State Sen. Arthur Orr (R-Decatur) has called for a roll-back on some of the restrictions placed on businesses during the coronavirus crisis.
In a series of tweets on Saturday morning, the powerful senate education budget committee chairman offered his thoughts on allowing some businesses to open. Orr also questioned the reliability of models used to project coronavirus infections.
While quoting an article detailing the approach of other countries who are easing out of lockdowns, Orr wrote, “Time for us to start considering a thoughtful relaxation. Allow retailers to reopen with capacity limits. Allow medical community to start scheduling elective surgeries, etc.”
Time for us to start considering a thoughtful relaxation. Allow retailers to reopen with capacity limits. Allow medical community to start scheduling elective surgeries, etc. https://t.co/FmJ6YQKSCD
— Senator Arthur Orr (@SenatorAOrr) April 11, 2020
Orr was an early proponent of making decisions with both medical and business consequences in mind.
“It takes much longer to start a business back up if it hadn’t gone into total bankruptcy and failure than it does to just shut her down,” he said on “The Dale Jackson Show” three weeks ago. “I think all the politicians are trying to one-up each other and just throw it all into the ditch.”
Orr is the second influential legislator this week to call for a scaling back of restrictions on businesses.
Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh (R-Anniston) announced on Thursday his plan for getting Alabama’s economy back on its feet.
Marsh’s plan primarily involves the continued protection of older and more vulnerable Alabamians with everyone else getting back to work on May 1.
He directed some criticism toward the use of models that have since proven faulty, saying, “Most governments, including the United States, took their marching orders from the medical and healthcare communities choosing widespread lockdown and shelter in place mentalities. These decisions were largely adopted based on pandemic models that have proved to be largely unreliable.”
Orr offered his own criticism of the models this morning, pointing out that medical facilities have frequently attributed coronavirus to unknown causes of death.
How can we rely on the data when it is many times tenuous guesswork at best??? https://t.co/sRlJPahP2I
— Senator Arthur Orr (@SenatorAOrr) April 11, 2020
Projections made by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) were relied upon heavily by government and health officials as they set policy to handle the coronavirus outbreak. IHME at one time predicted nearly 8,000 deaths in Alabama and hospital bed shortages in the thousands. This week, it lowered projected deaths to 634 in the state with bed shortages becoming nonexistent.
National reporter Alex Berenson now blames the model for decisions that effectively shut down America’s economy.
As did writer Andrew McCarthy who complained that government has shut down businesses and confined people to their homes because of this.
Orr called for a re-examination of the government’s policy based on many of the same reasons.
Falling projections explained. Consequently, we need to look at our responses. https://t.co/xnYWlr5ntb
— Senator Arthur Orr (@SenatorAOrr) April 11, 2020
Tim Howe is an owner of Yellowhammer Multimedia
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