Mississippi governor on moving forward with reopening: 'We feel confident'
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Mississippi is one of a handful of states that began loosening stay-at-home guidelines and allowing some sectors of their economies to reopen on Monday, April 27.
Fox News spoke to Republican Gov. Tate Reeves about his decision to reopen and his plans to lift more coronavirus restrictions moving forward.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Reeves says he felt comfortable opening nonessential businesses at 50 percent capacity due to the low number of patients and medical resources being utilized. According to the governor, Mississippi has fewer than 100 people utilizing ventilators and fewer than 200 in ICU beds. Across the state, there are approximately 4,500 hospital beds available.
“We always knew that we weren't going to be able to stop the spread of the virus, that we were trying to slow the spread to protect our health care system and we feel confident at this point that we have been able to do that,” Reeves told Fox News.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}While some places in Mississippi remain closed -- including city parks, hair salons, gyms and more -- the governor said they are looking at every industry and creating guidelines that would allow more businesses to open in a safe manner as soon as possible.
“You cannot shutter businesses for months and months and expect they're just going to come back and be ready to go because even with the massive amounts of federal help, people in our state -- and I think people across the country -- are hurting,” he said.
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With more than 200,0000 people filing for unemployment in Mississippi, Reeves said other state officials need to start taking the long-term economic impact this shutdown will bring more seriously.
"We have a short-term public health crisis in this nation, but we also have a short-term economic crisis that every single day that the economy's not open is going to be harder on the backend. That is something that I think is lost on some people,” said Reeves.