Ready to reopen? Some Des Moines residents take to the town while others stay home
The phone kept ringing Friday at Platinum Kutz barbershop in Des Moines.
The Drake neighborhood salon was open for the first time in two months. Masked barbers argued about movies across the room over the din of music and electric razors. Half the chairs in the shop remained empty to comply with state regulations, but the stations in use had a steady stream of clients.
Barber Jarvis Smith paused his client’s haircut every few minutes to answer the phone and make appointments. Within the first few hours of operation, Smith said he and his colleagues had already cleaned up multiple do-it-yourself cuts gone wrong.
“When your hair grows back after two weeks, it has a formation — the formation that you cut,” Smith said. “You can tell when somebody doesn't know what they're doing.”
Salons, barbershops, massage therapy businesses and tattoo establishments were allowed to reopen in all 99 Iowa counties Friday. Restaurant dining rooms, fitness centers and libraries could reopen in the 22 counties — including Polk, Dallas and Jasper in metro Des Moines — where they previously had remained closed, despite reopenings in the other counties, because of higher coronavirus infection rates.
The order also lifted some statewide restrictions on racetracks and social clubs.
But although some Iowans celebrated the steps toward normalcy and spilled out to take advantage of the newly available amenities, others stayed skeptical — and stayed home.
Going out and 'getting back to normal'
Ashley Freidland, 19, was ready to enjoy a meal at a restaurant again on Friday afternoon — if she could find one open. The Hy-Vee employee and a friend said they checked with three restaurants in downtown Des Moines, but none was offering sit-down service, despite the governor's loosening of restrictions.
Freidland brought a homemade mask just in case, but she said she didn’t feel like she was at any more risk eating at a restaurant than she already was as an essential worker in a supermarket.
“It’s hard to keep things in perspective — you have all this news blowing the virus out of proportion and at the same time, I’m working and have been around people this whole time, and haven’t got it,” she said. “I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. It’s good everyone is … taking their time to keep customers safe, but we’re also closer to getting back to normal than it might look like, I think.”
Barbers at Platinum Kutz said there was plenty of demand from their clients, even before the barbershop reopened.
"Haircuts are very valuable,” barber Quentin Turner said, trimming a young customer’s hair as the boy’s mother watched from a distance, through the shop’s open back door. “For the last couple months, my phone has been blowing up nonstop for haircuts."
Marcus Tyler, a recent arrival in Des Moines, said he felt comfortable getting a cut at the barbershop, even though he remains wary of COVID-19.
“Getting a haircut, it's kind of hard to wear a mask when they have to cut near your face and everything like that,” Tyler said. “I would say I feel safe, but I'm careful, too.”
Worries about reopening too soon
Although some Iowans rushed to restaurants and salons, others made the choice to continue isolating and criticized the state for what they said was reopening businesses too soon.
Among them was Susan Scott of West Des Moines, who called the reopenings “ridiculous.”
“That’s the word I’ve been using,” she said. “It seems like we’re getting such high positives and deaths, it’s ridiculous to do that at this time. I think it’s too early, and it’s worrisome.”
Scott has strong reasons to be hesitant. The 58-year-old takes immunosuppressants to help with her rheumatoid arthritis. She also has heart and lung issues, she said. She figures it might be a while before she feels safe going out.
“I went to Target over the weekend to pick up my immunosuppressant drugs,” she said. “There were hardly anybody with masks on in the store. All the workers had them on, but I was one of 10% of the shoppers wearing masks.
“(Gov.) Kim Reynolds keeps saying that she has faith in Iowans to do the right thing, but I don’t see it.”
Others chose to keep their distance, even when dining in was an option. Tanner Whitaker and Anna Williams chose to eat their Potbelly sandwiches on a bench downtown rather than in the restaurant.
Williams said she doesn’t agree with reopening yet. Both she and her father tested positive for COVID-19 in April. She was asymptomatic the entire time.
“I can’t imagine how many people I might have been in contact with if I didn’t get the test, and then self-quarantine,” she said. “I wouldn’t have even known I had it. And I think there are a lot more people than we realize in that situation — having the disease but not being tested and feeling comfortable going back to their regular routines.”
Employees, too, expressed reservations about coming back to work.
Platinum Kutz barber Smith said he felt it was too soon to reopen and that he anticipated a second round of closures in a few weeks.
“Next thing you know, you'll be right back again" with businesses closed, Smith said, noting that cases in Polk County continue to grow. "It's just a matter of time."
Morgan Price, an employee at Fong’s Pizza, said she was glad the restaurant decided to postpone resuming dine-in service. She has Graves’ Disease, an autoimmune disorder impacting her thyroid, which puts her at higher risk for contracting the novel coronavirus.
“I think it’s a good idea to ease into this,” Price said. “It’s important to take this seriously, and it’s better to be cautious than put people at risk.”
Debate about priorities continues
When Reynolds announced the wave of reopenings Wednesday, she advised vulnerable Iowans to continue staying home.
“We want to continue to just encourage those that are most vulnerable to continue to stay home and really limit their trips to essential trips,” Reynolds said. “And, I believe, if we all do that, and the thoughtful manner that I see in our businesses really start to reopen, we'll be OK, and we'll be able to manage and contain virus spread moving forward.”
But U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne, a Democrat whose district includes much of metro Des Moines, told the Register on Friday she had urged the governor to extend closures.
“COVID-19 right now is in no way, shape or form in our rear-view mirror,” Axne said. “I think moving towards reopening puts us in grave danger of increasing the risk that people have from a healthier perspective, but certainly from an economic perspective.”
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, defended the decision to start reopening.
“We’ve got to get the economy going again, and we’ve got to get going again in a very careful way — listening to public health people,” Grassley said on a phone call with reporters. “(But) you can't make a decision based just about public health people, because the whole economy is at stake here.”
Several Polk County officials had urged all Des Moines residents to be cautious as businesses begin to reopen.
As of Friday, the county had 2,767 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 76 deaths, according to the state's public health department, both the most in the state. Although Polk's infection rate per capita is behind that of some smaller counties, Polk County Health Director Helen Eddy said it is still the site of broad community spread, though some cases are linked to outbreaks at long-term care centers, congregate living spaces and meatpacking facilities both inside the county and nearby.
Polk was among the 10 counties in the United States where the coronavirus was spreading fastest in early May, according to a Des Moines Register analysis of national COVID-19 data.
“While we're anxious to return to a more normal routine, we must proceed with caution," Eddy said Thursday. "The situation in Polk County has not yet stabilized."
The Register's Brianne Pfannenstiel contributed to this report.
Katie Akin is a retail reporter for the Register. Reach her at kakin@registermedia.com or at 515-284-8041. Follow her on Twitter at @katie_akin.
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