Calm Down – The County Judge Didn’t Make A Dent In Our Lives

Almost as soon as the El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego made his announcement that he was shutting down non-essential businesses for the next two weeks to try and stop the ridiculous spread of COVID-19 infections in El Paso, the El Paso interwebs exploded.

"No one is going to tell me what I can and can't do! I need my hair done!"

"Why the hell can't we sit in a restaurant if people can still go to the grocery store and Walmart?"

"I need to work out!"

Whatever. Look, the County Judge didn't say anything about malls, liquor stores, or anything other than businesses that are more like personal care businesses. What he should have done was reduce shopping to pick-up curbside only because the malls are packed every single day and they're only going to get worse with everyone going out to shop for the holidays or just going because they are getting stir crazy and want to get out of the house.

This is a don't work out/get your hair did/ get your nails did order. This isn't a stay at home, hunker down, nobody move for two weeks order. He said stay home if you're not accessing essential services but please, we all know that isn't happening anyway. If I was a salon owner, or a gym owner, or a tattoo parlor owner, or a restaurant owner, I would be really pissed off. Those are true small businesses. People really have to bang out a day's work in those industries and they work on a razor thin margin just to stay open. They're the ones who are suffering, not you because you'll have a couple weeks growth on your roots or nails.

We are in real trouble here, and personally, I don't think that the County Judge went far enough.