The president said that not following the task force’s recommendations “is allowing the virus to spread, prolonging and exacerbating the public health crisis facing the state.”
“I urge you to act quickly and order science-based public health measures,” Clyburn wrote.
The governor’s office had no immediate comment Wednesday and said it had not yet received the letter.
Clyburn also sent letters to the Republican Governors of Florida, Oklahoma and Tennessee, as well as Vice President Mike Pence and Dr. Deborah Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator.
Georgia is among 21 states with outbreaks severe enough to be placed in the “red zone,” according to a federal report obtained by The New York Times. Distributed to state officials by the White House Coronavirus Task Force, the report recommends that Georgia officials “order the use of masks at all current and evolving hot spots, optimally a statewide mandate.”
Kemp, who has encouraged but does not require masks, argues that cities and counties are prohibited from applying rules that are more or less restrictive than his own, and is fighting the city of Atlanta in court for its mask mandate and other measures. focused on the fight. The spread of COVID-19.
In the days leading up to the July 4 holiday weekend, more than 1,400 medical professionals signed a letter urging Kemp to close bars and nightclubs, order masks, and allow local governments to impose stricter restrictions.
Public health experts warned that Kemp was practically inviting a new wave of infections in April when he announced plans to reopen the economy, and experts doubted that the state had an effective infrastructure to evaluate people, trace contacts, and isolate the sick if a new wave arose.
“Everything I have seen we have not been able to establish that infrastructure,” Dr. Harry J. Heiman, an associate clinical professor at the Georgia State University School of Public Health, said in an interview earlier this month. “But for that infrastructure to be effective, we need to step back and reevaluate the reopening.”
Georgia reached nearly 90,000 cases on July 3, just over four months after reporting its first confirmed case. The state’s total cases have nearly doubled in the 26 days since, to 178,323.
On Wednesday, the Georgia Department of Public Health reported more than 3,000 new confirmed cases of coronavirus. The state also reported 79 new deaths attributed to the virus, a total of 3,642 since the start of the pandemic.
Georgia was one of the last states to order residents to shelter-in-place and one of the most aggressive states to reopen, despite state health officials acknowledging that Georgia did not fully meet the control criteria of the White House in late April and May, when the state began to relax. your restrictions
Georgia is among 35 states or territories that have seen the most spread in the past 14 days, according to an analysis by the New York Times.
The task force report recommends that Georgia close bars, nightclubs, and entertainment venues, and limit indoor restaurant dining to less than 25% of capacity. The document also recommends a mandate for the public to wear masks at coronavirus hot spots and “optimally” across the state.
Other recommendations include strengthening testing and contact tracing, expanding laboratory staff and capabilities to reduce response times for test results, and weekly testing of long-term care facility residents and workers.
Testing has expanded in Georgia, but not fast enough to meet demand. Residents complain of long waits to schedule appointments, long lines at assessment centers, and delays of one to two weeks to get results.
Experts say results that are a week or older hamper efforts, such as contact tracing, needed to quickly identify and isolate outbreaks. And when patients must wait days just to get tested and a week or more to get a result, experts say, it only increases the likelihood of transmission.
Earlier this month, Kemp announced that the state has turned to a North Carolina company to provide test supplies and laboratory capacity to process 10,000 test kits per day. The company, Mako Medical, should start speeding up its work soon, a DPH spokeswoman said.
