Georgia Mayor Says Governor Kemp Made ‘Wrong Decision’ on Re-Opening Some Businesses
Albany, Georgia Mayor Bo Dorough criticized Governor Brian Kemp’s decision to reopen some businesses on CNN, calling it the “wrong decision” based on areas of the state that have not yet been hit as hard by the coronavirus.
“Let me first say that I understand the governor had a difficult decision to make. I do, however, think he made the wrong decision,” declared Dorough on CNN, Tuesday morning. “And on three levels, as a citizen, we need to understand that reopening the economy should be guided by benchmarks and not dates. That reopening the economy should be a gradual and controlled process, and that’s not what we’re seeing here.”
“For instance, barber shops, beauty shops, nail salons… There is no way to maintain social distancing in these places, and in Georgia, we have a serious problem in our nursing homes. It appears that a third of our deaths are in nursing homes,” he explained, adding, “I have a problem as a Georgian because I believe that the deceleration of infection is attributable to the shelter in place ordinance order that the governor entered earlier this month.”
Governor Kemp announced on Monday the loosening of coronavirus lockdown restrictions, revealing that “gyms, fitness centers, bowling alleys, body art studios, barbers, cosmetologists, hair designers, nail care artists, estheticians, their respective schools & massage therapists can reopen Friday,” due to “favorable data” and an increase in testing.
“And thirdly, as an elected official, I’m very concerned that the governor has prohibited us from implementing measures which might be appropriate to our locale,” Dorough continued, before saying that he will “implore the governor’s office to make an exception to Albany and Dougherty County, and hopefully Southwest Georgia.”
Dorough noted, “If you look at a map, you will see that the density of infection is highly localized in the state, and as it was mentioned earlier, here in Albany we were already consumed by the virus when we realized what the problem was. We’re rapidly approaching and probably will exceed this week 100 deaths in our county, and the surrounding counties the total is over 60. So we understand how bad this virus can be.”
“Unfortunately, many areas of the state which have only a handful of infections are, I believe, too anxious to return to normalcy because they have not yet born the brunt of this pandemic,” he concluded.
Watch above via CNN.
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