Oklahoma is beginning to reopen today. Its small business owners are struggling to choose between their financial and personal health.

• Oklahoma begins a multi-phase reopening of state businesses on Friday.
• Small business owners are feeling the pressure of unpaid bills — and the risk of infection — as they await government loans and support funds.
• "Everyone is cautious about opening," one small business owner told Business Insider.
• Another said: "I want to go back to work tomorrow. I'm tired of this."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Small-business owner Sandra Dickson faces a seemingly impossible choice.

A massage therapist in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Dickson is among the 20.6% of Americans who are jobless.

She opened a beauty and wellness spa just weeks before the coronavirus pandemic. It's been shut down for at least as long as it was open. In that time, Dickson has "received no income," she told Business Insider. But she's wary about opening her doors too soon.

"There is no social distancing with massage therapy," she said. Besides, "my elderly mother lives with me. She's just recovering from breast cancer," she continued. "I can't afford to bring this virus home."

Dickson said she won't even consider reopening her business until June. Like the other small-business owners Business Insider spoke to, she has applied for government aid. Like the others, she hasn't received any yet.

On Friday, Oklahoma begins a staggered, "three-phase" reopening of state businesses. Personal-care businesses can begin scheduling appointments again. On May 1, most other businesses can open up, excluding bars, which could reopen on May 15 if coronavirus cases are "at a manageable level." By June 1, normal business will resume.

"There is light at the end of the tunnel and it's starting to get brighter every day as we continue to do testing and watch those curves flatten," Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, said on Tuesday.

Between 'trusting the data' and bills 'piling up,' business owners face inescapable pressure

But in the last week, hospitalizations have increased. The state confirmed 127 new cases on Tuesday, the most in a single day since April 9. The reopening of businesses is "hasty at best," Oklahoma State Medical Association President Dr. George Monks told The Oklahoman.

Monks' concerns are echoed by Oklahoma City's Republican mayor, David Holt, who will keep all business closed until at least April 30. According to an email from the White House coronavirus task force on Monday, Oklahoma's testing capacity is lower than at least 46 other states.

Like Monk, some small-business owners are worried about a hasty reopening. Jenna Frank, a wellness spa owner in Oklahoma City, told Business Insider that her first priority is public health.

"It's important for us to trust the data, whatever we have. It's still so new," Frank said. "Everyone is cautious about opening."

"It's important that we take the necessary steps to keep our community well," she added. "If we open too soon, all that work we've done, all the damage to our economy, will be wasted."

But other business owners disagree. Linda Leonard, who owns a barbershop in Oklahoma City, said the pandemic was being politicized by Democrats.

"I want to go back to work tomorrow," Leonard told Business Insider on Thursday. "I'm tired of this."

Leonard said she's lucky to have clients, friends, and family helping her. But she's concerned about her bills "piling up" as she waits for a small-business loan.

Leonard was critical of the many not-so-small businesses that got money first. Several big banks prioritized their "richest" clients before tending to poorer applicants. "I want to know how people who are not in a small business got those small business loans," she said.

Murod Mamatov, a coffee and wine bar owner in Edmond, north of Oklahoma City, is also waiting on a loan. His business, which is open for deliveries and take-out, "is operating at about 15% of our normal sales." He hasn't laid off any workers, but money is tight.

In Oklahoma and around the country, said Mamatov, there needs to be more rigorous debate about how and when economic activity can resume.

There is "a balance between the economy, and minimizing the threat" of the coronavirus, he told Business Insider. "The extremes are easy, and it's more comfortable to take an extreme," he said, adding that the government must react quickly to signs that its interventions, like the small-business loan program or $1,200 stimulus checks, aren't enough.

"They should send out the $1,200 dollars to people ... and ask, 'How are the people doing? Was that enough?'"

"If it wasn't enough, they should go again," he said. "It just should be a back and forth debate, with more monitoring of the situation based on the effect."

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