(PresidentialWire.com)- Officials in some states that are experiencing significant coronavirus outbreaks now are saying they re-opened too soon.
They also issued warnings to other states, as their containment efforts are falling way short of the pace of the coronavirus spread. The top elected official in Harris County, Texas, Judge Lina Hidalgo, recently said:
“We don’t have room to experiment. We don’t have room for incrementalism when we’re seeing these kinds of numbers. Nor should we wait for all the hospital beds to fill and all these people to die before we take drastic action.”
On Sunday, the rolling weekly average of daily new coronavirus cases reached 48,606, according to tracking done by The Washington Post. That set a record high for the 27th consecutive day.
In Nevada and Arizona, hospitalizations due to coronavirus reached their highest levels over the weekend. New cases in Florida were above 10,000 on Sunday, the third day in the last seven that they have done so. In the last few weeks, Florida, Texas and California have seen such a rise in cases that they now have the fourth, third and second most cases in the country, respectively.
Florida’s outbreak is getting so bad that it’s “too early to tell” if the Republican National Convention can be safely held in Jacksonville, according to Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. The RNC was just moved from Charlotte, North Carolina, because Republicans couldn’t be assured they’d be allowed to have a full crowd.
“We’ll have to see how this unfolds in Florida and elsewhere around the country,” Hahn said.
Mayor Steve Adler of Austin, Texas, is worried about there being adequate medical personnel to handle the recent spike in cases, if the rate of increase continues.
“If we don’t change this trajectory, then I am within two weeks of having our hospitals overrun,” he said.
Democrats in Texas have been calling on Republican Governor Greg Abbott to allow them to re-impose lockdown orders. As of now, local government officials don’t have the authority to impose restrictions on life that are stricter than Abbott allows. Local officials are allowed to issue “recommendations” to local residents, but that’s it. Hidalgo said this needs to change:
“As long as we’re doing as little as possible and hoping for the best, we’re always going to be chasing this thing. We’re always going to be behind, and the virus will always outrun us. And so what we need right now is to do what works, which is a stay-at-home order.”
Francis Suarez, the Republican mayor of Miami, said it’s “clear that the growth is exponential at this point,” blaming an early re-opening for the spread.
“There’s no doubt that when we re-opened, people started socializing as if the virus didn’t exist,” he said. “It’s extremely worrisome.”
Thus spawns the debate between shutting everything down again in an attempt to flatten the curve (yet again), and what such a move would do to local economies that are already struggling mightily.
