Meanwhile, a Nebraska mall got off to a
subdued start Friday morning with just a few
shops welcoming customers and about half a
dozen patrons wandering the open-air facility
wearing masks.
Nebraska Crossing resumed business with new
safety measures, including hand sanitizing
stations, plexiglass barriers and signs to promote
social distancing guidelines. A handful of mall
patrons walked through mostly empty pathways
between stores, glancing into shop windows.
“I do think it’s a little soon, but it’s kind of slow
and there aren’t a lot of people here, so I’m not
too worried,” said Jasmine Ramos of Omaha.
Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert
at Georgetown University who has been
consulting businesses and governors on
reopenings, agrees that it is too soon. There first
needs to be a “long-term verifiable significant
reduction” in cases and ample virus testing and
contact tracing, he said.
And shoppers should be required to wear
masks, he said.
“Malls are inherently risky places for transmission
of the coronavirus by design,” he said. “They
are there to have a lot of people congregating
among each other and among the staff.”
Given so much uncertainty, many major national
mall operators have held off on announcing
reopening plans and are weighing safety
protocols while waiting for stay-at-home
restrictions to be lifted.
Taubman Centers, which operates 26
malls worldwide and is being acquired by
Indianapolis-based Simon, said it plans to open