Is Governor Kemp murdering people by reopening Georgia "too soon"?

'Experiment in human sacrifice' fails to materialize as GOP governor reopens Georgia

But since May 1, the daily count of confirmed cases and deaths have dropped markedly. As of Wednesday, the seven-day moving average of new cases was 242, down from 773 on April 29. The seven-day moving average of deaths was 12, down sharply from 34 on April 29, according to the state health department. Hospitalizations in the state stood at 1,125 on Wednesday, a decline from the 1,500 figure on May 1, according to the Georgia Emergency Management Agency.

Some public health experts caution that it is too soon to gauge the outcome of relaxed stay-at-home orders. “It’s too early to tell much,” said Andreas Handel, a biologist at the University of Georgia. “The lags involved from new infection to symptoms to testing to having a case notification are so long that I think we need another one or two weeks of data before we can get a good picture of the potential impact.”

Technically I believe that the seven day moving averages are a bit deceptive, but the truth remains that the numbers have leveled, if not dropped. Yesterday they reported approximately 500 cases and 27 deaths according to Worldometer. This is down from where it has been, but not as much as the seven day averages would suggest.

What we do know is that Georgia is not seeing the sort of massive increase in cases or deaths that some were expecting. While I appreciate that it may be another week or two before we know for sure, there has been no real suggestion that Governor Kemp was sacrificing people (any more than Governors from places like South Dakota and Iowa were attempting to sacrifice people).

The odd dynamic to all of this is that there are those who are likely rooting for Georgia to fail. Not because they want people to die, but because they want to validate their own beliefs that shutting everyone in and destroying the economy was and still is the only option. The fact that the states with looser restrictions have not seen the widespread problems that many locked down states runs counterintuitive to their beliefs, and likely provides them with a twinge of guilt over the situation.

What if it is eventually determined that there was not much medical downside to the actions of South Dakota, Sweden or other places that did not shut down? Wouldn't that call into question the absolutely economically crushing policies we put into place in most of the country?

At one point in time, the idea was to get everyone into quarantine for that 10-15 day period where these things would be contagious, and that was supposed to slow down the spread exponentially. In fact, it seemed to do the opposite in many countries and states. But yet, we have continued to push for that same containment that in theory should have taken 10-15 days to isolate, but still hasn't effectively put anything to a halt several weeks later.

That seems to be the definition of insanity, especially when every day we waited or are still waiting, someone else loses a business, a job, depletes their life's savings, hits a limit on a credit card, or misses a bill, rent, or mortgage.

Maybe things will go back down hill in Georgia over the next couple of weeks or maybe not. Maybe they will have to reevaluate or maybe not. But it would be more patriotic, more Christian, or more positive to root for success, rather than failure. Your own ego is not that important in all of this.