Governors are disregarding or creatively interpreting White House guidelines in easing states’ lockdowns.
Many governors across the country are disregarding or creatively interpreting White House guidelines in easing their states’ lockdowns and letting businesses reopen, an Associated Press analysis found.
The AP determined that 17 states do not appear to meet one of the key benchmarks set by the White House for loosening up — a 14-day downward trajectory in new cases or infection rates. And yet many of those states have begun to reopen or are about to do so, including Alabama, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah.
Because of the broad way in which the nonbinding guidelines are written, other states, including Georgia, have technically managed to meet the criteria and reopen despite not seeing a steady decline in cases and deaths.
Asked at the White House on Thursday about states that are reopening without meeting some of the federal government’s benchmarks, President Donald Trump said: “The governors have great power as to that, given by us. We want them to do that. We rely on them. We trust them. And hopefully they are making the right decisions.”
The push to reopen across the country comes amid pressure from businesses that are collapsing by the day and workers who have been thrown out of a job. Over 33 million Americans have applied for unemployment benefits over the past seven weeks, and a highly anticipated report Friday is expected to show U.S. unemployment as high as 16%, a level not seen since the Great Depression.
Public health experts around the world have cautioned that reopening too soon, without widespread testing and tracing, could enable the virus to come surging back with tragic consequences.
The U.S. has recorded over 75,000 deaths and 1.25 million confirmed infections, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. But this week, University of Washington researchers nearly doubled their projection of deaths in the U.S. to about 134,000 through early August, largely to reflect the loosening of the state stayat-home restrictions.
When Trump announced the guidelines April 16, he declared a “new front in our war” and said he was “establishing clear scientific metrics and benchmarks on testing, new case growth and hospital capacity that must be met before advancing each phase.”
Since then, many states have reopened while daily cases and infection rates have either plateaued or continued to climb, the AP analysis found. Some states are going it alone, using their own criteria, not the White House’s.
The White House has not been specific about how states should calculate the 14-day downward trajectory. Depending on how it’s calculated, a state might pass or fail. The AP analyzed counts of tests and confirmed cases compiled by Johns Hopkins and looked at the numbers using a rolling seven-day average to account for day-to-day variability in test reporting.
Among other things the White House guidelines say that before a state reopens, its hospitals should be able to treat all patients without crisis care, and robust testing should be in place for at-risk health workers.
Many governors are focusing on the criteria that call for a reduction in the percentage of positive tests for COVID-19. Up to now, many states have been doing limited testing, typically on their sickest residents. The percentage of people testing positive has dropped as testing expanded to the broader population in recent weeks.