Tuesday, as protesters appeared in front of the State Capitol decrying the state’s coronavirus shutdown order, State Rep. Will Dismukes (R-Prattville) was reportedly the only member of the Alabama legislature to make the trek across Union Street from the Statehouse for the protest.
Since publishing a Facebook video questioning the seeming double standard that has resulted from actions of state government at this stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dismukes has become an integral figure in the so-called Reopen Alabama movement, and his appearance at the protests at the State Capitol appears to back that up.
Tuesday, Dismukes was interviewed by Huntsville radio’s WVNN and elaborated on his views about Alabama’s handling of the pandemic under the leadership of Gov. Kay Ivey.
“My exact quote, I believe, was you know we have abortion clinics and big-box stores that have remained open the entire time are told they are shut down and have to remain shut down,” he said. “There’s some things that we’ve done — they just do not make sense. I have respect for Dr. Harris, but the governor just can’t go off of everything Dr. Harris says because he is Dr. Harris. You do have to look at the total function of our economy, the total function of our state and the role that it plays in this nation, and the role that it plays in individual municipalities and counties.”
“Early on, I praised the governor,” Dismukes continued. “She really did do a good job saying early, let’s just monitor this. She tried to keep the economy going the best she could and leave things open. Then it was like all of a sudden, a switch flipped, and it was like we got more and more and more taken away from us. Then when we should start rolling things back, we’re still staying shut down.”
Dismukes described a scenario where it appears the goals have shifted from mitigation of the spread for the sake of not overwhelming the health care system to the absolute extermination of the virus and its health effects.
“We’ve moved from telling everybody we just want to flatten the curve for a few weeks, and let’s get it back to where we know we can manage our ventilators and our ICUs, and so on and so forth, and we can establish some more testing centers — we’ve moved from that standpoint to now it is almost as if we need to have nobody else getting the virus. And there can be nobody getting sick, or going to the hospital, or anything of that nature,” Dismukes said.
“It is a virus,” he continued. “Unfortunately, regardless of where it came from, or regardless of how it got here — it is going to have to do what it is going to do. Even a vaccine isn’t going to be the cureall, be-all end of it. Just like the flu vaccine, when you go get it, there’s not a 100% guarantee that you’re not going to get the flu. You can’t make every single person in the country go get a COVID vaccine when it comes out. I don’t understand why all of a sudden we’re transitioning here to where nobody can get the virus, nobody can get sick and we can’t have any numbers go up at all in any category dealing with COVID-19.”
Dismukes said the course of action “baffled” him, and pointed out the economic consequences still loom large.
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly and host of Huntsville’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN.
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