As the rate of new infections and deaths from the coronavirus slowed in parts of the country on Monday, some local governments began to ease stay-at-home restrictions while others pleaded with residents to stay put amid scattered protests in support of reopenings.
In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp outlined an aggressive reopening plan Monday, saying that gyms, salons, bowling alleys and some other indoor businesses could reopen Friday with social distancing plans in place. Kemp also said he would release guidelines this week that would let restaurants — but not bars or clubs — open on April 27.
“I don’t give a damn about politics now,” said Kemp, a Republican. The governor said he was concerned about residents “going broke worried about whether they can feed their children and make the mortgage payment.”
A model by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington showed that Georgia may have reached its peak of the pandemic in early April. But the state, where at least 733 people have died, also lags behind others in its testing capabilities.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned Americans on Monday against trying too quickly to return to normal.
“It’s going to backfire,” Fauci said in an interview on “Good Morning America.” “That’s the problem.”
Texas state parks also reopened, as did beaches in South Carolina, both with physical distancing rules in place.
But in New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned Monday that although the state appears to be moving past the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the possibility of “horrifically high” death rates remains if restrictions ease too fast.
In New York City, the worst-hit place in the country, Mayor Bill de Blasio said that health care workers could run out of surgical gowns by next week. Underlining the continued crisis in the city, the mayor canceled permits for major public events in June, which included New York’s LGBTQ Pride March and Puerto Rican Day Parade.
Statewide in New York, officials reported 478 people died Sunday of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. That’s a drop from a week ago, when the disease killed close to 800 people each day. Hospitalizations have also declined in the state.
President Donald Trump has pushed for states to ease restrictions and reopen, and promised over the weekend to rapidly ramp up the testing needed to ensure it is safe to do so.
On Sunday, he said at a White House briefing that the country would “have so many swabs you won’t know what to do with,” referring to nasal coronavirus testing kits. Vice President Mike Pence said states could double the 150,000 tests per day they are conducting.
But health experts and governors, including some Republicans, have warned that much higher testing capacity is needed in order to quickly detect new outbreaks once economic activity resumes. One Democrat, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, has called Trump’s views on reopening “delusional.”
In his Monday interview, Fauci acknowledged the economic havoc that efforts to contain the virus have caused.
“The message is that clearly this is something that is hurting, from the standpoint of economics and the standpoint of things that have nothing to do with the virus,” he said.
The U.S. still lags behind other nations in coronavirus testing even as it leads the world in number of infections and deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
Nearly 41,000 people have died.