Alabama Gov Rebuffs GOP Pressure To Reopen State

The Birmingham News reports:

Gov. Kay Ivey did not announce plans to reopen the state in today’s press conference. Ivey said the state’s stay at home order will remain in place at least through April 30.

“Keep doing what you are doing,” Ivey said. “I am as eager as anyone to get our economy back open and operating on all cylinders again. We have to do it in a smart way.”

The statements come as Ivey is under growing pressure to reopen businesses and healthcare facilities shuttered for more than a month due to the coroanvirus pandemic. Governors in Tennessee and Georgia announced yesterday they were reopening portions of their economies.

Columnist Kyle Whitmore writes:



Rep. Mo Brooks assembled a crack team, charged with making a plan to reopen Alabama’s economy. Its 14 members included a dentist, a gastroenterologist, an orthopedic surgeon and an Alabama lawmaker who has been fighting for years to execute more prisoners in this state, even if that means bringing back the electric chair.

What was missing from Brooks’ committee? Anyone with a background in epidemiology, public health or infectious diseases. Brooks, of course, has a troubled relationship with science. In Congress, he’s argued that sea-level rise isn’t the result of climate change but, rather, rocks falling in the water.

And as recently as late February, he argued on Twitter that only the government-run health care systems of foreign countries had coronavirus fatalities and America’s private system had a perfect record. “American healthcare: ZERO dead. Think about it,” he said on Feb. 26.