A lot of good could be done by changing our coronavirus shutdowns from state by state to county by county.
Just as a state-by-state shutdown is better than a national shutdown, so a county-by-county shutdown would be better than a statewide shutdown. Here in the Pacific Northwest we have rural areas with small populations that don’t have the problems of the more populated areas and could be safely reopened immediately, using social distancing (staying 6 feet apart from each other), allowing families that are together anyway to eat together at restaurants, etc.
It would require extra work by state governments to figure out the statistics for each county to determine which ones could reopen. There are plenty of unemployed people who could be hired temporarily to help work out the statistics. The extra tax revenue from reopened businesses would more than pay the costs.
Many businesses would be saved from bankruptcy. Careful tracking of statistics from these reopenings would indicate when they could safely be expanded to other areas safely, instead of just guessing when to do it. It would be good for everyone.
