Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Tuesday said his state’s hospitals will be forced to shut down if he lets local leaders set their own coronavirus-related restrictions.
“When you have local officials that [are] going beyond the executive orders during this public state of emergency trying to pull our economy back — what that will do [is] it will shut our hospitals down,” Mr. Kemp said on “Fox & Friends.” “They cannot afford that financially.”
“Before, when the economy shut down two metro Atlanta hospital systems laid off almost 30,000 health care workers. I mean, that is insane that we would do that during a pandemic,” Mr. Kemp said.
Mr. Kemp said he is encouraging people to wear masks when they can’t practice social distancing.
“So that’s why we’re trying to do both — protect lives. I agree — wear a mask,” he said. “Socially distance yourself. Enforce and follow the existing guidelines that we have in place and let’s continue to flatten the curve.”
Mr. Kemp is suing Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms over a city mask mandate and is trying to block Ms. Bottoms and other local leaders from instituting rules that conflict with his executive orders on the coronavirus crisis.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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