Atlanta Mayor Blasts GA Governor’s ‘Baffling’ Response to Surging Pandemic Numbers: ‘I Am Disgusted’
Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who, along with her husband and one of her children, recently tested positive for Covid-19, blasted her state’s Republican Governor, Brian Kemp, for his “baffling” response to the surging pandemic.
Georgia’s Covid case load has risen sharply since mid-June, and just set two, single-day records for new positive cases over the past weekend. And a majority of the state’s cases are centered around the Atlanta metro area. But when Bottoms, a Democrat, tried to implement new, stricter rules to combat the spiking viral spread, Kemp shot down her efforts.
“You say, ‘Look, we got to take a step back. Stay home except for essential trips. Wear the mask is a must. Restaurants only doing to-go and delivery,” CNN host Chris Cuomo noted. “The governor says: ‘Slow down. We don’t need it.’ Overrules you. Your take?”
“It is baffling to me that the governor, who did not know that this was even transmitted through asymptomatic transmission is still not looking at the science and the data,” Bottoms said. “I didn’t pull this out of the air. We had an advisory commission a few months ago that was comprised of Fortune 500 business representatives, small business owners, people from public health entities, across the board representative of the community. We work with Bloomberg associates to come up with a set of metrics that would determine how Atlanta moved through phases of reopening. We had moved to phase two per the data and the metrics, based on where we are with ICU capacity, based on where we are with transmission rates, based on a number of scientific, independently vetted data. We’ve now had to go back to phase one. I took no joy in going back to phase one.”
“Can you go if he says no? If he says no…” Cuomo asked.
“We certainly can as a city, and in the world’s busiest airport, which we own and operate, we can also mandate masks because it is a city-owned asset,” Bottoms pointed out. “That has been supported by Delta air lines. It’s one of our largest job centers in the state. So, that’s going to make a big difference in our state.”
“Why does Atlanta’s mayor need help from New York when it comes to testing?” Cuomo noted. “You’re a big state. You’ve got a red governor. Why isn’t it coming from the federal, why isn’t it coming from the state?”
“That’s the million dollar question, Chris. And we didn’t have to look to Italy to see where we were headed in this country. We could look to New York,” Bottoms explained. “When I look at the numbers in this state, I am disgusted by them. I am seeing numbers and rates of infection going up in ways that I have not seen since April. And they’re jumping even faster by the day. What angers me, on top of all of the death and sickness, to have to look at our children and tell them they likely will not be able to go back to school in the fall because we had all of spring, we had all of summer, we said to our kids, ‘Hang in there, it’s going to be fine come fall, and we’re back to where we started. In Georgia, I hate to say it, but it looks like we’re going to be even worse than we were in the spring if this transmission continues at this rate.”
Watch the video above, via CNN.
