Shopping at Costco and Walmart today we were amongst dozens upon dozens of people.  Both stores operating with protective measures but open for business—all kinds of business.  Even the photo department and snack bar are open at Costco.

If there, why not everywhere?  Or almost everywhere.  We probably won’t square dance for a while or go to a movie or to OLLI (continuing education for seniors at California State University, Fullerton).  The state university system has decided not to open up for the fall semester, even as 90% of California’s counties have virtually no serious conflagration.  

Apparently Germany has opened up with a subsequent increase of coronavirus cases that now is considered manageable.  Apparently we will all get coronavirus sometime in our lives.  At 81 I would prefer to get it today than wait until I am 82 or 83 or more.  I probably will survive it today but sometime in the future—sooner than I wish to acknowledge—I will be old and feeble and will succumb to whatever old people succumb to.  I submit that the vulnerable need additional protection—maybe shut-in for a while longer.  I don’t have all the answers.

Costco requires a mask for shoppers over the age of 5.  Walmart didn’t warn us but most people were wearing masks—some askew with noses bared or a straw poking beneath—plunging into a soda.  They have plastic screens up between cashiers and the public and employees are wiping down the carts and deli cases and cooler doors.  

That said, It is time that our state opens up businesses—all businesses that can maintain reasonable precautions, especially in those counties experiencing little or no effect from the coronavirus.