Georgia businesses reopening after COVID-19 restrictions: ‘It definitely is a scary thing, but we’re going to take the proper precautions’

BLACKSHEAR, Ga. — Action News Jax’s Courtney Cole spoke to a local hair salon owner in Waycross about the steps she plans to take to keep customers safe. She also shares her personal experience about what it was like to recover from COVID-19.

QUICK FACTS:

• Lindsey Hickox is the owner of Pixies Salon In Blackshear, Georgia.
• She said only eight people will be allowed in her shop at one time: four hairstylists and four customers.
• Customers will only be allowed by appointment only.
• Hickox said she will be following proper precautions in terms of proper disinfecting and sanitation regulations.
• Hickox also said she will be closely following the 20 measures Governor Kemp outlined for businesses that will be re-opening. Those can be found in his Executive Order, from April 20. Click here to read.

There are 20,166 cases of the coronavirus in Georgia, that’s according to the latest data from the Georgia Department of Public Health.

About 12% of those cases are in the six local Georgia counties here in our area.

Under Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s guidelines released on Monday, April 20, his new Executive Order will allow the following to open on Friday: gyms, fitness centers, bowling alleys, body art studios, barbers, cosmetologists, hair designers, nail care artists, estheticians (their respective schools) and massage therapists.

Restaurants and movie theaters are set to be able to open again on Monday.

Cole spoke to a local hair salon owner, who is also a Coronavirus survivor. She told Cole it’s definitely a scary thing to re-open, but she plans to take all the proper precautions.

"Oh! Before he even got done with the speech, they automatically were messaging the shop, calling me messaging me asking me are you going to be there Friday?! Definitely an outpour of support, from my actual clients, with excitement,” said Lindsey Hickox.

Hickox is the owner of Pixie’s Salon in Blackshear, Georgia.

She said her clients are more than ready to come back.

"We are still going to be doing appointment only, one person per stylist, and there are only four in our shop,” Hickox said.

Hickox told Action News Jax every one of them will be wearing a mask and will sanitize and disinfect between each client.

“We are going to be going in on Thursday and bleaching everything down prior to everyone coming in, for sure,” Hickox said.

As a mom of two, with asthma, who's already survived the virus, she said it was very hectic having it.

"I was the first one in my area with it,” she said.

Hickox told Cole she’s taking it very seriously.

“It was mainly in my head, the first symptoms. My eyes hurt, my ears, I felt like it was going to explode,” she said.

Hickox told Cole she has asthma, and experiences upper respiratory issues and pneumonia twice a year, at a minimum.

“And, I remember them [medical staff at urgent care] asking me, ‘well we see that you have asthma, are you sure it isn’t just upper respiratory?’ And I remember saying this is different. This is bad. And as it progressed every breath I took felt like I was being stabbed. Like just straight through. I felt like maybe an inch of my long worked, couldn’t take any breath. Walking from one room to the next, I felt like I had ran a marathon. It was rough,” Hickox said.

Cole also reached out to local leaders.

The City of St. Marys said it has been working diligently with the Camden County EMA.

Mayor Kevin Grissom told Cole the City of Blackshear is prepared to follow Governor Kemp’s orders, but says in an effort not to go backward, he plans to take the necessary precautions to keep people safe.

“We’re actually going to re-open to our employees next week full time. The following week, we will open to the public, first week of May.”

Governor Kemp will allow his statewide shelter in place order to expire on April 30.

But the governor’s emergency medical order for the elderly and medically fragile will be in place until May 13.

© 2020 Cox Media Group