To some we are inching back to normalcy. Grocery store shelves are no longer as empty as a presidential promise and the freeways are not the wide spacious swaths of carless concrete they were in the early days of stay-at-home directives. Early signs of life are sprouting and spreading.
To others we are running back to life before COVID-19 as they listen to restaurant owners and shopkeepers make plans for inhouse visits and guest accommodations amid social distancing laws in an effort to sputter back to a vibrant life.
Earlier this month the LA Times reported that California’s unemployment rate will be 18 percent, compared to the 12 percent of the Great Recession.
According to the San Diego Regional Association of Governments, 430,000 of that 18 percent are out-of-work San Diegans countywide — more than half those people lost their jobs after stay-at-home orders went into effect.
The report estimates that in National City 30.6 percent of the population is out of work while in Chula Vista just over 19 percent are jobless.
Given those figures it’s no wonder that some among us are sprinting toward a return to the way things used to be.
But along the fast track to recovery it is critical to remember that while South County has some of the highest unemployment figures in the county, it also has some of the highest coronavirus infection rates.
Of the 6,140 coronavirus cases in the county, Chula Vista has the second highest rate with 14.9 percent of the cases. In actual numbers that is slightly less than 1,000 people of the quarter-million population, but be mindful that not everyone has been tested. Nor has it been determined that once someone contracts COVID-19 they can’t become re-infected.
The rush back to business as usual is understandable. Thousands of our neighbors and family and friends are hurting financially.
But there is still too much that is unknown about this virus to rush blindly and with gleeful abandon.
Whether you dine-in or browse the aisle of your favorite boutique, it remains prudent to wear those masks, keep your distance and avoid large gatherings. Like it or not, we are still all in this together.
