PHOENIX (AP) - Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and his staff had no shortage of advice when he was considering reopening the state following a six-week coronavirus shutdown that ended in mid-May.
The business community, including the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry as well as a national small business lobbying group, the National Federation of Independent Business, were among those sending letters to the Republican governor offering their take on what they needed.
The Chamber specifically asked Ducey for liability protections for businesses should their staff or customers contract the disease. It also asked for flexibility in rules the governor would lay out for reopening and for more financial support for small businesses.
The Chamber had pulled together a “task force” to present recommendations to the governor, according to letters sent by top chamber executives.
A spokesman for the Chamber said he didn’t know the extent to which Ducey’s administration relied on its recommendations, but he praised the state’s approach as “responsible.”
“We understand there’s been — just like in every state — plenty of speed bumps along the way,” said Garrick Taylor, the chamber’s executive vice president. “But there has been a desire from the administration to ensure there were as few interruptions in the economy as possible, with a focus on ensuring public health all along.”
The letters were contained in nearly 175 pages of communications with the governor’s office provided to The Associated Press in response to a public records request. In May, the AP filed records in every state seeking copies of communications between governors’ offices and health, business and local government organizations during a critical period when they were considering reopening plans after coronavirus shutdowns.
Thousands of pages of emails show that governors were inundated with reopening advice from a wide range of industries, and sometimes allowed businesses to help write the rules for their own operations.
In Arizona, other key groups seeking the governor’s ear were associations representing hospitals, nursing homes and physicians.
The Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association, in particular, was pushing hard for Ducey to allow its members to restart elective surgeries that were blocked in mid-March to save scarce personal protective equipment. He allowed them to restart on April 22 after hospitals -which had laid off staff and suffered big financial losses - lobbied hard for exemptions to the executive order.
Patrick Ptak, the governor’s spokesman, acknowledged regular communications with interest groups, but said public health interests were always at the forefront of decisions.
“Whether its business owners, or religious community leaders, leaders of our banks, you name it, we’ve sought to listen and gather feedback,” Ptak said Friday. “But our decisions have been driven by public health and what’s best for public health and how we can best keep Arizonans safe and healthy.”
The governor was criticized after nightclubs and bars became packed with patrons soon after he ended his stay-home order on May 15. Many health experts said those types of gatherings led to a surge of cases that forced new lockdowns in late June.
The Arizona Medical Association sent a letter to Ducey on May 22 saying people in bars were not social distancing and urging him to continue to stress that people should keep their distance from one another and wear masks.
“Now, there is proof of overcrowded bars, people elbow to elbow, increasing significant risk of potential spread and a resurgence of the virus,” the association’s president, Dr. Ross Goldberg, wrote to the governor. “While we recognize that enforcement of these guidelines is not the easiest task to accomplish, we reiterate that they are of vital importance.”
Ducey didn’t act, bars remained open, and a surge of cases followed that turned Arizona into a national virus hotspot.
The medical association’s CEO, Libby McDannell, followed up with a June 15 email to a Ducey adviser and state Health Services Department Director Dr. Cara Christ asking for a meeting to discuss the concerns of their member physicians.
“There is a lot of frustration that the public is not adhering to the recommended guidance — and it is resulting in the surging numbers we are seeing,” McDannell wrote.
Two days later, Ducey allowed cities and counties to order people to wear face masks in public. On June 29, he ordered bars, nightclubs and gyms to again close. Cases then began dropping significantly.
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Associated Press writer David A. Lieb in Jefferson City, Missouri, contributed to this report.
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