By Luc Brown
City of Jackson Mayor Scott Conger issued the following statement Monday afternoon about Gov. Bill Lee’s announcement of extending his executive Stay at Home order until the end of April and Lee’s plan to reopen the economy next month:
“During Governor Bill Lee’s update this afternoon he announced a plan to extend his executive order regarding closures for another two weeks and then work toward reopening the economy in May.
We are also anxious to re-open businesses, but will not guarantee our timeline will match up with the state’s timeline.
We will be releasing The City of Jackson’s Economic Recovery Plan this week. For our businesses to reopen we would like to see the following benchmarks:
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A sustained reduction in cases for at least 14 days
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Hospital is safely able to treat all patients requiring hospitalization without crisis standards
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We are able to test all people with the virus symptoms
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We are able to conduct active monitoring of confirmed cases and their contacts
Our economic recovery plan includes steps for opening businesses, goals, monitoring and a plan if numbers begin to spike during the recovery.
I want your businesses to open. I want your kids to go back to school. I want life to return to normal. It’s dangerous to pursue those wants when the cost is human lives. We are diligently monitoring new cases, recoveries, hospital bed availability, ventilators and a number of other factors that will determine when we can start implementing a recovery.
Managing the virus is half the battle. I can promise you that we will fight just as hard for the recovery. We will fight hard for your businesses. We will fight hard for your families. Jackson will not fail.”