‘Handshaking is a thing of the past’
♦ Sen. Chuck Hufstetler urges caution as coronavirus restrictions ease.
As businesses start to reopen, Floyd County’s state senator is reminding residents the COVID-19 public health emergency still exists.
Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, Rrome, is an anesthetist at a local hospital in addition to being a member of the governor’s Coronavirus Task Force. His committee is still meeting regularly and the task force meets about once a week.
Hufstetler said he would have preferred to wait for more data on the spread, but there are multiple factors to weigh.
“We’ve never been here before. My timeline was different from others’ timeline, but who knows who’s right or wrong,” he said. “We are up to about 7,000 tests a day. I would rather have more, but we’ll have to watch it carefully.”
Gov. Brian Kemp has lifted a number of commerce restrictions such as his ban on inside dining at restaurants and the closure of beauty salons and barber shops. But social distancing requirements remain and he also issued over 120 pages of operating guidelines aimed at keeping employees and customers safe.
“I think the governor’s making the best decisions he can ... (and) I do think he’s got the flexibility to make changes if needed,” Hufstetler said. “This area is in a better position than other parts of state because we’ve been flattening the curve.”
Floyd County was an early adopter of protective measures, in part due to a coalition of usually competing medical professionals who saw the potential danger of community spread. While new cases continue to emerge, it’s been at the rate of just over one a day for the past two weeks.
Hufstetler said the local hospitals — Floyd and Redmond Regional medical centers — have had time to prepare for an influx of patients and “are more comfortable with” their supplies of personal protective equipment.
“We’re in good shape,” he said.
Kemp’s designation of the World Congress Center as a possible overflow hospital also makes it unlikely the state would set up a post at the former Northwest Georgia Regional Hospital in Rome.
But Hufstetler said the novel coronavirus threat will be ongoing for some time, even after Kemp’s public emergency order expires April 30 and the Georgia General Assembly prepares to reconvene.
“I think there’s been a lot of behavior changes in this community that we need to keep in place — and in the legislature,” he said. “I think handshaking is a thing of the past.”