This little county clustered with 3 or 4 other rural Georgia counties with similar stats obviously has not followed the lead of their country but rather the lead of their illustrious Governor who until a few days ago "just learned that Covid-19 could be passed by asymptomatic people". I expect that every Sunday has been the same as always and they are looking to boost their number of cases this coming Easter Sunday. They have over 1300 confirmed cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 residents. By contrast Detroit Wayne County has over 500 and Miami-Dade has 225 per 100,000 residents. WTF? Tracking Covid-19 cases in the US
Wow that is high...100 cases in a county of 7700. Did they have some kind of big social gathering before lockdown? Are the churches disobeying recommendations? I looked up the county site and it DOES look like the county officials are taking this seriously, though you could debate specific items on their order (see below). They issued a shutdown of gatherings, bars, restaurants, etc. and a curfew pretty much when everyone else did (March 26). "The state of emergency was declared effective Monday, March 23, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. and conditions were modified by a second emergency declaration on Thursday, March 26. The county has issued the following directives as part of this emergency declaration: Public gatherings bringing together, or likely to bring together, more than 10 people at the same time in a single room or single confined indoor or outdoor space are prohibited. This includes stadiums, auditoriums, tents, outdoor arenas, back yards, meeting halls, conference rooms, private homes or any other confined area. Restaurants may only provide takeout, delivery or drive-through services. Bars, taverns and private clubs must close and remained closed., Indoor recreation areas must close and remained closed. These include gyms, health clubs, indoor amusement facilities, bowling alleys, pool halls, theaters or any similar facility. Grocery stores, shopping centers and other retail establishments may remain open but must limit access to no more than 50 percent of approved occupancy. All businesses must close at 8 PM. Employees may remain to complete essential duties. Church services may be determined by the pastor, reverend or leadership of each individual church, but officials recommend that such services to be attended by 10 or more people be cancelled or rescheduled. A mandatory curfew is ordered between the hours of 10 PM and 6 AM during which all persons in the county must remain at home. This curfew does not apply to anyone performing emergency or first responder services, official government services, law enforcement services, rescue services, safety services, health services, essential utility services or military services. The curfew does not apply anyone traveling to and from work or engaging in lawful employment or traveling to a from receiving medical care. Residents of Randolph County, the City of Cuthbert and the City of Shellman will be given additional time to pay water and utility bills, but all balances must be made current by April 21, 2020, unless the payment day is otherwise extended. Violations of this order will be a misdemeanor punishable with a fine not exceeding $1,000 and/or imprisonment for 180 days, or both. The Randolph County Sheriff's Office and the Cuthbert Police Department will enforce these provisions. Public health officials advise that large gatherings of people pose a risk of the spread of COVID-19 and the CDC recommends that people maintain a distance of six feet from others when possible."
Not to be racist but the county is 61% black.... and votes Democratic by the way.... and blacks have had the biggest issue with Covid. My wife is from Detroit and I know Detroit and we have assumed the problem in Detroit is similar.... that the black population is either unable to socially distance or doesn't care to enough. And if all of us try to come back to normal life too early per Trump's wishes then that could be all of us in the general population with these high infection rates.
He will be damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. I am praying for him to make a good decision. When he does it won’t be attributed to his desire to get the little guys back on their feet. It will be attributed to his listening to his Wall Street buddies.
Trump's empathy for the downtrodden and unfortunate has never been his strong suit. Those that fall in the category who are the grunt workers of the country and yet support Trump however have always looked at the situation with self-denial..... they don't see themselves in that light. It's amazing how the GOP has parlayed religion and government conservatism plus some media driven paranoia into galvanizing that base of underprivileged voters. So that said.... I agree with you.... it's the Wall Streeters that ultimately drive him when he factors economics in with the Covid variable with regard to that decision he must make. I hate being cooped up as much as anyone else but my wife and I discussed it today and our plan is to wait at least 30 days past society getting back to "normal" before we join in because we just don't want to have Trump apologizing later about the premature decision to go back and now he's sorry so many additional people had to die or be hospitalized and we're part of that cold hard statistic. We've put too much into this already just to wind up as a failed strategy statistic later on.
Got ya Stu.... that would be correct too. I doubt any of his medical advisors would fully sign off on an early return to normal life.