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Last week, the Arizona COVID-19 modeling team sent a letter to the Arizona Department of Health Services recommending the establishment of a three-week shelter to help alleviate the stress projected on hospitals with COVID-19 cases and increasing hospitalizations.
The letter said if no immediate action was taken to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in Arizona, the consequences would be “akin to a major wildfire without an evacuation order.”
The three-week shelter in place is also recommended to begin on December 1, Tuesday, which two local business owners hope will not happen.
“You will never recover financially,” said George Zavulunov, owner of Elegant Gents Barber Shop, which was forced to close for a month in early April last year. “Even though I was closed, the bills still came. I still had to pay the rent.
Zavulunov, who runs the barbershop on his own, heads into his prime time for clients.
“Winter is our busiest season. We barbers are waiting for winter. If we close, we will lose our entire season,” Zavulunov said.
Steph Doheny opened AIR Aerial Fitness just over a month ago and said a three-week shutdown would kill any momentum she’s built as a new business owner.
“To shut down operations completely, we would definitely take a financial hit. Obviously, we would take a hit with our members who might not come back after a shutdown,” Doheny said.
The former Arizona public health director said the increase in COVID-19 cases in Arizona could have been avoided and businesses are to blame.
“What happened was that over time, companies that followed the mitigation measures started to ignore them because they could see their competitors cheating, and they could see their competitors not having any problems, ”said Will Humble.
Recently, Arizona mayors called on Governor Doug Ducey to enact a statewide mask mandate, although 90% of the state is covered by some sort of mask mandate. Humble said setting health guidelines was not enough and people would only follow them if they were enforced.
“You need an executive order to establish the legal authority to revoke a food establishment license for not following COVID-19 mitigation measures,” Humble said.
When asked if Governor Ducey would actually enact a three-week shelter-in-place from Tuesday, Humble, without hesitation, replied “no”.
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