Only a few states are yet to ban all nonessential businesses from operation. For millions of employees this means being unable to work and entrepreneurs are trying to find new ways of proving their services are needed during the pandemic.
While the US has proven relatively slow in its lockdown measures compared to European countries, already 45 states and Washington, D.C. have imposed statewide ban on all nonessential businesses. This immediately meant malls across America become abandoned. But what does nonessential mean? With varying definitions between states or even between cities within these states, you might rightly feel confused.
In short, a nonessential business is one that provides services people can go without. Grocery stores, gas stations and pharmacies are the obvious essential ones, as are homeless shelters, medical facilities, infrastructural companies and garbage collection services. But the further you dig into it, the murkier the definition is.
For example, some construction projects have been put on indefinite hold, while others haven't. It's fine if you compare a hospital project with a sports stadium – one obviously has to be finished as soon as possible, the other might wait. But it's not always as easy to differentiate. For example, large NFL stadia in Las Vegas and Los Angeles are both still being built despite workers on both sites having been diagnosed with COVID-19. Meanwhile, a smaller sports stadium in Austin, TX, has been put on hold. Why? Some projects are simply deemed too large to stop, because halting works would generate tremendous losses and might result in them being unviable anymore.
