The US reopening is coming, but ‘normal’ is still a ways off

Everyone wants to know: When, oh when, will it go back to normal?

As some governors across the United States begin to ease restrictions imposed to stop the spread of the coronavirus, hopes are soaring that life as Americans knew it might be returning. But plans emerging in many states indicate that “normal” is still a long way off.

White House adviser Dr. Deborah Birx says social distancing will be with Americans through the summer. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards warns of a “different way of life” until there is a widely available vaccine — maybe not until next year. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says: “There is no return to yesterday in life.”

From the beginning, the pandemic forced impossible choices: physical health or mental health? Economic well-being or medical safety? Most states joined the world and turned the dial down hard, closing shops and restaurants, factories and schools. Asking people to largely keep to their homes. Now, the dial is beginning to inch in the opposite direction.

In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp is pushing one of the most aggressive reopening plans in the United States. Barbershops, gyms and nail salons were allowed to reopen Friday, and dine-in restaurant service and movie screenings were freed to resume Monday — despite warnings that, without sufficient testing, the state could see a surge in infections.

Even there, though, life was far from normal Monday. Patrons went to restaurants with X’s on some tables, chatted across the room to one another and gave orders to servers whose faces were covered by masks.

Draft guidance for reopening from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided more evidence Monday that “normal” would not be on the menu — at restaurants or anywhere else. No break rooms for employees and no field trips for school children, the guidelines recommended. Children should eat in their classrooms, not the cafeteria, and congregants should stay 6 feet apart in church.