Wow. Just wow. This is not going to end well folks.
In a Monday afternoon press conference, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp laid out his plan to reopen Georgia businesses, beginning Friday, April 24. That includes allowing movie theaters to reopen and restaurants to resume dine-in service on Monday, April 27, with stricter sanitation and health and safety protocols in place.
Businesses like gyms, hair salons and barbers, nail salons, and bowling alleys can resume business on Friday. For now, bars, nightclubs, sports stadiums, and entertainment venues across the state must remain closed.
Kemp says new health and safety guidelines for the state’s restaurants and businesses should be released later this week. They will likely include “minimum basic operations, social distancing and regular sanitation” measures, like screening workers for fevers and COVID-19 symptoms, requiring employees to wear gloves and masks when appropriate, staggering shifts, and allowing a distance of six feet or more between workstations.
“I see the terrible impact of COVID-19 on public health, as well as the pocketbook,” he says of why he’s choosing to ease off some of the restrictions on businesses earlier than expected. “I can tell you I don’t give a damn about politics right now, we’re talking about somebody that has put their whole life into building a business.”
In a tweet during the press conference, House District 89 representative Bee Nguyen didn’t mince words on Kemp’s intention to ease off statewide COVID-19 restrictions, “Did I miss the memo that Georgia has COVID under control? There are outbreaks at our poultry plant, Plant Vogtle, and churches. Yet, we are re-opening gyms, restaurants, and in-service churches? And pre-empting local control? What did I miss here?”