‘If That Sounds Insane to You, You’re Not Alone’: Chris Hayes Slams GA Gov’s Move to Re-Open Business With Virus Still Peaking

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s plan to reopen some of his state’s businesses and pull back on social distancing rules, even as the coronavirus cases and deaths have shown little evidence of declining in his state, prompted Chris Hayes to proclaim the move all but deranged.

The MSNBC host began his Tuesday night show by highlighting the nationwide death toll, which has remained stubbornly high even after fatalities appeared to peak earlier in the week, when the virus was claiming roughly 2,000 Americans lives per day. But Hayes noted the positive signs starting to appear, thanks to the near-universal efforts across the country to stop the spread of Covid-19 through rigorous shelters-in-place rules.

“If you want to live, you stay home,” Hayes reiterated. “Today, we lost another 2,500 Americans to this virus. And the idea that we are definitively past the peak, that it’s time to sort of move on, the virus cannot get even worse once we venture back out is not supported by the available evidence. Just today, we saw the biggest jump in coronavirus cases since April 10. The Covid Tracking Project, which has been assembling data and publishing it for all the U.S. states, said coronavirus deaths rose to a new single-day high in their data set today.”

He then turned to Kemp, who just announced that he will begin to implement President Donald Trump’s reopen the economy plan starting on this Friday. But, as Hayes noted, Georgia fails to comply with the Trump administration’s own milestones for moving out of widespread quarantine.

“It requires the state to have a, and I’m quoting here, to have a ‘downward trajectory of documented cases within a 14-day period,’ as well as ‘robust testing in place for at-risk health care workers, including antibody testing,'” Hayes explained. “Those are quite sensible recommendations, and they are in Phase One of the administration’s reopening plan. But it is not clear that any of the states that announced they are reopening meet those Trump administration guidelines.”

The timing of Kemp’s decision to restart his state’s businesses was notably challenged on Tuesday night by Fox News’ Martha MacCallum. And the Georgia governor’s announcement also met with notable criticism from fellow public officials within his state. For example, Bo Dorough, the mayor of Albany which is the epicenter of the coronavirus’s outbreak in Georgia, publicly called out Kemp’s relaxing of stay-at-home restrictions on Tuesday as “the wrong decision.”

“The state will allow reopening of businesses including hair salons, gyms, bowling alleys, nail salons and massage therapy centers, followed by restaurants, and movie theaters on Monday,” Hayes noted, barely hiding his dismay. “If that sounds insane to you, you’re not alone. For the record, Georgia does not meet the White House guidelines. It has tested less than 90,000 people out of a population of more than 10 million. Mayors in Georgia are describing the governor’s decision as reckless, dangerous, and illogical.”

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.

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