Phase three of the lift­ing of pan­dem­ic re­stric­tions kicks in Mon­day with the long-an­tic­i­pat­ed re­sump­tion of re­tail ac­tiv­i­ties in malls and the coun­try’s com­mer­cial cen­tres.

Op­er­a­tors of small, medi­um and mi­cro en­ter­pris­es, who were hard­est hit when non-es­sen­tial ac­tiv­i­ties were shut down in late March, can now be­gin the process of re­cov­ery. Fam­i­lies that had been with­out in­come will once again be able to make ends meet.

But this is not a re­turn to nor­mal and any who might be so in­clined should im­me­di­ate­ly set aside any no­tions of busi­ness as usu­al. Life will be any­thing but nor­mal for the fore­see­able fu­ture.

The com­ing week will test the ca­pac­i­ty of cit­i­zens to be dis­ci­plined as T&T ten­ta­tive­ly moves to­ward the next phas­es of the re­open­ing and the re­sump­tion of some ac­tiv­i­ties that re­quire close con­tact. In­deed, in­dis­ci­pline will be this na­tion’s down­fall, quick­ly eras­ing all the progress made in flat­ten­ing the COVID-19 curve.

Phase four is due to take ef­fect on June 8 when bar­bers, hair­dressers and spas re­sume op­er­a­tions and do­mes­tic em­ploy­ees re­turn to work. Then in phase five, set to start on June 22, places of wor­ship will re­open as well as beach­es and rivers and sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties will be al­lowed to re­sume.

At every stage, the very chal­leng­ing work of keep­ing the coro­n­avirus out of this coun­try con­tin­ues. Hope­ful­ly, all the warn­ings will be heed­ed, and pre­cau­tions scrupu­lous­ly fol­lowed, in­clud­ing the wear­ing of face masks and main­tain­ing phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing.

This coun­try has record­ed one new COVID-19 case af­ter go­ing more than a month with­out do­ing so. The last time a per­son test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus was on April 27. Now the fig­ure of pos­i­tive cas­es in this coun­try stands at 117. The threat still lurks. There is no way to guar­an­tee that eas­ing the re­stric­tions will not trig­ger a sec­ond wave of in­fec­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO), COVID-19 may nev­er be wiped out en­tire­ly.

That is why the steps to be tak­en over the next few weeks are so crit­i­cal, and the Gov­ern­ment and the pub­lic health au­thor­i­ties must con­tin­ue to pro­vide guid­ance and sup­port.

Work­ers who are re­sum­ing du­ties from Mon­day have ex­pe­ri­enced mas­sive changes to their dai­ly lives, and in many cas­es, those changes have been rapid and abrupt, such as loss of in­come.

Eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty will grad­u­al­ly re­turn but con­di­tions will still be very dif­fer­ent for em­ploy­ees and work­places. The dou­ble blows from a pan­dem­ic and plung­ing com­mod­i­ty prices mean that un­em­ploy­ment and job se­cu­ri­ty is­sues will con­front this coun­try for some time to come.

The re­cent moth­balling of some petro­chem­i­cal plants at Point Lisas are like­ly the ear­ly warn­ing signs of chang­ing labour mar­ket con­di­tions that might get worse. So while some ac­tiv­i­ties are re­sum­ing, the eas­ing of the dis­place­ments suf­fered in many sec­tors might be slow.

So­cial as­sis­tance can­not be phased out at the same pace as the pan­dem­ic re­stric­tions are be­ing eased. The Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion needs to be mind­ful of that fact.

The cri­sis and the pain it in­flict­ed is not yet be­hind us.