Temperature Checks at the Shoe Store? Social Distancing While Browsing for Handbags?

“If you’re feeling good and you’re feeling healthy and you’ve got a little pent-up demand, we’re going to create a really, really safe environment for you,” said Yates, owner of Nebraska Crossing Outlets, a 376,000-square-foot outdoor complex with Nike, Coach, J.Crew and Kate Spade — 80 stores and restaurants in all.

Across the United States, the coronavirus pandemic has caused considerable grief and suffering with hundreds of thousands of infections and more than 33,600 deaths. Among the many pastimes interrupted in the effort to slow the spread of the virus has been shopping — not the loading of groceries into a cart but the retail therapy that is as much about the browsing as the purchasing. In nearly every part of the country, shops deemed “nonessential” by state and local officials have closed and laid off hundreds of thousands of workers.

Even as coronavirus cases rise in some states and plateau in others, political leaders have begun to talk of turning the much-shuttered economy back on. So far, there has been little agreement on the best way forward. On Thursday, President Donald Trump told governors to “call your own shots” when considering how to go about restarting their economies and offered guidelines for reopening businesses in phases, with strict social distancing plans in place.

Some states have announced new policies of their own that will allow businesses to tiptoe back into operation.

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In Wisconsin, Gov. Tony Evers said Thursday that golf courses could open with certain restrictions and that for-hire lawn care could be carried out if it was performed by one person. Stores selling materials to make face masks can open for curbside pickup, he said.

In Idaho, Gov. Brad Little has said some businesses that were once deemed nonessential, such as craft stores, candle shops or dog groomers, could open to allow for curbside or delivery services until at least the end of the month. He noted that they should prepare to reopen altogether in May with social distancing and sanitation rules in place.

“Rebounding to an economic recovery will require consumer confidence,” Little said in a statement, noting that shoppers will want assurance their safety is protected until a vaccine or widespread immunity exists. “We can expect to go through phases of loosening and tightening of these measures.”

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Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has suggested that restaurant patrons would have to submit to having their temperatures taken before being seated once that state begins a gradual reopening.

Even without any statewide reopening order, a restaurant in Fresno, California, called Pismo’s Coastal Grill, announced it would reopen for lunch and dinner May 7, assuring customers it would “practice social distancing to the max.”

“We’re going to start taking our first little baby steps back to full service,” the restaurant’s owner, Dave Fansler, said in a video posted to its Facebook page.

In Seattle, the first place in the nation where the outbreak erupted into numerous deaths, Boeing announced it was resuming commercial airline production, putting 27,000 people back to work. Even two farmers markets were set to reopen this weekend, with new social distancing rules and a request that shoppers pledge to not touch produce, to wear masks and to stay home if they’re sick, among other things.

“I won’t chat up my favorite farmer — I will offer them a smile and a wave,” reads the online pledge the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance is asking shoppers to sign.

Other businesses desperate to get back in operation are struggling to decide when and how they will reopen their doors.

Yates, whose mall is in one of a handful of states with no sweeping stay-at-home order, decided to be among the first to try. He said conditions in Nebraska, with its relatively low count of about 1,000 coronavirus cases and at least 24 deaths as of Thursday night, are ideal for the mall to be “a case study, a laboratory” for how the United States can resurrect its businesses.

“We really felt like here’s a relatively safe community,” he said. “We’ve got to help these stores get open.”

Technically, the Nebraska mall never closed — businesses in Sarpy County, where the mall is, have been permitted to stay open if they could maintain social distancing restrictions. But nearly all of the corporate owners had shut down the mall’s stores, minus a couple of restaurants that stayed open for pickup and a shop that sold medical scrubs.

Yates said he had not charged store owners rent for April in hopes of helping them have enough cash to keep paying employees. He cited the mall’s contribution to state sales tax revenues as one reason he was eager for stores to reopen.

“A lot of people are counting on us,” Yates said.

Officials have said infections are expected to peak in the state around the same time as what Yates calls his “soft opening” of whichever stores want to open their doors April 24. He plans a broader opening scheduled for May 1.

The plan has stirred controversy in the state. Some commenters on social media have praised him for being a leader on reopening, and others have called him “stupid” and “a killer” for putting lives needlessly at risk. One state senator sent Gov. Pete Ricketts a letter asking him to block the mall’s plans, but the governor said Thursday he would not step in to stop the reopening.

Ricketts is one of a handful of governors to reject sweeping orders to close certain businesses. Some public health officials in Nebraska have intervened, shutting down bars and limiting gatherings to 10 people in their jurisdictions. Dr. Adi Pour, public health director for Douglas County, faced death threats for doing so. At a public meeting this week, she called Yates’ decision disappointing. “If we open things up too soon, we’re going to see outbreaks,” she said.

Yates said he planned to distribute 100 infrared thermometers and plastic shields to help protect workers. But some mall employees — even ones who have been laid off or furloughed — said that would not be enough to ease their worries about the contagion.

“We’re all ready to get back to work, but we don’t think a mall is the place that should be making the call,” said Nate Chavez, a sales associate at Steve Madden, a shoe store at the mall. “The risk is too high.”

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One Nebraska Crossing store trying to be ready to open by at least May 1 is Vera Bradley, a shop known for its quilted floral bags. Robert Wallstrom, the chief executive, said his managers were contacting employees to see how they felt about returning to work.

Wallstrom said he wanted to put the health of his employees and customers first in the midst of the pandemic. But he also said he was considering the financial health of his workers as well as his company. Rank-and-file employees have been furloughed and managers have taken pay cuts.

Reopening the Vera Bradley store in the Nebraska mall seemed like an opportunity to test out what he hoped would become a broader reopening nationwide.

“We’re all waiting for a magic day where everything is perfect,” he said. “Well, everything is not going to be perfect.”

Wallstrom said he realized that not all employees would want to come to work immediately — and that they would not be penalized for that. But he likened the ones who do to “the firefighters on 9/11 running into the World Trade Center.”

“There are people,” he said, “who want to pave the way.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .