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Narrative Fail: 15 Days After Lockdown Ease, Georgia Sees Lowest Day Of COVID Hospitalizations

   DailyWire.com
Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp attends the Election Night event at the Classic Center on November 6, 2018 in Athens, Georgia.
Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Republican Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia celebrated the state’s lowest number of hospitalized novel coronavirus patients and the fewest number of COVID-19 patients on ventilators on Saturday, 15 days since the Republican loosened lockdown restrictions in the face of persistent attacks from the mainstream media and the public disapproval of President Donald Trump.

Respiratory symptoms of COVID-19 “typically appear an average of 5-6 days after exposure, but may appear in as few as 2 days or as long as 14 days after exposure,” per the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), UC San Diego Health notes.

“Today marks the lowest number of COVID-19 positive patients currently hospitalized statewide (1,203) since hospitals began reporting this data on April 8th,” Kemp posted to Twitter on Saturday. “Today also marks the lowest total of ventilators in use (897 with 1,945 available). We will win this fight together!”

As noted by The New York Times, Kemp reopened large parts of Georgia’s economy on April 24, adding, of course, COVID-19 precautions, like screening workers for fever.

According to a daunting CNN headline published April 28, “Georgia’s daily coronavirus deaths will nearly double by August with relaxed social distancing, model suggests.”

“Kemp allowed for the reopening of hair and nail salons, barber shops, massage businesses and gyms under new safety standards. He allowed restaurants and theaters to reopen with new restrictions Monday,” the CNN report said. “With the assumption of relaxed social distancing, the model predicts that the number of Covid-19 deaths per day in Georgia will jump from 32 people dying on May 1 to a projected 63 people dying per day by August 4.”

“Currently, 995 people have died from Covid-19 in Georgia, according to the model, and it projects that number could climb to 4,691 by August 4. The projection for total deaths in the state provides a range of estimates between 1,686 deaths on the lower end to up to 15,620 deaths on the higher end,” the report added. “According to the model, the top five states out of the 12 in the Southeast with the highest projected total deaths by August 4 are: Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Virginia and North Carolina.”

Fifteen days after the lockdown ease, however, hospitalizations in Georgia have hit a low.

As noted by The Daily Wire late last month, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida ripped into the media for their failing, dire predictions of his novel coronavirus response.

Asked about criticism that he’s face for not implementing a full shutdown early on, DeSantis let the media have it. “What have the results been?” he rhetorically asked, according to Fox News. “You look at some of the most draconian orders that have been issued in some of these states and compare Florida in terms of our hospitalizations per 100,000, in terms of our fatalities per 100,000.”

“I mean, you go from D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, you name it. Florida has done better,” the governor continued.

“And that has not happened because we understood we have a big, diverse state, we understood the outbreak was not uniform throughout the state, and we had a tailored and measured approach that not only helped our numbers be way below what anyone predicted, but also did less damage to our state going forward,” explained DeSantis.

“We’ve had people in the hospital, but I am now in a situation where I have less than 500 people at a state of 22 million on ventilators as of last night,” he added. “And I have 6,500 ventilators that are sitting idle, unused throughout the state of Florida.”

Related: WATCH: GOP Governor Wrecks Media: You Were All Wrong About My State, We’re In Better Shape Without Draconian Lockdown

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