Who’s on the committee the Aberdeen City Council formed Monday to talk about how to ease coronavirus restrictions and reopen the local economy?
Business owners, including David Novstrup of Allevity Entertainment and Thunder Road, Duane Sutton of The Millstone and Fallon Helm of Revive Day Spa…
…Aberdeen Development Corp. CEO Mike Bockorny, Aberdeen Area Chamber of Commerce President Gail Ochs, one local health care administrator, one local physician and either City Manager Lynn Lander or City Attorney Ron Wager [Scott Waltman, “Aberdeen City Council Votes Down Resolution That Would Loosen Virus Regs, Special Meeting Wednesday,” Aberdeen American News, 2020.04.28].
Not the workers the bosses on the committee will order to put their health at risk.
Not the customers who will have to decide whether those bosses are doing enough to keep us all safe.
Not the day care operators and teachers and principals and superintendents who will face more pressure (on top of that from the Misinformer-in-Chief) to reopen and figure out how to safely bring hundreds of children together every day.
Not the pastors who will face increased pressure to recongregate their unavoidably higher-risk populations of older worshippers.
Not the police or other security professionals or sanitation experts who will have to work the resumed large public gatherings.
Not the nursing home operators or caregivers who will have to decide if they can safely allow people who are taking more risks at more open businesses to come see Grandma on the weekend.
And only one of the doctors—and none of the nurses—who will have to provide care to all the additional coronavirus cases that will result from reopening businesses now.
A minority of Americans thought that putting a man with nothing but business built on his daddy’s money on his résumé in charge of national policymaking would be a good idea. They got someone who suggests injecting Lysol. Now the Aberdeen City Council seems to think that David Novstrup and other business owners hold some overriding and exclusive wisdom for addressing a public health crisis at the local level.
The Aberdeen City Council showed some sense Monday night in putting off Mayor Travis Schaunaman’s proposed local affirmation of Governor Kristi Noem’s reckless rollback of her flimsy recommendations for pandemic resistance measures. But their choice of committee members to make recommendations on public health measures shows a failure to grasp the nature of the pandemic as a global phenomenon that affects far more than business hours and bottom lines.
