Ga. shelter-in-place underway; Cobb emergency extended

Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce on Thursday extended an emergency declaration he ordered last week until April 24, ordered certain non-essential businesses to close and clarified the county’s “shelter in place” provisions.

Grocery stores and other essential businesses also must follow further guidelines to observe social distancing measures to help prevent the spread of Coronavirus.

Effective immediately, the following types of businesses must close:

• Gyms, fitness and recreation centers;
• Hair salons;
• Barber shops;
• Nail salons;
• Waxing salons;
• Tanning salons;
• Spas;
• Tattoo parlors;
• Massage-therapy establishments and massage services;
• All other nonessential businesses in which “social distancing” minimums of six feet between persons cannot be maintained at all times.

Many of those kinds of businesses in East Cobb—commonly called “personal touch” businesses—closed before Boyce’s emergency declaration last week, which initially was scheduled to last until April 15.

But in his order Thursday, (you can read it in its entirety here), Boyce said more businesses that stay open need to do more to help combat the contagious virus and more time needs to transpire for social distancing and other guidelines to have an effect.

Cobb’s confirmed Coronavirus case count now stands at 320, with 17 deaths, and both of those numbers are among the highest in Georgia.

In his order, Boyce also expanded the emergency declaration to require families and individuals to shelter in place at their homes, except to purchase food and to take care of the health and safety of those in their households.

They can leave to work at businesses that are deemed essential during the emergency, to go outside for exercise while maintaining social distancing guidelines, and to visit immediate family members to help with child care or elderly care.

“I want to make absolutely sure that all of our measures help slow the spread of the virus,” Boyce said in a statement released by the county late Thursday afternoon. “Our healthcare system in the county still has capacity, still has available ventilators, so it is important rather than filling those beds and using those ventilators we take all necessary measures to not use up those resources.”

Essential retail businesses that stay open, including grocery stores, will have to post signage and provide public-address updates outlining and reminding customers of social distancing mandates.

Those include maintaining a distance of least six feet between people, discouraging those who are sick from coming to the stores, and coughing into a tissue instead of the open air.

Stores must also regularly disinfect common areas and provide cleaning and disinfecting products in employee areas.

Those businesses also are being encouraged to provide “contactless” points of interaction and purchase, including placing plexiglass around cashier stations (this is happening at Publix stores) and discouraging customers from bringing reusable bags.

Grocers also are being told not to offer product samples and to prevent customers from using self-service items that are food-related.

The other essential retail stores defined in the order include that “support repair or construction work for businesses and homes, and businesses that sell products to support persons working from home, including computers, audio, electronics, IT and telecommunications equipment.”

At a commissioners’ work session Tuesday, Cobb and Douglas Public Health officials urged that county parks remain closed. They were closed before the emergency declaration, and Boyce announced on Friday they would remain so at the direction of the county manager.

Some state parks also have closed, and most federal parks are closed, including the Chattahoochee National Recreation Area.

Also on Thursday, Gov. Brian Kemp provided details of a statewide shelter-in-place to take effect at 6 a.m. Friday. Georgia’s caseload and death count has risen dramatically in the last week, to 5,348 and 163 respectively, with nearly 20 percent of confirmed cases involving hospitalization.

(You can read it here).

Both Boyce and Kemp had been reluctant to shut down businesses, and the governor had come under increasing pressure, with only a few states not already having shelter-in-place orders.

The order he signed Thursday restricts all business and other activities to 10 people or less, observing social distancing measures. Families and individuals must also shelter-in-place except for essential travel and business or immediate family reasons.

Those businesses or operations not deemed to be part of the “critical infrastructure” will be limited to what the order calls “minimum basic operations,” also following social distancing and hygiene and sanitation practices.

Other “personal touch” businesses also must close, including bowling alleys, cinemas and live performance theaters.

The statewide order continues through April 13.

Related Content

• Cobb Coronavirus deaths reach 17, 163 statewide
• Georgia K-12 schools closed for the year; shelter-in-place ordered
• The East Cobb Open for Business Directory
• East Cobb News COVID-19 Resource Page

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