Durham County extending stay-at-home order, relaxing some rules

Under the revised order, "non-essential" businesses can resume operations via curbside pick-up or delivery of goods and services, provided they screen employees' health at the start of each shift and employees maintain social distancing and not share any tools or equipment while on the job. The businesses also must routinely clean work spaces.

Land Arnold, who owns Letters bookshop in downtown Durham, said he has been delivering to some customers and plans take advantage of the new rules.

"I think I might start having a window, a few days a week, where people can do [curbside pick-up], especially people who live in some of the nice complexes around here that are hard to get into, to deliver to," Arnold said.

"The [online] customer base is wonderful, but it doesn’t sustain a business. It’s the foot traffic that come from restaurants and entertainment," he said. "I know that I can't be a shop, truly, until the whole ecosystem is up – the restaurants, the entertainment. Anything to help save time until we get to that is needed, but we have to do it safely, or we’re going to be in it longer."

The revised order still prohibits real estate agents from in-person showings of occupied homes and any open houses at homes on the market. But it will allow up to three showings a day of vacant homes, up from the previous limit of one per day.

During those showings, the agent must remain outside the home and communicate with prospective buyers inside over the phone. No one can go inside if they are sick, and anyone entering the home must wear a mask and gloves and refrain from touching things as much as possible. Hand sanitizer or disinfectant wipes must be available for people before going inside and coming out.

"It has excellent guideposts and is grounded in the science. We will largely be relying on that, coupled with our own local knowledge," Schewel said, adding, "We won't have our own roadmap."

Dr. Mark McClellan, director of the Robert J. Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University and a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said the reopening process needs to be gradual and have an emphasis on health and safety.

"I think people have already seen what this can look like based on their experiences with essential businesses like grocery stores," McClellan said. "This is not going back in and being in a crowded shop. It’s going to be businesses where the amount of capacity is going to be limited, probably way below, say, what the occupancy limits under normal circumstances would be, where there are going to be more protective barriers between customers and staff, where there will be more distancing steps in place."

People should expect delays and reversals in the reopening process, he said, especially if the number of virus cases or infected people being hospitalized starts trending upward.

"So, not back to business as usual at all, but some significantly bigger opportunities for people to get the retail services and products that they need," McClellan said. "I think the old normal, when there really wasn’t a worry about easy transmission of a virus that can cause significant health problems and death, that’s probably a ways off. But it’s also not going to be the way it is now, with this kind of very limited opening, forever either."

Arnold said he appreciates a conservative approach when dealing with the pandemic.

"I closed my doors before I had to because I was seeing people come in, and there was a wide swath of people who took it seriously or not," he said. "I’m glad that I’m having a government that is helping me do what I know is right, instead of having to make a decision on my own."