The Chairman of Louisiana’s House Republican delegation, Blake Miguez, says Louisiana needs to reopen its economy on a parish by parish basis, but Governor Edwards disagrees.
Miguez wrote a letter to the Governor calling on him to implement Phase One of the federal reopening plan after the stay at home order ends April 30th.
“I hear a lot of heartbreaking stories from within my district, and Louisianans have been understanding and patient during this shutdown but the long-term economic devastation could be fatal to a lot of business owners,” said Miguez.
Phase One allows for limited reopening like dine-in restaurants while calling for sustained social distancing and use of public PPE.
But Edwards says he’s leaning towards issuing any guidance at a state level. He says for those getting anxious under the current stay at home order, just know we need to keep up the effort.
“We are trending well over the last week or so to get there and I think that we likely will if people continue to stay at home,” said Edwards.
Phase One guidelines advise reopenings can be handled at a parish level.
Edwards says he will be using hard benchmarks for deciding if the state will implement Phase One after April 30th, one being that Louisiana has the capacity to test 140-150,000 people a month.
“That is a minimum number so we are actually gearing up and making plans to test as many as 200,000 people a month, and we want to make sure we have that capacity in place,” said Edwards.
The Governor says he expects to detail Louisiana’s post-April 30th reopening plans in about a week.
Miguez says testing capacity is important, and so are the other benchmarks, but if they are not met the state still needs to consider allowing some businesses to start back up.
“The long-term devastating effects of what poverty and record levels of unemployment could do to people both mentally and physically in Louisiana could be detrimental,” said Miguez.
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