Retail Chief Wants “Date for Normalcy”

“Time to set a real date for normalcy & get on with it”

As the world approaches the start of a third year living with COVID-19, many schools, businesses and families are living through a fresh round of mask and vaccine mandates and heightened anxiety over the latest surge. Public officials are under pressure to do more to protect vulnerable populations, and hospitals are stretched by staffing shortages and infections among the unvaccinated.

Retailers Association of Massachusetts President Jon Hurst said Wednesday that small businesses are also hurting, and he believes it’s time to start asking a different question other than how can the state keep people safe: “When do the goalposts stop moving?”

Hurst said the onus should be on government and large employers in hubs like Boston to set a timeline for workers to return to the office and start messaging to the public that it’s safe to return to restaurants, gyms, retailers and other businesses.

“Time to set a real date for normalcy & get on with it,” Hurst tweeted this week.

Asked about his position, Hurst said the March anniversary of the 2020 COVID-19 restrictions that marked the start of the pandemic presents a good opportunity for public leaders to tell people to go back to a more normal life.

March 1? April 1? Hurst said he doesn’t care so long as small business leaders can plan around it.

“It’s time to start putting those goalposts into concrete and determining when we’re going to try to get on with our lives and on with commerce,” Hurst said. “The customer has not returned. Partially, it’s the restrictions, partially it’s the messaging, partially it’s big office towers in Boston not bringing workers back. We’ve kind of fallen into an inertia, so to speak, of not being prepared to move forward.”

Not everyone shares Hurst’s view. In fact, there are new calls daily for public officials to do more with masks and vaccine mandates to protect the public from the omicron variant. Hospitals are also operating near full capacity.

Hurst said a return to normal could include bringing back unvaccinated workers to understaffed medical facilities and other settings to perform “low-risk” tasks like paperwork.

“How much of this is really true concern on safety, how much of it is somewhat irrational fear, how much of it is becoming complacency and laziness in not getting back into the office? Hurst asked.