Dale Jackson: Welcome back, Alabama — Here is what Gov. Ivey should do tomorrow

It is widely expected that Governor Kay Ivey will take to a podium tomorrow and announce that Alabama is about to be open for business — sort of.

Make no mistake, it is time to start rolling towards a full reopening of Alabama’s economy but it won’t happen overnight.

Alabamians did what they were asked to do, we stayed home.

Ask my 69-year-old mother who hasn’t seen her two-year-old grandson in over a month and missed his birthday if she did what she was supposed to.

Ask my son’s father (me) if I am ready to be able to hand this little monster off every Sunday for a few hours to his “Nana,” something he has asked about repeatedly, if I have done what I was supposed to do.

Yes, aspiring cable news guests in our political press will whine and complain about how they saw too many people driving to the Home Depot or how blue states are doing it better.

Wannabe authoritarians will whine about the people in their neighborhood walking too closely or spending too much time outside.

These people don’t matter and never have.

Governor Kay Ivey does, and here is what she should say:

My fellow Alabamians,

Over the last few weeks we have seen exceptional things accomplished in this state. We were projected by models to lose close to 10,000 citizens. One irresponsible media outlet projected we would lose 25,000 of our citizens and half would become ill with COVID-19. They should be ignored.

We accomplished great things, and it is now time to move on.

Testing is never where we want it to be. We want to see everyone tested every single day, but this will not happen.

Lieutenant Governor Will Ainsworth visited drive-thru testing sites in Marshall County this weekend and found they had double and triple the number of tests that they need.

That capacity needs to and will go up.

Because we are in fact seeing a consistent downtrend in the number of COVID-19 positive tests, hospitalizations and deaths, I will not be expanding the states’ stay-at-home order which expires on April 30, as there is no reason to extend it further.

But, as needed, I will bring back restrictions, if necessary.

So, on May 1, Alabama will be open for business again, but things will be different for a while.

• Hospitals can now reopen fully and get back to doing important elective procedure. This will put furloughed hospital workers back to worker and medical staff back to work.
• Retail will now be allowed to open at 50% capacity.
• Restaurants will be allowed to open at 50% capacity with proper social distancing and disinfectant procedures.
• Beaches will be opened, but social distancing must be maintained.
• Business owners, you do not have to open. You know what is best for your businesses and you can make that decision for your businesses. It is up to you to make sure you make smart decisions to stop the community spread of COVID-19.

We continue to urge social distancing at all of the above establishments. We must not allow this silent killer to gain a foothold in the state and undo the good work we have done.

To Alabama’s mayors and county commissioners, feel free to implement restrictions as you see fit and as the law and state constitution allows.

I have asked Attorney General Steve Marshall to assist and monitor the decisions made by individual municipalities to make sure they are operating in a constitutional manner.

As we move forward, I will offer more guidance as needed and before we move on to the next phase of this recovery.

Thanks to you, Friday we will be able to finally say, “Welcome back, Alabama!”

It is that simple. Let’s get back to work, and slowly we will get back to our regular lives in due time.

Dale Jackson is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts a talk show from 7-11 AM weekdays on WVNN.