MIAMI – During a virtual town hall on Wednesday, Sen. Marco Rubio got some laughs when he said that if barbershops remain closed any longer during the coronavirus pandemic, he is going to look like Mick Jagger.
Rubio used the joke to illustrate his opinion on the debate of how to restart the economy as COVID-19, the highly contagious respiratory illness caused by the new coronavirus, continues to kill Americans. The life-saving mitigation strategies, which include closing businesses where social distancing isn’t possible, are not sustainable, he said.
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“We cannot keep it this way for 12 months, 18 months,” Rubio said. “I don’t know if we can even keep doing it this way for six months. It’s just not a sustainable deal, so the question is going to start to become, ‘What if we have to move away from some of this in the near term?’ Can we do it in a way that manages but doesn’t end the risk?”
Rubio compared the impact of the mitigation strategies in Florida to “a daily hurricane when it comes to the economy.” Without a vaccine or an established treatment protocol, President Donald Trump said the reopening of the economy is the most difficult decision of his life.
“If our expectation is that there is not going to be another surge or risk for mortality, that is not a reasonable expectation. If the expectation is that things are going to go back to the way they were March 1st, that is also not a reasonable expectation," Rubio said. "If the expectation is that we are going to keep things the way they are now as long as it takes, that is also completely unrealistic.”
Rubio said this is because a lot of what is going to happen to small businesses depends on the restrictions put on them by local and state authorities. He said it also depends on businesses’ access to federal and state emergency loan programs.
“One of the things were are focusing on right now are small businesses that don’t have existing banking relationships getting locked out,” Rubio said. “That is why the law calls for lenders to be brought in. We are seeing some of that already, but we got to do more.”