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Trump-aligned states ready to reopen for business from this week
Washington: The governors of several US states - including close allies of President Donald Trump - are moving to rapidly reopen businesses and churches as protests against government-mandated lockdowns spread throughout the country.
The Republican Governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, has announced that gyms, churches, bowling alleys, tattoo parlours, barbers and nail salons would be allowed to reopen by the end of the week in his state.
Dine-in restaurants and movie theatres would be able to reopen at the start of next week, he said.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has announced that businesses can begin reopening in his state this week. Credit: AP
The decision is at odds with Trump administration guidelines that say states should only begin restarting their economies when they have seen a reduction in confirmed cases over 14 days. Confirmed cases in Georgia, a state of 10 million people, have still been rising each day. According to state health officials, 775 residents have died and 3703 are hospitalised after contracting COVID-19.
"By taking this measured action, we will get Georgians back to work safely, without undermining the progress we all have made in this battle against COVID-19," Kemp said. "Today's announcement is a small step forward and should be treated as such."
Kemp, a close ally of the President, said that businesses would have to screen employees for signs of illness, require more hand washing and enforce physical distancing.
Shirley Sessions, the mayor of Tybee Island, a coastal city near Savannah, said the announcement came as a shock to her.
She said she was hoping the governor would extend the state-wide stay-at-home order until mid May.
"Is our community really ready, are our businesses really ready to take this on?" she asked.
Hundreds of protesters gathered outside Minnesota Governor Tim Walz's official residence last week to protest against the state's stay-at-home order.Credit: Glen Stubbe
Stacey Abrams, a Democrat who narrowly lost the governor's race to Kemp in 2018, called the decision to reopen "dangerously incompetent".
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, also a Republican, announced that his state's stay-at-home order would finish at the end of April, and that some businesses would be able to reopen this week.
Henry McMaster, the Republican Governor of South Carolina, announced that furniture, clothing and jewellery stores could operate in his state as long as they limited customers to 20 per cent of fire capacity.
Trump essentially gave governors his blessing to reopen when they please last week, telling them on a conference call: "You are going to call your own shots".
Earlier in the day Dr Anthony Fauci, the US government's top infectious disease expert, warned that reopening businesses prematurely would lead to another sudden rise in infections.
"So what you do if you jump the gun and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you’re going to set yourself back," he said on Good Morning America.
"So as painful as it is to go by the careful guidelines of gradually phasing into a reopening, it's going to backfire - that’s the problem."
Protests demanding a return to normality continue to break out across the country, even as polls show a majority of Americans favour a continuation of physical distancing rules.
Around 2000 people protested in Harrisburg, the state capital of Pennsylvania, on Monday (Tuesday AEST) to demand an end to the state's quarantine laws.
"We each feel that we are responsible citizens,” Matthew Bellis, one of the protest organisers, said. "We are adults and want to be treated as such."
Similar protests have been held in Maryland, Colorado, Minnesota, Michigan, Washington and other states. Many have been organised by gun-rights advocates and conservative activists on Facebook.
The social media company, which has been under pressure to police harmful content and misinformation related to the pandemic, said it would take down anti-quarantine protest events if they defied government guidelines. On Monday it said that it has removed events in Nebraska, New Jersey and California promoting protests against stay-at-home measures.
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, said he planned to gradually reopen his state's economy on May 8.
Six in 10 Americans are worried about the US economy being restarted too quickly compared to three in 10 who are worried about it being done too slowly, a poll released on the weekend by NBC and The Wall Street Journal found.