Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., says reopening the economy should be done on a case-by-case basis.
"We have a little bit of a dichotomy here," Cassidy said Thursday on Newsmax TV's "Greg Kelly Reports."
"We're being told that the disease is very well controlled in some areas but that every place must continue to have economic lockdown. If you look at the state of Texas, there's a county south of El Paso and north of the Rio Grande, not a single case reported, according to their public health website. But they're supposed to stay on lockdown because Houston is having an issue?
"Doesn't make sense to me. What you need to do is those areas that are hotspots, and then hotspots within hotspots, you focus your resources there, and if things far away are doing reasonably well, you allow it to reopen. That's the sort of using science to guide us that I think we should be doing."
A handful of states have already started reopening their economies, though a coronavirus model routinely cited by the White House warns no state should be opening before May 1.
Georgia's move to reopen its economy is the most aggressive in the U.S. but many other states looking for ways to put people back to work.
"It's just too soon," President Donald Trump said Wednesday at a White House news briefing on Georgia's plan. "The spas and the beauty parlors and the barber shops . . . I love them, but they can want a little bit longer, just a little bit, not much, because safety has to predominate."
Cassidy says officials need to start using public health data and "science" moving forward.
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Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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