Signs about social distancing have recently become as ubiquitous as bottles of hand sanitizer and tape markings throughout retail stores. But some in the community worry that signs urging safety precautions might not be enough to keep the Flathead County’s COVID-19 cases from spiking again.

“We encourage people to recognize while we don’t have cases now, COVID has not gone away,” warned Flathead County Health Officer and Incident Commander Hillary Hanson.

As restrictions are relaxed under Gov. Steve Bullock’s phased reopening plan, many people are returning to recently reopened big retail stores such as Sportsman & Ski Haus, which reopened its Kalispell and Whitefish locations at the end of April. Sportsman President Joe Power said the stores are “fairly busy for this time of year,” since reopening.

But as shoppers return to stores and other large public spaces, precautions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus might become much harder to enforce.

Power said Sportsman & Ski Haus, for instance, is mostly relying on signs around the store and on the floors to keep people separated and encourage anyone feeling sick to stay home. Neither workers nor shoppers are required to wear masks in the stores, although they are available for employees who choose to wear them. Since reopening, Power said, “the biggest difference is people are more used to social distancing.”

One employee on the floor of the Whitefish Sportsman store reported he and his coworkers feel “totally” comfortable coming to work. He estimated about 50% of the shoppers he has seen have been wearing masks.

A shopper at the store Wednesday afternoon felt similarly.

“I’m really not concerned,” said Kari Jurgens as she shopped for a birthday present for her son. “I feel like everybody’s respectful.”

She guessed about 20 to 25% of the shoppers she had encountered at different stores on her birthday shopping spree had been wearing masks.

HEALTH OFFICER Hillary Hanson said, “we’re seeing very little masking in Flathead County.” She noted the Flathead City-County Health Department has established a special phone line where people can call in complaints of businesses that aren’t following adequate safety precautions, and as of Tuesday they had not heard of any issues. “We’ve received no complaints, so I assume they’re complying accordingly,” she said.

Workers at most retail stores undergo a health screening to check for any possible signs of coronavirus before starting their shift, although multiple workers said they weren’t sure exactly what they would do if they were sent home. At some stores, like Safeway, employees are required to wear masks. But none of the stores the Daily Inter Lake contacted have requirements for mask use by shoppers.

This creates a possible avenue for transmitting the disease in these larger stores with numerous high-touch surfaces, since there is the possibility visitors might carry the disease here from outside the state. Out-of-state visitors are currently required to self-quarantine for 14 days, but Hanson admitted there is no specific mechanism to enforce this requirement.

She said they have focused on installing signs along roadsides, at the airport and at campgrounds, as well as communicating with businesses like hotels where they see a high volume of visitors. Despite these efforts, Power said he has noticed a lot of out-of-state visitors in the Sportsman stores recently, although he pointed out there’s no way of knowing whether these customers have already undergone their 14-day quarantine period.

He said he felt like out-of-state visitors might not be “100% aware” of the requirements they should be following.

“We’re asking not only businesses, but the public to be doing their part to ensure we can continue to move forward,” Hanson said when asked about the personal responsibility to quarantine after traveling or feeling sick. “That’s a huge part of it. Businesses are responsible, but the public is also responsible,” she said.

And business owners like Power say they are doing their best to be responsible while working to recover from the economic impact of the closure. Sportsman had to cancel events like Ladies Night, scheduled for last week, and temporarily suspend practices such as vendor visits. Nonetheless, he said they avoided laying off any employees and they were able to pay all of their staff during the closure, thanks in part to a Payment Protection Plan loan.

Now, he’s just hoping to get things up and running as quickly and carefully as possible. He said there is no hope they will be able to completely make up for the losses caused by the weeks of being closed, but he said, “health is more important than wealth.”

Reporter Bret Anne Serbin may be reached at (406)-758-4459 or bserbin@dailyinterlake.com.