During a Wednesday appearance on FNC’s “Fox & Friends,” Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) addressed Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ (D) decision to issue an executive order requiring people to wear masks indoors in the city with limited exceptions.
Kemp argued that “mandates don’t work” to help mitigate the spread of COVID. He also pointed to “mixed messages” from the government regarding guidance for lack of trust in governments.
“This is the thing about where we are right now and where we have been over the last 15 months. Georgians have been dealing with this pandemic and our reopening of our economy, reopening of schools this time last year, one of the first states in the country to do that. We don’t need mandates to know what to do,” Kemp explained. “We need to talk to people about getting vaccinated to protect themselves from the Delta variant and these other variants that are out there. We are starting to see that happen again here in Georgia as our vaccination rates have gone up, but you know last year at this time, I trusted the local school systems, working with superintendents to do what is best for their kids in conjunction with their parents and their local community.”
“These mandates haven’t worked, and it makes it worse when governments are not consistent,” he added. “I have been consistent for 15 months. We have got mixed messages coming out of the White House, out of CDC and other places, National Institute of Health, and that’s why people don’t trust the government anymore when it comes to COVID guidance. And mandates don’t work. We need to trust people to do the right thing at the local level, and that’s what we are doing. I have been a local control governor when it comes to our school systems; most of our systems are not doing mask mandates. They are making that choice the choice of the parents, and that’s what I support.”
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