Having your business abruptly shut down with little warning is hard. Trying to get it re-opened from a cold start can be hard, too.
Brad Hicks, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce of Medford and Jackson County, says his members are facing challenges, from re-hiring workers they had to lay off, to having to figure out how to stock up on required sanitation supplies.
"Most businesses are used to sourcing the products that they need in their everyday businesses," he says, "but they’re not as accustomed to sourcing PPE and hand sanitizer and smocks and all those sorts of things."
To re-open under Phase One of Governor Kate Brown’s coronavirus pandemic plan, businesses must comply with a long list of conditions and practices meant to lessen the possibility of new outbreaks of COVID-19.
Establishments serving food -- as well as hair salons and other “personal service” businesses -- have to meet especially stringent conditions. Hicks says he was impressed recently when he stopped into a local barber shop.
"They had all the proper equipment, they had masks on, they had people waiting safely apart from one another both inside and outside of their business. And then of course they were taking names and phone numbers for contact tracing," he says.
Personal services are required to maintain a customer log for 60 days so health officials can locate people who may have been exposed to an outbreak.
Hicks says many newly re-opening businesses are scrambling to comply with all the new requirements. He says there’s some concern that heavy-handed enforcement of the rules could make it even harder for businesses to get back on their feet.
He says he hopes enforcement of the new standards is focused more on helping businesses succeed rather than on punishing them for shortcomings.
State officials say their intent is to minimize the inevitable increase in COVID-19 cases they expect to arise as people emerge from isolation and begin to interact with each other again.
