Gov. Kemp lifting shelter-in place order for most Georgians

The shelter-in-place order Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp extended once already will be expiring right before midnight Friday.

As the clock strikes midnight, and as April gives way to the month of May, most Georgians will be free to roam about their communities a bit more.

In a statement issued Thursday afternoon, Kemp said he’s still urging citizens to stay at home as much as possible and to observe social distancing practices and wear masks when they go out.

Here’s a summary of his new order, which details provisions for businesses that are open, who must remain in shelter-in-place and criteria for currently closed businesses to reopen by May 13.

He thanked citizens for heeding advice to stay home, “affording us time to bolster our health care infrastructure and flatten the curve.

“We were successful in these efforts, but the fight is far from over,” Kemp said.

As of noon Thursday, Georgia had reported 26,155 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 Coronavirus, with 1,120 deaths and 5,156 hospitalizations. Of the latter, there were 1.171 intensive care admissions.

In Cobb County there are 1,599 cases and 91 deaths, with 464 hospitalizations.

Georgia has a population of 10.6 million people but has conducted only 149,000 tests for the virus.

In addition, those businesses allowed to reopen over the last week must continue to follow proscribed safety and sanitation regulations, including social distancing guidelines, through May 13.

That’s when statewide a public health emergency was due to expire. However, Kemp on Thursday said he would extend that order through June 12.

Under that order, elderly citizens (aged 65 and older) and “medically fragile Georgians” must continue to follow shelter-in-place rules.

Kemp said extending the public health emergency is also being done to continue testing for the virus, begin contact tracing and provide for adequate emergency response operations.

Senior living, nursing-home and long-term care facilities will be ordered to follow “enhanced infection control protocols” through June 12.

“My decisions are based on data and advice from health officials,” Kemp said. “I will do what is necessary to protect the lives and livelihoods of our people.”

Kemp’s actions to allow some personal touch businesses and restaurants to reopen in the last week has generated plenty of controversy.

On Thursday, Dr. Karen Landman, an Atlanta-based writer and epidemiologist, wrote in an op-ed piece in The New York Times that Georgia’s reopening, the first by a state in the country, has been mishandled.

She accused the governor of using selected data to guide his decision and said overall numbers are still too high.

“It’s not just about having favorable data, or even enough testing,” she wrote. “It’s about having the right infrastructure to assess it and ensure sustained decreases in cases.”

At The Atlantic, Lassiter High School graduate Amanda Mull made similar points in an article published Wednesday with the headline “Georgia’s Experiment With Human Sacrifice.”

Mull, who now lives in Brooklyn, talked to health experts and small business owners in the state, including Sabra Dupree of Kids Kuts Salon in East Cobb, and concluded that “Georgia’s brash reopening puts much of the state’s working class in an impossible bind: risk death at work, or risk ruining yourself financially at home.”

Related Content

• East Cobb business openings/changes 4.30.20
• The East Cobb Open for Business Directory
• East Cobb News COVID-19 Resource Page

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