A senator, a restaurant owner and the leader of a group that serves the homeless population shared their thoughts on the reopening plans in the D.C. area during a livestreamed talk hosted by the Economic Club of Washington.
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat, answered questions Friday about the state governor’s phased-in reopening that is set to begin as soon as May 15.
Warner thinks Gov. Ralph Northam should conduct a more regionally-based reopening.
“Clearly in Northern Virginia, it would be the smartest to do that reopening in concert with D.C. and Maryland,” Warner told the president of the Economic Club of Washington David Rubenstein.
“I’d love to get people back out,” Warner said.
“But boy, if you get people back out and you see a spike and you lose folks’ confidence, that second reopening is going to be exponentially harder.”
While Northam said Virginia’s reopening could happen in a matter of days since they have had fewer reports of personal protective equipment shortages at hospitals, the governor said at his Friday news conference that, “We are not opening the floodgates here” and “not flipping a light switch from closed to open.”
Instead, it will be like turning a “dimmer switch up just a notch,” Northam said.
World-renowned chef Jose Andres, a Bethesda, Maryland, resident whose World Central Kitchen is providing free meals for the hungry in D.C., also expressed caution about moving too fast.
He believes contact tracing is key.
“Even if they give me permission to reopen by the city or by the president, I will, at the end, make my own call when I feel it’s safe,” Andres said.
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D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said during her COVID-19 briefing on Friday that opening eateries “makes no sense” right now when more people are dying.
D.C. reported 19 people who died from the coronavirus on May 7.
Also on the call was Schroeder Stribling, CEO of the D.C. nonprofit N Street Village, which provides homeless and affordable housing services.
Stribling said they’re going to face a tide of new need down the road from the pandemic.
Stribling said they are concerned about what she calls the “downstream effects,” such as predictions about the tripling of food insecurity issues and fewer people paying their rent.
“When we come back from this crisis, can we not only come back from this OK, not just rebuild,” she said.
“But can we redesign. Are there better ways to do things?”
Watch the hourlong livestream hosted by the Economic Club of Washington.
The Economic Club of Washington promotes awareness of the role Washington plays in the national and world economies. It has more than 900 members.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to correct the name of the N Street Village CEO.
