NEW ORLEANS — For Liz Cooke, the owner of Lionheart Prints, staying open during the Coronavirus pandemic has meant adapting her business.
"I've been doing a lot of local deliveries. I feel like I'm Santa Claus," Cooke laughed. "I'm just bringing people puzzles and cards and things right to their house, so that's really fun."
She said puzzles are flying off the shelves as fast as she can get them in stock. She has also scheduled FaceTime shopping sessions to assemble care packages or gifts for customers without ever entering the store.
But as much as she'd like things to go back to normal, Cooke is not willing to rush going "back to normal" before things are safe for everyone.
"I lost my mom last year. And thinking about people who are losing their loved ones, and losing everything... I'm going to do whatever it takes to slow the spread, and we're going to do the right thing. We're not going to open a day before its safe," she said.
Thursday, President Donald Trump appointed three Louisiana officials to his coronavirus economic task force; Senator John Kennedy, Senator Bill Cassidy and Republican Whip Steve Scalise. But Trump has shifted decision-making power on reopening to the state level.
"We took the greatest economy in the history of the world, and we closed it. In order to win this war, and we're in the process of winning it now," Trump said.
The President is encouraging governors to open in phases, and only when they believe their state is ready.
Gov. John Bel Edwards announced Thursday that he's forming the Resilient Louisiana Commission. He plans to include voices from a variety of geographic locations and economic backgrounds.
"They're gonna look at our economy, make recommendations to make our businesses more resilient so that we can open them up, get businesses open, get workers back to work. But do so in a way that adequately protects public health," Edwards said at his daily press conference.
That is something Quentin Messer Jr., of the New Orleans Business Alliance, is worried about, too.
"If you open too soon, and there's a high level of reinfections, that is devastating. That's coup de grace. You've eroded any possible public trust and people's willingness to travel to New Orleans and to even come to businesses," Messer, Jr. told Eyewitness News.
Still, he believes Louisiana businesses will make sacrifices to reopen their doors when the time is right.
"If there's any city that knows how to be resilient, if there's any business community — small business community — that knows how to be resilient, it's the New Orleans business community."
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.
