Major Reopening Milestone Hit by All 50 States
All 50 U.S. states have begun to reopen following many weeks of stay-at-home orders aimed at slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Connecticut became the final state to begin lifting restrictions on Wednesday, allowing retail shops and restaurants to reopen.
However, each state is moving at its own pace as governors try to protect their residents while also reopen their economies.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp reopened large parts of Georgia’s economy on April 24, drawing some concern from the White House.
“I told the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, that I disagree strongly with his decision to open certain facilities which are in violation of the phase one guidelines for the incredible people of Georgia,” President Donald Trump said at the time, referring to phase one of his three-phase reopening guidelines.
Other states, like New York, California and Pennsylvania, are allowing locales with a declining number of new cases to reopen while other cities stay closed, CNN reported.
Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois and New Jersey all remain under stay-at-home orders, but some businesses, like retail stores, have been allowed to reopen, according to The New York Times.
Over the weekend, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a 60-page document outlining reopening guidelines for schools, child-care facilities, restaurants and mass transit.
“This guidance sets forth a menu of safety measures, from which establishments may choose those that make sense for them in the context of their operations and local community, as well as State and local regulations and directives,” the document reads.
For schools, the CDC recommends practicing social distancing policies like keeping desks at least six feet apart, cloth masks for staff and daily temperature screenings for everyone.
Restaurants and bars are also recommended to limit the number of people and allow for social distancing.
The White House initially said that the CDC’s recommendations — which came after many states began to reopen — were “overly specific,” The Washington Post reported.
The CDC director said that the worst of the first wave of the coronavirus impact appears to be over and that he is confident the nation’s public health infrastructure will be up the challenges ahead as the nation reopens.
“I want to clarify that the community-based transmission, the community-to-community transmission that overwhelmed the public health departments in late February, March, April, that’s really coming down,” CDC Director Robert Redfield said in an interview with The Hill.
“CDC is putting out guidance,” he said when asked if the nation is ready to start reopening. “We put out a lot over the weekend again about you know how to reopen safely.”
He added that the CDC and the state public health systems will continue to fight outbreaks over the summer, but the U.S. economy could still slowly reopen following the new guidelines.
As of Wednesday, over 1.5 million people have tested positive for COVID-19 in the United States and 92,128 people have died from the disease, according to data from Johns Hopkins.
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