Early Cinema Re-Openings in Georgia
Despite it being a very bad idea, Governor Kemp of Georgia will be allowing restaurants and theaters to re-open in Georgia next week. Restaurants, bars, theaters, etc. were among the first places to shut down at the beginning of this pandemic. The reason for this being that it was to keep more people from becoming infected with the virus. However, now that the number of new infected cases is decreasing, people are starting to think that things should re-open. That is not how a pandemic works, and this could only end up causing more damage than before via a boomerang effect. Essentially, this means that people start going outside again and that drop in the curve will then switch right back around and will skyrocket causing an even worse situation than we are already in.
As of April 27th, Georgia will allow the re-opening of these establishments among these fears in order to help businesses. This just begs us to ask the question, however, is it worth the risk of allowing the chance for the infection to proliferate again. I think that while unemployment is high and businesses are suffering, taking a gung-ho to re-opening these businesses will just cause more suffering for everybody. This virus is very serious and in the past month alone there have been over 800,000 reported cases and 42,000 cases suspected to be linked to the disease. There is a good chance that there are even more cases out there that are unreported as well.
Covid-19 is now deadlier than the flu when it comes to mortality rate and it proliferates far more easily than at this point in time. With that knowledge, it should be pretty easy to tell that having a spike in cases will only end up making all of this worse. They are going to be rolling out re-openings one type of establishment at a time, but the problem remains that the amount of time it takes for symptoms to appear will make that all a moot point. There is still no guaranteed way to deal with the virus and that makes it even more dangerous to people at large. As it is a virus, it can mutate into however many different strains which can infect even more people and there is no telling if people can be reinfected or not yet.
While we might not be able to tell what will happen if businesses in Georgia re-open, we can make a guess given the information that is available to us. How many more lives are we willing to bet with and is it even worth it in the long run? We will receive answers to these questions whether we want them or not when Georgian businesses re-open. If things look like they are going well, you can bet that other states will also start to do the same, but you should always be cautious. Even if things look like they are going well, take your time to observe and don’t try to openly participate until you know for sure that you are safe. Don’t rush into things like most people probably will and keep yourself and your loved ones healthy.