Good day all. Last week President Trump announced a plan to reopen the country for business. I disagree with his idea, (Phased reopening), and favor a simple “Everyone back to work Monday!” approach. Apparently, so does the governor of Oklahoma.
Governor Kevin Stitt has announced that his state is going to just reopen and not bother with the phased reopening that the Rump Administration recommends. This has brought the usual suspects out demanding that he shut everything down again. Governor Stitt isn’t backing down. Here are the details from Fox News:
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt defended his decision to reopen his state’s economy during the coronavirus pandemic, even as his allowances exceed the White House’s recommendations for how soon states should get back up and running.
The Trump administration’s multi-phase plan says that states should not even enter Phase One until they have seen 14 consecutive days of declining cases, which is not the situation in Oklahoma. Stitt is also allowing businesses, including barbershops and beauty salons, to reopen by appointment only, even though Trump recently said he believes they should have to wait longer given the personal nature of their services.
Sorry Mr. President. While I like what you’ve been doing in general, I support the Governor here. People need to get their hair cut, and I’m thinking I may take a drive to Oklahoma and find a barber shop.
“You have to go back and think about why we closed down in the first place,” Stitt told “Fox News Sunday,” stating the shutdown was geared toward specific goals. “You know I’ve issued 15 executive orders since March 15 when I first declared a state of emergency, but it was to build capacity in our hospitals to make sure we didn’t overrun our health care system, it was to build supply for PPE, and it was to flatten the curve. The facts in our state are, March 30 we peaked in hospitalization with 560 across the state. Today we have 300 across the state in our hospitals.”
That is quite low and if the latest reports hold up to scrutiny, it’s very likely that Oklahoma had thousands of people, or more, who were infected with the China Virus and either didn’t show symptoms, or if they did, didn’t realize it was the Wuhan Flu. When we look back on this in the next year, shutting everything down is going to be seen as a major mistake.
Host Chris Wallace referred to Oklahoma State Medical Association president Dr. George Monks, who said that not only has Oklahoma not seen the 14-day downward trajectory in cases, the state has continued to see increases in cases, hospitalizations and deaths over the past week.
“I don’t know exactly who that is,” Stitt said, reiterating that the state has seen a “steady decline since March 30 in hospitalizations,” which is why he is ready to reopen. He said the state is following a “data-driven” approach and “will watch the trends.” If numbers go back up, he said, he reserves the ability to scale back economic activity.
The governor may think he can close things back down, but he may find that people will ignore him. People have had enough of this, and now they are coming to understand that being put under what amounts to house arrest is unconstitutional. (Many lawsuits are being prepared to make sure this never happens again)
When asked about Trump’s statement Wednesday that businesses such as salons remain shuttered for the time being “because safety has to predominate,” Stitt said he agrees that safety should be a focus, but said Oklahoma’s situation is not the same as every other state.
“I can’t speak to what’s happening in other states, but in my state we’re seeing the trending going down, our testing going up, our tracing, we put 80 different testing sites up, we’ve tested over 55,000 folks, our positive tests right now are 6.3 percent, and again 300 hospitalized cases across the state with a capacity for 4,600, we think it’s a reasonable time to reopen.”
Allow me to give you a quote from Benjamin Franklin regarding liberty and safety:
Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Stitt acknowledged that one could always say the state should wait until there are 100 hospitalizations or even none, but “I just don’t think that’s practical.”
Or realistic either. This virus is going to be around for a while. It’s going to be at least a year before they come up with a vaccine. While there are people, usually rich Progressive Liberals and politicians, who might think that’s a great idea to keep Americans under house arrest until a vaccine is ready, the American People don’t. Personally, I think this whole phased opening idea is going to collapse in short order as people and small businesses just take the bull by the horns and reopen for business as fast as they can.
Thatisall
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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