Arkansas GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson asserted Sunday that public health guidelines shouldn’t be the only thing states rely on as they manage the continuing coronavirus pandemic.
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Hutchinson said his decision to lift a face mask mandate was an “off-ramp” and not a “cliff” in easing restrictions.
“If you relied simply upon strict public health guidelines, they would love to have a shelter-in-place for a year, which we cannot do as a society,” he said. “That’s the reason we have a ramp… if we see the cases spike up, if we see the hospitalizations go up, then we can re-institute the mask mandate because it’s a ramp, it goes to March 31.”
“If it goes the wrong direction, we can take the steps necessary, but people have to have hope,” he added.
According to Hutchinson, businesses in the state have already taken the right measures.
“There’s just a difference to how much the restrictions can be placed on business and for how long. They’ve struggled, they’ve suffered and so we want to give more flexibility,” he said.
“It’s not the immediate ending of everything, we still have our guidelines in place and actually there’s an incentive to keep control of facilities because that gives you business tort liability immunity if you follow some of those guidelines … We didn’t want a cliff, I wanted an off-ramp.”
Source: Newmax
