This is the whole problem: "...we are struggling to find the line between helping and hurting our community... And we are basing decisions on our own hunches—with little official guidance from authorities from which we could use a lot more help." https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/trust-me-summer-going-be-tough/612058/

I'm getting a lot of emails from local businesses as they open up, usually with long lists of precautions they are taking. I believe they are sincere in their efforts and their beliefs that it will make things safe. But I do not trust the current guidance or the other customers.

"...when a casual restaurant can't sell sandwiches without hired muscle the problem lies elsewhere."

I find the amount of risk in even the most thoughful re-opening models intolerable. I understand the arguments for educating people rather than an all or nothing approach, but I always come back to how many deaths those models accommodate. And *who* is most likely to die.

I don't think we know enough about transmission to build real models of safety. Everything we are doing right now is an experiment. Sometimes the risk is low, but it is still a risk, an no one I know with underlying conditions or a suppressed immune system wants to try it.

I am also sick of the false binary between economic devastation and death.

The lack of a sane central policy that leaves business owners to figure out what to do on their own is at the core of our lack of cohesion as a social body. Everyone makes their own decisions about what to do based on their perception of reality and risk.