’s Church at Liberty Square, where parishioners hold their hands up in praise and pastors speak in tongues and perform faith healing.Sometime around the beginning of March, it became a Coronavirus super spreader.County administrator Peter Olson and Alex Wright, the chief of county emergency services, say the virus circulated at a retirement party for the church music director, at choir practice, then at services, infecting parishioners up to two counties away. After the church’s role became clear in mid-March, congregants held a videotaped prayer vigil outside the local hospital. Staff of the Cartersville Medical Center lined up across the hospital’s roof to participate, hands in the air.The virus spread through the community and eventually — as in other parts of the country — settled disastrously into nursing homes. The case numbers started at seven on March 14. By the 20th, they hit 54. The county ordered restaurants and personal-care businesses shut down the following Friday. It worked, said Olson. The numbers rose to 58 on March 30, then began to fall, hitting 34 new cases in the week leading up to Kemp’s lifting of restriction. As of April 23, the county reported 264 cases and 27 deaths — a 10% mortality rate. At least 17 of the deaths were in nursing homes.At King Pizzeria, where owner Kishu Mahtani juggled a lively walk-up business on Wednesday, two customers argued about the merits of reopening so soon after being hard hit by a lethal disease it had finally gotten under control.One — there to order King’s double meat “heart-stopper” pie — supported Kemp, on the grounds that everyone should have a choice on whether to venture outside. The other argued that choice may put another person at risk.Mahtani himself said people should have been able to “decide on their own if they wanted to take a chance,” and he joked that his heart-stopper is more likely to kill people than the virus.Scott’s Walk-Up Bar-B-Q in downtown Cartersville is planning to reopen its 130-person dining room to about 40 diners Monday, as long as owner Craig Guyton thinks he can do it safely: “The last thing on earth I want to do is have one of my customers infect several people while they are eating here.”Guyton says some diners are itching to come back.  One group, three couples in their 70s who had come to Scott’s every Wednesday, insisted on continuing their ritual. As the shutdown continued, they brought card tables and lawn chairs to his parking lot to eat their barbeque. Guyton laughed when asked if they stayed six feet apart: “I don’t want to get anybody in trouble. But, no. No, they did not.”It remains to be seen exactly how many businesses now allowed to open will do so. Cartersville’s 12-screen AMC movie theater won’t: AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., the largest U.S. chain, said this month that it’s targeting a wide reopening of its facilities in July.At least four downtown Cartersville restaurants have already announced they will not reopen Monday, but not necessarily because of virus fears. Some need time to either bring back staff who were let go during the shutdown or hire and train new workers, said Guyton, who didn’t lay off any of his employees.“It’s more market related,” Guyton said. “One of the things that Governor Kemp did is that he surprised everyone. Nobody expected him to say ‘Okay, let’s go.’ I was shocked. There were a lot of restaurants that were caught flat-footed.” (Updates with new stores in lead and throughout story.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Related Stories
Latest News
Top news around the world
Academy Awards

‘Oppenheimer’ Reigns at Oscars With Seven Wins, Including Best Picture and Director

Get the latest news about the 2024 Oscars, including nominations, winners, predictions and red carpet fashion at 96th Academy Awards

Around the World

Celebrity News

> Latest News in Media

Watch It
Millie Bobby Brown & Jake Bongiovi Celebrate “Three Years of Bliss” Ahead of Wedding
March 24, 2024
C4Ehegcq1-A
Kate Middleton & Prince William "Enormously Touched" by Public Support
March 24, 2024
s8fig-RCjFc
Gisele Bündchen Denies Cheating on Ex-Husband Tom Brady
March 23, 2024
_SpRMagA8BM
Eminem, 50 Cent & Snoop Dogg Present Dr. Dre with a Star on the Walk of Fame
March 19, 2024
4bNLs1hxVp8
Opening Remarks for the Variety Summit October 20th, 2023 Jay Penske
March 18, 2024
c6Z707iLq8E
'Everybody Was S----ing Their Pants': Nick Thune Jokes About Being Born in the '70s and Fatherhood
March 16, 2024
mm7Baf6o2d8
Gunna Says Tour Will Up Creativity in Rap, Endorses Flo Milli | TMZ
March 22, 2024
QfMU24fw-Qo
Reporter Taylor Lorenz Says Palace Botched Kate Cancer News Rollout | TMZ Live
March 22, 2024
o43ZucdiyEo
Riley Strain's Body Found After Going Missing in Nashville 2 Weeks Ago | TMZ NOW
March 22, 2024
1m1zM-4_Cs8
Kyle Richards hasn’t spoken to co-star Dorit Kemsley, denies sending her a ‘manipulative’ text
March 24, 2024
LqLZzDP1hm4
Jordan Emanuel on her connection to 'RHOSLC' star Meredith Marks, advice from Amanda Batula
March 24, 2024
5NPAwlOov1Y
Kate Middleton’s uncle Gary apologizes after slamming ‘fickle’ Meghan Markle in scathing interview
March 24, 2024
JWG9kitALZk
TV Schedule
Late Night Show
Watch the latest shows of U.S. top comedians

Sports

Latest sport results, news, videos, interviews and comments
Latest Events
20
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
SK Brann W - Barcelona W
20
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
Hacken W - PSG W
19
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
SL Benfica W - Lyon W
19
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
Ajax W - Chelsea W
17
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Atletico Madrid - Barcelona
17
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Manchester United - Liverpool
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Inter Milan - Napoli
17
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Brighton - Manchester City
17
Mar
GERMANY: Bundesliga
Borussia Dortmund - Eintracht Frankfurt
17
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Chelsea - Leicester City
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Roma - Sassuolo
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Verona - AC Milan
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Juventus - Genoa
16
Mar
GERMANY: Bundesliga
Darmstadt - Bayern Munich
16
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Manchester City - Newcastle United
16
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Fulham - Tottenham Hotspur
16
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Osasuna - Real Madrid
13
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Atletico Madrid - Inter Milan
12
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Barcelona - Napoli
12
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Arsenal - Porto
11
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Chelsea - Newcastle United
10
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Liverpool - Manchester City
10
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Real Madrid - Celta Vigo
10
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Aston Villa - Tottenham Hotspur
10
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Juventus - Atalanta
10
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Fiorentina - Roma
10
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
AC Milan - Empoli
Find us on Instagram
at @feedimo to stay up to date with the latest.
Featured Video You Might Like
zWJ3MxW_HWA L1eLanNeZKg i1XRgbyUtOo -g9Qziqbif8 0vmRhiLHE2U JFCZUoa6MYE UfN5PCF5EUo 2PV55f3-UAg W3y9zuI_F64 -7qCxIccihU pQ9gcOoH9R8 g5MRDEXRk4k
Copyright © 2020 Feedimo. All Rights Reserved.