Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — State officials and Utah business leaders gathered in the Utah Capitol Friday morning to talk about the local economic response to COVID-19.
As restaurants remain closed to dine-in customers, grocery stores are slammed and gatherings over 10 people prohibited, many Utah employees and businesses are struggling through the crisis. Derek Miller, president and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber, said the most important thing Utahns can do for the economy “has nothing to do with economics.”
“It is to mitigate and slow down the spread of the virus,” Miller said.
He said it is important for Utah to not only “flatten the curve” of the virus, but also to “flatten the dip” — “to mitigate, to every extent possible, the adverse economic impact of this virus.”
Miller said the state’s coronavirus economic task force, which he heads, will release an “economic response plan” early next week that will give “details and timelines” for Utah’s economic recovery.
Miller was followed by Utah Gov. Gary Herbert; Merit Medical Systems official Greg Fredde; Zions Bank CEO Harris Simmons; Ivory Homes CEO Clark Ivory; Smith’s President Kenny Kimball; Rocky Mountain Power CEO Gary Hoogeveen; Tara Thue, AT&T president for Mountain West States; and Simon Shaner, CEO of Mountain West Brands.
Kimball said the "fundamentals" of Smith's are good, though "there are some products that are in short supply or in high demand."
"But I can tell you that, working with manufacturers, they're all working extremely hard." The biggest challenge, he said, is in Smith's warehouses and transportation.
"We've had so much volume," Kimball said, "it's almost like the day before Thanksgiving, every day."
Smith's store hours will adjust this Sunday to 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., he said, to make sure stores are clean and help them get restocked. Kimball said Smith's is hiring and has brought on about 500 people in the past week.
Shaner, whose Rocky Mountain Brands includes 17 restaurants in Utah and Idaho, said he has been in constant contact with government leaders during this time. "I would encourage government officials to keep the dialogue going with restaurant owners," Shaner said, "and talk about constructive ways to keep us open, to open our facilities as quickly as possible and offer full service to our customers."
"Just so you know," Shaner said to the Utah public, "restaurants are open. We are clean. We've been in this business a very long time, serving clean, sanitary food, and we need your support.
"Now is the time, if you have a favorite restaurant you want to see survive this crisis, go there today, go there tomorrow, eat as many meals as you possibly can at that restaurant."
Miller and Shaner pointed Utahns to three websites they can use to get more information about the virus and support local restaurants during this time:
Confusion on gatherings
Herbert, speaking at the beginning of the press conference, addressed the state's repeal of Salt Lake County and Utah County health orders that limited gatherings to 10 people or less.
"Communication is a difficult thing sometimes under the best of circumstances," Herbert said. "These aren't the best of circumstances."
"Our communication was probably not as good" as it needed to be, he added.
Herbert compared responding to a new virus to "building a bus while you're going down the road at 60 mph."
While the state did, in fact, recommend that gatherings be limited to 10 people or less this week, Herbert said the county orders were "emphasizing the penalty" part of the order when the intent was to see "voluntary compliance."
The county orders made violations a misdemeanor crime.
Herbert said he expects Utahns to "live within the spirit of the law" at this time, but does not feel the need to attach penalties to the rule. He left open the possibility that the guidance could be strengthened if there are flagrant violations of the rule.
Update on instructions re: mass gatherings — we strongly recommend that people avoid large group gatherings (10+), but the State does not intend to threaten residents with criminal prosecution, which is why we are amending recently issued orders.
— Gov. Gary Herbert (@GovHerbert) March 20, 2020
Herbert said the state is going to "revise" its guidelines today to make its intent more apparent.
Later, Herbert also said the state is reevaluating a way to possibly allow customers to enter restaurants to pick up food, as the state seeks to limit the economic fallout to restaurants and businesses.
"We are concerned first and foremost with the health of our people, but we're also concerned with the economic health of our state. ... How normal can we make life be under these difficult and uncertain times?" he said.
Herbert said the idea that the state will go on complete lockdown, like New York or California, or call out the National Guard is nothing more than "rumors."
Correction: An earlier version of this story mistakenly referred to Rocky Mountain Power's CEO as Greg Hoogeveen. This has been corrected.
