In coronavirus crisis, KC Mayor Quinton Lucas proves our worry about him was mistaken

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas knows that with Gov. Mike Parson urging Missourians to feel free to jump on into the pool, literally — woohoo, cannonball! — Lucas won’t be able to keep the stricter and safer local rules in place after the current stay-at-home order expires on May 15.

Though we continue to see new cases and more deaths, Parson now says that as of May 4, Missourians will be able to frequent even hair salons, gyms and tattoo parlors, as well as pools, though social distancing is impossible in such places.

And with messages like that coming from Jefferson City and Washington, D.C., every day it gets harder to keep Kansas Citians from ignoring the existing guidelines, Lucas said in an interview.

So even though in theory, Missouri cities could still uphold and extend stricter rules in response to the coronavirus pandemic, in reality, Lucas doesn’t see that happening. “It would be very difficult to be able to do that,” he said, even though on testing and contact tracing, we’re nowhere near where we need to be to reopen safely.

And “not only are we not there, but I don’t see the federal focus getting us there” anytime soon. When might we have adequate testing to get out in front of the next wave? “By the end of the year,” the mayor said. Gulp.

Meanwhile, “the politics of reopening,’’ — when and how to do so safely — “are a huge challenge in Kansas City, in Missouri, and in the country,” Lucas said. With “Georgia just saying ‘What the hell,’’’ our own governor consistently failing to put safety first and the president’s remarks on the coronavirus so all over the place that one Kansan reportedly drank disinfectant over the weekend based on his advice, “it’s going to be a challenge to stay closed” even until the May 15. “I get tons of messages every day” to that effect, the mayor said.

“God help us if we’re opening salons” and other places where standing apart is not an option soon after that. But since that is what Missouri is doing, Lucas will have to keep working overtime, as he has been, “to remind people that this isn’t about politics or Trump,” and that social distancing and staying home are “still the best approach to saving lives.”

“I fear we’re getting to a point where folks are asking if there’s a tolerable amount of infection, and thus a tolerable amount of death,” he said.

Lucas is right that public patience is almost at an end. Real economic pain coupled with little tolerance for or experience in deferred gratification, much less shared sacrifice, mean many have plain old had it with playing it safe, almost no matter what the consequences. Already, we see porch parties and packs of runners, guys playing soccer at UMKC and unmasked shoppers aplenty.

A Star reader who wrote to the editorial board argued that we just can’t keep businesses from reopening when only “2% of the people testing positive die ... We have got to start getting people back to work [and] if it’s fatal risk-taking then so be it.”

A recent letter to the editor argued that “Our Ivy League mayor doesn’t have a clue about the damage he’s doing to this city,” and called the shutdown “a dream come true for all liberal wannabe dictators.”

Our “Ivy League mayor,” who was homeless for stretches as a kid, knows very well the pain this shutdown is causing. But it’s this cruel disease COVID-19, for which there is still no treatment, no vaccine and maybe not even any immunity for those who have already had it, that has dictated the necessity of his stay-at-home order.

Lucas’ fast, steady, unpanicked response has certainly saved lives, and he deserves our cooperation and our thanks as well.

Still new in his job, our 35-year-old mayor has risen to meet the moment when so many others have not. Our chief reservation about Lucas when he was running for this office was his past reputation as someone who hates to tell anyone what they don’t want to hear.

Maybe as practice, the universe sent him a moment in which he would be forced to tell absolutely everyone what they didn’t want to hear. But he’s done it, consistently putting public health first.

This is only the end of the first chapter in this crisis. But he’s given us confidence that when the history of this pandemic is written, Lucas will be among those who were on the right side of it.

This story was originally published April 28, 2020 at 5:00 AM.