USAToday Reminds America Why Small Businesses Are In No Rush To Reopen

On Wednesday, CNBC declared that for the first time since the coronavirus arrived in the US, all 50 states had started lifting restrictions imposed during the nearly 2-month lockdown that upended the global economy and inspired the most expansive exercise of fiscal and monetary might in the history of the modern world.

And despite the NYT’s certitude when it reported on projections calling for 3,000 days/death by June 1, the number of cases and deaths reported across the US have continued to decline as states like Georgia have aggressively reopened their economies. Nearly a month has passed since Georgia started to reopen, and ironically, deaths and cases have climbed in states that haven’t reopened.

But in an editorial published by the USAToday ed board in Wednesday’s edition, the paper’s editors reminded us why these tactics have been so successful: small businesses and consumers have mostly shown discretion and returned only in drips and drabs, with early indicators of economic activity mostly mixed.

While the government has pumped “emergency liquidity” into the economy at a staggering rate, many businesses are worried about an issue that the federal government has been strangely reluctant to confront: What happens if a customer files a lawsuit claiming they or a family member got sick at your business?

OSHA has been reluctant to tackle the issue as well, mostly because of a difficult political conundrum for President Trump: his administration has been reluctant to issue one set of universal guidelines, saying that each state’s circumstances are different and that they should be responsible for writing their own guidelines.

If the virus wanes and a second wave never arrives, this problem should eventually go away on its own. But with more than 100 million Chinese citizens back under “partial lockdown”, relying on such an unlikely outcome wouldn’t be prudent.

Democrats in Congress have used the issue as leverage to try and pressure the president into releasing comprehensive CDC guidelines that were leaked to the press a few weeks back. They claim that Trump and Congressional Republicans can’t have it “both ways” – demanding that businesses receive protection without releasing guidelines detailing best practices for these businesses to follow.

The USAToday editorial board expounds on this argument in the editorial below (courtesy of USAToday):

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Amid all the economic ruin inflicted by a pandemic, businessman Kevin Smartt said he has tried to do the right thing. “We have chosen to put people first over economics,” the CEO of Kwik Chek convenience stores in Texas told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

Smartt has kept all 600 employees working even as fuel sales fell 40% and in-stores sales 17%. Workers wear masks and gloves, and they disinfect counters every several minutes. Hand sanitizers are out, and tape marks are on the floor to keep customers apart.

Federal, state and local health guidelines are confusing and even conflicting, Smartt said, yet he has worked hard to comply, and the last thing he needs is to worry about getting sued: “We should not be punished with unfair lawsuits just because we kept our doors open for the American public.”

Over 100,000 small businesses have closed

He has a point, as businesses across the nation begin to reopen amid the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Economists project that more than 100,000 small companies have already permanently shuttered under the economic tyranny of COVID-19.

It’s why the Senate is debating whether to grant liability protection to businesses, and why Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the failure to do so in any new stimulus bill would be a red line GOP senators won’t cross. McConnell last week explained that what’s needed is “a legal safe harbor for businesses, nonprofits, governments, workers and schools who are following public health guidelines to the best of their ability.”

Fair enough. But the first question is what exactly are those public health guidelines that, if businesses followed, would grant them immunity from lawsuits?

Companies are still waiting. Most states don’t have the scientific wherewithal to create best-business practices for a deadly illness that, each day, scientists are learning more about. It calls for the kind of expertise within the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the kind of workplace regulation found at the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Second wave of COVID-19 coming

But OSHA has punted on this issue, leaving safety options to businesses.

CDC scientists, meanwhile, drafted precisely what’s needed — detailed steps on how best to protect students, travelers, employees and worshipers for schools, transit systems, businesses and churches. But the White House has shelved that and has chosen, instead, for the CDC to issue a vague and broad checklist to be followed.

The Trump administration has joined McConnell in calling for business liability protection. But the president can’t have it both ways. He can’t urge Congress to protect companies from coronavirus claims if they follow public health guidelines, without providing those companies public health guidelines. Neither can trial lawyers benefit from a Catch-22 where businesses get neither clear direction from public health authorities nor protection from lawsuits.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that called Smartt as a witness, has it right. “The sooner we can come up with a regulatory, OSHA-driven process to allow big, small and intermediate businesses (guidance), the better off we’ll be,” Graham said last week.

Only a few dozen COVID-19 lawsuits have been filed. But the number could rise, particularly if the virus returns with a vengeance in the fall, as scientists on the White House Coronavirus Task Force are predicting. Temporary liability protection for businesses that are trying to do the right thing as they’re being battered by a virus-driven recession would be fair.

But the federal government must first step up to produce a science-based road map for companies on how best to keep customers and employees safe – how best to do the right thing.

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Source: USAToday