“I guess we all should worry about it, but you can’t keep us closed down forever,” said Himes, who added that it’s impossible to keep social distance on his assembly line. “You work within 3 or 4 feet from everybody,” he said. “People right across from you, people right beside you.”
Health officials fear that such moves, if not carefully planned, could fuel a second wave of COVID-19 infections. Some companies that never closed offer a cautionary tale: Meat-packing plants across the Midwest have reported hundreds of coronavirus cases among their tightly quartered workforces. Several have shuttered in an attempt to stem the spread.
Retailers, restaurants and mall operators are looking at China’s experience to see how they can reopen stores, said Meghann Martindale, global head of research at CBRE, a real estate services firm. Malls, for instance, probably won’t open food courts and big play areas for children for a while, and shopping complexes will likely limit the number of entrances to control the flow of customers.
Amazon, which drew sharp criticism for firing an employee who led a walkout to demand greater coronavirus protection for workers, now says it is developing an internal lab that could potentially provide coronavirus tests for all employees, even those without symptoms. Many technology companies embraced stay-at-home policies early on, since most of their workers can do their jobs remotely.