A question on many people's minds is: how is the shutdown impacting the local economy long-term?

"The small businesses around Buffalo are predominantly the bars, the restaurants, and they're the service businesses. So what's making it difficult is that when you have the lockdown, people aren't going to those businesses," says John Thur, investment professional.

He says that some of the small businesses will not reopen after the shutdown. 

"It's unfortunate. A lot of these businesses, service related, are not that deep in cash and that's what they need is cash. The government program is going to be helpful. I think they can probably go to mid-summer some of them, because I think there will be a second phase, because I don't think we can open as quickly as people think we will," said Thur.

He adds that one of the big questions is, "When business does reopen, will people be comfortable going out?"

"So they won't open fully. They won't be ramped up where they were doing businesses in January. They will go gradual and will bring people back gradually. So that's the problem, is how long can they do that, along with being shut down now? And they're trying to provide some cash to these businesses, but I'm not so sure it's going to be enough," said Thur. 

He believes that we won't see business as usual until we have easy, prolific COVID-19 testing and a vaccine. He thinks that is what will make people more comfortable going out again.