Announcing plans to begin reopening his state, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster cited the ongoing economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic. “South Carolina’s business is business,” he declared this week as he lifted restrictions on department stores, florists, music shops and some other businesses that previously had been deemed nonessential. It is a scenario playing out across the country as governors wrestle with weeks of quarantine-fueled job losses and soaring unemployment claims and the simultaneous warnings of public health officials who say lifting stay-at-home orders now could spark a resurgence of COVID-19.
