As states throughout the U.S. weigh lifting coronavirus constraints at risk of inducing a 2nd wave of infections, Georgia is reopening the wrong services first, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont told CNBC Tuesday.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican politician, announced Monday that the state will reopen companies on Friday, beginning with retail places such as gyms, barber stores, fitness centers and bowling streets. Kemp’s choice came after a number of states mainly in the South revealed plans to restart parts of their economy.
” I believe the things that come later are the things that Georgia opened up initially, which shocked me, those things that have very close personal contact,” Lamont, a Democrat, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “Bars, restaurants where you’re closed in, most likely even hair salons, nail hair salons, locations where you have close individual contact, there I think we ‘d need to wait until we have a little bit more testing and more masks.”
Kemp’s office did not right away respond to a CNBC request for comment.
On Monday, Kemp said his strategy is to focus on small businesses hardest hit by the lockdown. His relocation came amid a wave of statements mostly by Republican governors about how states will shift into stage among President Donald Trump’s ‘ Opening America Again’ strategy.
Last week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican politician, revealed the resuming of some beaches and parks. Tennessee Gov. Costs Lee, a Republican politician, announced Monday he will not extend the state’s “safer-at-home” order on April 30, enabling most companies to resume on May 1.
” Unlike other organisations, these entities have been not able to handle inventory, handle payroll, and take care of administrative products while we shelter in location,” Kemp said Monday. “This procedure permits them to undertake baseline operations that most other businesses in the state have maintained given that I provided the shelter-in-place order.”
Georgia and Connecticut have roughly the same variety of verified Covid-19 cases, more than 19,000, according to data assembled by Johns Hopkins University. Connecticut’s Covid-19 death toll is almost double that of Georgia. Lamont kept in mind that Connecticut’s distance to the epicenter of the U.S. break out, New york city City, is a danger factor that sets the state apart.
Lamont stated he’s looking at May 20 as a tentative date to begin reopening the state, including that an increased capacity to evaluate for Covid-19 and a greater supply of surgical masks will be crucial.
” I wish to do it cautiously. I don’t wish to have another huge outbreak the likes of which you see in India and Singapore and other locations,” Lamont said. “My impulse is that we’re going to first concentrate on our huge manufacturing and outdoors construction.”
Former Fda Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb echoed Lamont’s concerns about the sectors of company that Georgia has chosen to initially reopen.
” It feels like they collected a list of business that were most risky and decided to open those first,” he said on “Squawk Box.” “I think that we must attempt to focus on trying to bring people back to operate in factories, offices first.”
