What To Know About The Reopening of Washington D.C.
Phase One of the reopening of Washington D.C. since its COVID-19 shut down in late March starts today. This is the first step in Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Three Phase plan to restore normalcy back to residents and visitors alike. She, like most mayors around the country, has remained hesitant to fully have a complete reopening of the city as new cases of Coronavirus surface daily. Of the over 100,000 reported number of deaths nationwide from this pandemic, 492 were within the Metro Washington Area, not including the surrounding counties of Maryland and Virginia. This statistic will curtail everything you once casually did without concern.
“While I’m lifting the ‘Stay At Home’ order--I call it ‘Stay At Home-Lite’--we are able to go out of our house for non-essential, go to parks, dine out at restaurants with outdoor seating and get some personal services that we missed,” Mayor Bowser opened in a recent interview on CNN’s The Situation Room on May 28th. Those ‘personal services’ include hair salons, barbershops and similar businesses that will be done by appointment to avoid queuing and maintain proper social distancing. There will ample space on public transit for the safety of all passengers. However, gyms, recreation centers, museums, nightclubs, bars along with all indoor and outdoor entertainment venues will remain closed. Houses of worship will continue to hold service virtually. Non-essential carpooling is ‘highly discouraged’. The city’s scheduled parades and festivals have been canceled. She continued about the effort behind Phase One, “It’s turning on some activity that people have been missing. We’re no longer restricting people’s movements to essential work or going out for food or recreation.”
As warmer weather approaches, ‘beating the heat’ will force many outside unprotected which will heighten the risk of coming in contact with someone directly. It only takes seconds of being close to someone to have the virus spread in the nanoseconds of one sneeze or one cough. Like all precautionary measures that need to be taken during this time, preparation for ‘the new normal’ awaiting us outside starts inside at home.
Before the Coronavirus, the mental checklist before leaving the house consisted of the same items: keys, phone and wallet. Living in the time we’re in now, the addition of a mask and gloves are primary necessities for anything done outside of your home. Yes, you may be asymptomatic, but the person who touched the door handle leading out of your apartment building may have been. Taking a proactive approach to safety is the smartest thing to do. Naysayers can disagree in protest, but even they can place the face of someone they knew to the looming death toll soaring by the week. Stay at home and avoid non-essential travel. Washington D.C. is just one example of what will soon be occurring in every city as we reach the dog days of summer. This will decrease a higher chance of exposure. COVID-19 is not seasonal. The measures we all take today will get us closer to finally living our best lives outside again.