Article from For Liberty by Norm Leahy.

Some parts of the country are seeing new coronavirus outbreaks – but public officials are resisting calls to reimpose lockdowns, seeking to balance public health concerns against wider social and economic issues.

In hard-hit states like Arizona, state officials are currently in no mood to reimpose statewide shutdown:

State health director Cara Christ put a finer point on it, saying the measures that had previously been imposed were designed to ensure that Arizona had enough hospital capacity to deal with an outbreak.

And now?

“We know that it’s in the community,” she said.

“We are not going to be able to stop the spread,” Christ continued. “And so we can’t stop living as well.”

Ducey acknowledged that his efforts have had a two-pronged approach.

“This has always been about saving lives,” he said.

“And it’s also about livelihoods in the state of Arizona,” the governor continued. “We’re going to do this in a balanced and responsible way for the people of Arizona.”

In contrast, New York, site of the largest coronavirus outbreak in the country, is taking a much harsher stance. There, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is threatening to reverse reopenings in some areas because residents aren’t practicing social distancing:

“I am warning today in a nice way: consequences of your actions,” Cuomo said at an Albany press conference, noting businesses can lose their liquor licenses for breaking social-distancing rules. “We have 25,000 complaints statewide. I’m not going to turn a blind eye to them.”

Image Credit: Delta News Hub / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)