Governors Are Already Trying To Open States Back Up In The Midst Of The Coronavirus Pandemic

The governors of Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee reported separately on Monday (April 20) that they would join states like Minnesota and Ohio in starting to relax restrictions on stay-at-home orders, which are intended to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, the New York Times announced. Experts are worried that premature openings will build a new wave of infections and endanger more people.


Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster will open several non-essential businesses, including beaches, on Tuesday (April 21), NBC News announced. And Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee determined to not extend the state’s stay-at-home order past April 30; he also mentioned some non-essential companies will start reopening as early as next week, according to the Tennessean. “For the good of our state, social distancing must continue, yet our economic shutdown cannot,” Lee said.


In Georgia, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp will open nail salons, massage therapists, bowling alleys, and gyms on Friday (April 24) and restaurants and movie theaters on Monday (April 27), CNN announced. Not each person in the state supports Kemp’s move, though, including Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms who mentioned she was “perplexed” that the state plans to reopen.


“I can't stress enough, I work very well with our governor, and I look forward to having a higher class of understanding of what his reasoning is,” Bottoms said. “But as I look at the information and as I talk with our public health officials, I don't visualize that it's based on anything that's logical.”


As of this article’s publish time, there really are nearly 800,000 confirmed cases of the virus and more than 42,000 announced deaths In the
U.S., The Washington Post announced, yet that hasn’t cleared up contention involving keeping social distancing protocols into effect in the task to curb a public health crisis. The White Home has been leading the charge in calling to lessen restrictions in an apparent task to revive the economy; President Donald Trump reported tips on Thursday (April 16) for states to begin a “safe, gradual and phased opening” of the economy in states like Texas, Vermont, and Ohio, USA Today reported.


Nevertheless nearly 60 percent of Residents of the United States mentioned they are more worried that soothing stay-at-home restrictions would lead to more coronavirus-related deaths than they are worried that the boundaries would hurt the economy, a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed. And Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned that calming restrictions also soon risks a new spike in infections.


“I think the message is that, clearly, this is something that is hurting from the standpoint of economics, from the standpoint of things that have nothing to do with the virus,” Fauci mentioned, according to USA Today. “But, unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery, economically, isn't gonna happen.”


States are being forced to pick between the public health or the economy, in part because of the lack of federal support: The funds supplied to small agencies by the CARES Act have already been depleted, and Congress is working to pass further legislation to help Residents of the United States in need. Meanwhile, several states are working in tandem with their neighbors to share supplies and coordinate soft reopening efforts in the distant future: California, Washington, and Oregon are working in coordination, as are New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island.