ELGIN, S.C. – With South Carolina's first coronavirus hot spot just a short jaunt up the highway, Johellen Lee hadn't been out for anything but groceries for nearly a month. “I looked like a hag,” she said.
So she headed to see her best friend and hair stylist Erica Nealy at her beauty salon in Elgin — one of the businesses that local and state governments across the South are arguing about whether to keep open as they seek to limit the spread of COVID-19. “This job is essential to me.
It's essential to buying my groceries and paying my bills,” said Nealy, wearing a disposable mask and gloves — one pink and one black — after spraying the salon chair with a bleach solution for her next customer Friday.