In preparation for the city’s potential reopening on May 15th, mayor Quinton Lucas at a press conference today at City Hall outlined the city’s 10-10-10 plan for the phased reopening of the city of Kansas City Missouri.

As part of the phased in plan,  businesses will be limited to 10% of building occupancy or 10 people allowed inside a business whichever is greater. This number includes that businesses employees.

Sign-ins will also be required for anyone who visits a business for more than a 10 minute window.

Additionally social gatherings will be allowed of no more than10 people inside and 50 people outside. This includes weddings, funerals and religious services.

Lucas also offered stipulations in regards to employees  continuing to work from home. “Any business that is being reopened subject to this order prior to may 15 must allow workers to continue to work from home,” the Mayor said.   “They cannot terminate or penalize those persons for not coming to work.”

When asked how he would address the city’s undocumented population in relation to the sign-in and new information gathering requirements, Lucas noted that the information would only be shared with public health officials.

“I would imagine the only entity that would be seeking any type of information about who has been anywhere is public health,” Lucas noted. “Much in the same way that public health releases data subject to the many rules that guide everything that they do from testing to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and a number of things where they often do maintain that amount of privacy is essential. We will do the same thing with this type of registry.”

When asked why a sooner date for reopening wasn’t considered, Mayor Lucas referred directly back to the data derived from the city’s Health Department.

“We continue to look at hospitalizations, we continue to look at testing and tracing,” Lucas said.  “Let me focus on those two categories because they are incredibly important. We cannot say that we have a proper approach to how we address COVID-19. If we don’t have a strong approach to how we are tracing people.”

Kansas City Health Department director Dr Rex Archer indicated that if flare-ups of the virus occurred after the opening, more stiffer measures would be in store in order to contain the virus.

“Anybody that’s listening today, knows that this virus hasn’t gone away, it’s still gonna be present in every state,” Archer warned. “So, as we ease these restrictions,  if we don’t have the capacity to quickly put out that outbreak, that fire, then we’ll be back to very draconian measures, whether it be at a state level, a city level or across the whole country.”

Gyms, museums, bars and in-person restaurant dining will open with additional Health Department guidance on May 15 to best protect workers and patrons. That Health Department guidance includes masks and gloves being worn by employees at all times.

As the May 15th order expiration date nears, city officials will release additional guidelines for residents and businesses with a greater public contact ratio such as large retailers and bars and restaurants.

In a follow-up social media post, mayor Lucas indicated that barber shops, salons, Beauty parlors and tattoo shops could reopen on May 6th with proper health provisioning.

For more information on the phased in plan, visit the city’s website at www.kcmo.gov. We’ll offer additional updates as the city releases that information.