Georgia's Easing Of Restrictions Has Consequences
LEMON: Medical and public health experts warn the modelling shows states that reopen too soon risking increasing the number of cases of coronavirus and the number of deaths. For example, the latest modelling for Georgia which began reopening Friday is of serious concern. Will we see the same happen in other states? Let's discuss. Dr. Kent Sepkowitz is here. The professor of medicine and infectious diseases at Weill Cornell Medical College. And Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist. Good to -- good evening. Good to see both of you. Dr. Gounder, I'm going to start with you. Because there is a new model found. And it found that if Georgia had maintained its pre-Friday lockdown policy. In other words, before they opened things like salons and gyms, their coronavirus -- their coronavirus fatality range would between 1,000 to 2,922 by June 15th. And that includes the 870 people that already died. But under Georgia's plan to reopen the range jumps to 1,604 to 4,236 deaths. It clearly shows the risks Georgia is taking here.</s>DR. CELINE GOUNDER, EPIDEMIOLOGIST: Well, right. And I think viewers at home have probably heard us speak about this so many times now. That there are a couple of conditions that really need to be met before you can safely lift social distancing restrictions. So, one of which is you really want to see influenza like illness, cases of COVID as well as deaths from COVID peak and then be on the decline for at least 14 days. Secondly, you want to make sure you have hospital capacity for these patients. And then thirdly, you want to have the capacity to do contact tracing and testing for the cases that you continue to see in the community, for those who have been exposed and Georgia doesn't meet any of these criteria. Their deaths are still on the rise and they haven't peak yet.</s>LEMON: Yes. Dr. Sepkowitz, I just want to get your take here or two, because their modelling shows that if Georgia decide to go 100 percent of pre-shutdown activity, essentially no lockdown at all, the death counts soar to 4,279 and 9,748. Again, these are just models. That's not, you know, in the cards right now, but they're based on real data and it's something to consider. At least.</s>DR. KENT SEPKOWITZ, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It seems like it's a lot to consider, and the -- I think the game plan seems to be if we ignore it, it will go away. And we'll only harm ourselves by pretending it's a problem. That doesn't work. That's wishful thinking. That's like a, you know, if I wish hard enough and click my heels two times, I can go back to Kansas. It's completely illogical, and I think it's cruel, and it's also very bad governance. But what can I say?</s>LEMON: Listen, I've got to ask you, everyone is hoping -- everyone I know says, man, I hope the cases in Georgia or Texas or whatever, I hope they don't go up. I hope they're not going to go up. Do you think they're going to go up, Dr. Gounder?</s>GOUNDER: I think sadly they will. And that's really a concern, not just for people in Georgia, but for the rest of the country. You know, for those of us, for example, here in New York City who have done really hard work of social distancing and we're still doing it to be facing with the -- to be faced with the prospect of having reintroductions of cases from elsewhere in addition to, you know, transmission here, that is really concerning. And, you know, we know that this is a virus that spreads very quickly across borders. So this has me profoundly worried.</s>LEMON: Yes. Dr. Sepkowitz, The New York Times showed the places where the outbreak is the worst -- is the worst now, OK? Look at this. When you look at cases per capita, the top four are Marianne, Ohio. The outbreak at a prison there. Grand Island, Nebraska. A lot of cases tied to a meat packing plant. Pine Bluff, Arkansas. There is a state prison near there. Gallup, New Mexico, which is right by the hard-hit Navajo nation. And then after that comes, New York City, which, of course, has the most deaths. It's a different picture when you look at it by hot spots.</s>SEPKOWITZ: Yes. I think the three hot spots right now are the prisons, as you mentioned, the meatpacking industry, which is spread throughout the Midwest and is actually for many small towns is the only employer there. And also nursing homes, which is a crisis that has not gotten enough attention. It's heartbreaking and it's difficult to even talk about calling nursing homes, you know, god's waiting room, as Governor DeSantis said today, is cruel. I will say again. And very disrespectful. And it also, I think, pretends that the problem isn't preventable. And the problem doesn't need our help.</s>LEMON: Yes.</s>SEPKOWITZ: So, again, I'm very also upset. I do want to say, though, that my guess is we're not going to see explosive return of infection. We will see spots. And I worry that as we are seeing now in Wisconsin, three weeks after the primary election, where people were exposed. Yes, there's a jump up in cases. It's compelling to those of us who think its cause and effect. But it's arguable about whether or not it's variation.</s>LEMON: Yes.</s>SEPKOWITZ: So I think that --</s>LEMON: Yes.</s>SEPKOWITZ: -- we're not going to see it again.</s>LEMON: Well, that leads us into our next segment and we thank you both for joining us. I appreciate it so much. Meatpacking plants are proving to be a hot bed of coronavirus in their communities, but tonight the president is signing an order mandating they stay open. How do we keep food on the shelf and keep people healthy? That's next.