Georgia Democrat Senate candidate Jon Ossoff said Sunday he would support a statewide shutdown to address surging COVID-19 cases if the CDC "and its leadership gave us strong indication that those kinds of stronger mitigation measures are necessary to save lives and contain the spread of the virus."
"I think we should follow the expertise of public health experts, like those of the CDC, which is based here in Georgia," Ossoff told CNN's "State of the Union." "And if that is the consensus of the public health community, we need to take that advice very seriously. And politicians need to recognize the limits of our own knowledge and wisdom.
"Epidemiologists who dedicate their careers and their training to studying the spread of infectious disease are qualified to advise us on the correct mitigation procedures. And the problem we have had all year is that politicians have been suppressing and ignoring public health advice. It's time to trust the experts, listen to public health professionals in a public health crisis."
Ossoff will face incumbent Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., in a runoff Jan. 5 after neither candidate reached the 50% threshold needed to win the race. When pressed further by host Dana Bash on whether things should be shut down temporarily, Ossoff said it would be "malpractice for politicians to ignore" the advice of public health experts.
Georgia currently has 162,886 active COVID-19 cases.
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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