Great news, sort of. The Governor of Utah, the state I’m currently residing in, has cranked the WuHu Flu panic dial down. We started out, like everyone else, in the blood RED panic mode,
progressed to ORANGE on May 1st,
and have now ratcheted down to sunny YELLOW.
That puts most of the state, according to their own dial, officially in the “low” risk territory for Wuhan Cooties.
There are several exceptions, including the county we live in along with Salt Lake City proper.
But all of sunny southern Utah has been “allowed” to progress to “low risk” status with businesses opening back up (with restrictions, of course). Our county Health Department Czar is unwilling to hand his power reins back to the Governor so he’s keeping us in partial panic/shutdown mode (and don’t forget to wear your mask!!) through the Memorial Day holiday. Never mind that the number of new cases in Summit County has plummeted to about 1 per day and they’ve shut down all the drive-through testing sites. I guess we have to hit zero in order to move to where the rest of the state is.
I’m not complaining though, if we’d returned to our Michigan homestead at the end of April as we normally would have we still wouldn’t be able to purchase any “non-essential” items at Meijer’s, Walmart, Costco or Sam’s. While Governor Grunhilda has caved on boating and letting her citizens travel to their second home, and has reluctantly allowed nurseries and landscapers to get back to providing their essential services, the rest of the state’s businesses remain shuttered.
I agree that lawn maintenance is essential but if that’s the case how can personal maintenance be any less essential? The answer is that the Michigan Association of Beauty Professionals doesn’t have the clout of the Michigan Nursery & Landscape Association - which means the MABP lobby doesn’t contribute anywhere near as much to the coffers of Michigan Democrats as the MNLA does.
In order to extort accommodate all Michigan business lobbyists the Governor’s color wheel of panic is much more nuanced than Utah’s.
My biggest concern is that even when states reach the “green” level it isn’t “normal” – it’s something called NEW normal.
I want my old NORMAL back.
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