Counties discussing how to reopen businesses as COVID-19 continues

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)

Cole County Health Department officials said the way businesses reopen may look different for every county across the state.

Gov. Mike Parson announced Thursday a plan involving reopening businesses safely based on testing data and insights from employers and employees.

The plan will work on a two-phase approach, Parson said. The first phase will involve protecting first responders, health care workers and direct care workers. The second phase involves reopening businesses safely.

"We can't expect it to automatically go back to normal," said Chezney Schulte, Cole County Health Department's communicable disease coordinator. "Because we do want to make sure that it's tailored to each county, and that it's appropriate for the cases that we're seeing in each county."

Cole County’s current stay-at-home order that continues through April 25 has stricter guidelines in place than Missouri’s stay-at-home order.

Cole County leaders and officials are discussing how reopening businesses affects public health, but also the businesses' economic health.

A spokesman for Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services said Parson’s order to extend through May 3 seems reasonable from a city and county perspective.

Boone County health officials said it is also important to look at what is happening regionally because many employees coming to work in Columbia and Boone County do not live here. They are working on a plan that will be shared with the Columbia City Council and county commission next week after seeking input from health care providers and others from the business community.

Schulte said Cole County is still following the recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding social distancing and when to wear masks, but Schulte said these recommendations could be carried over when businesses reopen. 

“I imagine that even when businesses are allowed to resume function,” Schulte said.  “Either in minor capacities or once they're completely open that we would still follow those guidelines from the CDC to maintain 6 feet of social distance from others, keeping up with the disinfecting of surfaces, using good hand hygiene and cough etiquette, all of those things that should be applied to any setting, or to any capacity of opening.”

Stickers or markings on floors of businesses to show the recommended 6-foot distance could be a part of the reopening as a recommendation from the county or state, but not necessarily an order.

Schulte said some businesses are taking employees' temperatures as a precaution to make sure that people are not going to work sick, but businesses will have to decide what is best for them.

"A lot of it is up to the employer, is up to the business, as far as how they're going to handle their consumers coming in," Schulte said. "Or how they're going to handle their employees, as far as what those day-to-day guidelines would be ... based on your business function."

Boone County officials say they understand that many people from the surrounding counties get their medical care and buy their food and essential supplies in Columbia or Boone County as well.

Schulte said that right now it's hard to say what's going to change for the county and what's going to change for the state, and only time will tell.