I Know It Sounds Insane, But Brian Kemp Actually Wants To Kill Georgians-- And He's Getting Away With It

Georgia was one of the early, hard-hit states in the pandemic. But unlike other early states, Georgia is led by a right-wing ideologue, Brian Kemp, who learned nothing at all about public health and seems to care no a whit about the residents of his state. While the coronavirus is under control in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut and the other early states, Georgia's pandemic is bigger than ever.

Wednesday, Georgia reported the 4th biggest one-day new cases in the country, right below Texas, Florida and California-- and worse off than Arizona! Georgia had 3,871 new cases and a ghastly 12,040 cases per million Georgians-- worse than any country in Europe. On Thursday it was 3,441 new cases, bringing the state's total to 131,275, eighth worst in the country-- and a rapidly increasing 12,364 cases per million Georgians.

Yesterday the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that Trump ass-licker Brian Kemp, who, as Secretary of State, stole the gubernatorial election in 2018, banned "cities and counties from adopting rules requiring masks or other face coverings, a measure that could bolster the state’s case in a possible legal battle... The governor has called such a requirement 'a bridge too far' and his office has said local mandates are unenforceable... [T]he new set of rules he signed on Wednesday specified for the first time that cities and counties can’t require the use of masks or other face coverings."

COVID-Kemp with friend

That could improve the state’s standing in a courtroom fight against a string of cities that have defied Kemp’s emergency order by requiring masks. Savannah led that charge earlier this month, and since then other cities including Atlanta, Athens and Augusta have followed suit.

...Hours before Kemp took action, his Republican counterpart in Alabama, Gov. Kay Ivey, announced a statewide mask requirement that will take effect Thursday. Meanwhile, Walmart and Sam’s Club said they would require shoppers to begin wearing masks Monday.

Also Wednesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Twitter that New York will send 7,500 COVID-19 test kits, 30,000 pieces of personal protective equipment and 1,250 gallons of hand sanitizer to Atlanta by Friday. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who earlier this week sought the state’s help amid a mounting feud with Kemp, said she was grateful.

...The rate of new tests that are positive for the disease is soaring, an indication that experts say suggests the spread of the disease-- and not increased testing-- is the culprit. During the week of May 24, state public health officials reported the rate of positive tests was about 6% over the course of seven days. Last week, the positivity rate was more than 13%, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of state data shows.

Even though the new wave of COVID-19 patients tends to be younger and less sick, they are filling hospital beds at a rapid clip. Hospitalizations topped Georgia's prior peak in April after the Fourth of July weekend. Shares of open critical care beds in regions surrounding Athens, Dublin, Macon, Marietta, Savannah and Tifton have dipped into the single digits. Only one was left in Dublin, according to the most recent figures available.

Disease experts at Georgia Tech and elsewhere have warned that Georgia is running out of time to prevent surges of cases that have overwhelmed hospitals in Florida, Arizona and other states that eased restrictions. This month, more than 1,400 health care workers signed an open letter calling on Kemp to shut down bars and restaurants, ban indoor gatherings of more than 25 people, mandate masks, and free local governments to institute their own rules to halt the spread of the disease.

“It’s not too late to go back to the basics: mandatory masks, more restrictions on social distancing, freeing mayors to manage their local epidemics, and vastly expanding testing and contact tracing,” Dr. Melanie Thompson, principal investigator of the AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta, said last week. “These are basic, but we haven’t come close to mastering them yet.”

Dr. Harry J. Heiman, a clinical associate professor at Georgia State University School of Public Health, said: “In the absence of aggressive action, it’s only going to get worse.”

Seems like the worst possible time to tell local governments that they can't mandate masks

Teresa Tomlinson, former mayor of Georgia's second largest city, sees right through Kemp and his cronies "Georgia Republicans," she told me yesterday, "give a lot of lip service to local governments being the 'labortories of democracy.' They don’t believe that-- never have. Republicans want ideological enforcement at the state level. Kemp’s lawsuit against Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms’ mask mandate fully demonstrates their hypocrisy. Kemp’s insistence that an individual’s freedom to wear a mask, or not, is more important than another person’s right to survive is absurd. People will die as a result of this foolishness."

Wisely, Athens and Clarke County are ignoring Kemp, the same way the Bay Area counties ignored California Gov. Gavin Newsom when the pandemic began (and are all faring much better than the counties that went along with Newsom's cowardly go-slow approach).

Athens Mayor Kelly Girtz on Thursday said that the face-covering ordinance that took effect July 9, “remains on the books.”

County commissioners unanimously approved the ordinance on July 7, and the ordinance remains in effect until Aug. 4, unless extended.

“I have been in regular communication with mayors in several other Georgia cities with mask requirements, and we wish for our local requirements to remain in place. We strongly believe this is within our authority,” Girtz said.

“On the practical matter of mask requirements, it is impossible to simultaneously want a successful economy without allowing the tools-- such as masks-- that will create the vehicle for this success. Otherwise, we risk continued shutdowns and medical crisis. Governors in Alabama, Texas and North Carolina recognize this, as do health experts from throughout the globe,” the mayor said.

According to the Girtz, the police department and county Code Enforcement Division have been told to not issue summonses during the first week of the ordinance’s roll-out, and instead “simply seek compliance” and distribute masks to people who don’t have them.

Kemp’s order that bans local governments from requiring mask wearing came as Georgia continued to see a high level of new COVID-19 infections.

Kemp was among the first governors to ease earlier restrictions, and while infections declined for weeks afterwards, they began to rise in June.

...In Athens-Clarke County there have been 1,045 confirmed cases, 74 hospitalizations and 15 deaths, according to the DPH.

According to Harvard Global Health Institute’s Covid Risk level, Athens-Clarke County is at 25.4 new daily cases per 100,000 residents, putting the county at “Covid Risk Level: RED TIPPING POINT Stay-at-home orders necessary.”

The state reports that 84 percent of available hospital critical beds are in use.

...The Athens face-covering ordinance is an attempt to slow the spread of the disease, which has shown no signs of abating. The measure requires that people cover their noses and mouths while in public.

A first and second violation or the ordinance is punishable by a $25 fine, and the third and subsequent violations are punishable by a $100 fine.

My friend Bertis Downs lives in Athens. Yesterday, he wrote that "With the reality of community spread so bad that Republican leaders in West Virginia and Alabama, not to mention Walmart and Kroger, have required masks, the one thing public health professionals say we can all do to help beat the damned virus. But not in Georgia-- nope, our governor has decided to pick that fight after all. He says local mask ordinances in 15 Georgia cities are now void. That's what he says. Maybe at some point a court will be asked to decide. If so, I wonder if Kemp will do better in his deposition that he's done before-- it has to do with working memory, or something: AJC: "By the time his deposition concluded, Kemp had answered 'I don’t recall,' 'I don’t remember,' 'I don’t know,' or some variation at least 91 times. 'To the best of my knowledge,' Kemp replied to one question, 'I don’t recall that.'" From the AP story: "The Republican governor has instead been trying to encourage voluntary mask wearing, including telling fans that reduced infections from mask-wearing would make college football season possible."

Maybe Brian Kemp needs to be impeached and removed from office before he kills even more Georgians? Oh, that's right... most members of the state legislature are as crazy, bigoted and ignorant as Kemp is.