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Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts, who opposed a statewide mask warrant and strict lockdown measures as COVID-19 raged in his state, is now in quarantine with his wife after a dinner guest tested positive for coronavirus.
The Republican dined al fresco with three other people on Sunday night, his office said. One of the participants tested positive the next day.
“Neither the governor nor the first lady is showing symptoms, and they will be tested at the appropriate time,” Taylor Gage, a spokesperson for the governor, said in a statement Tuesday morning.
Ricketts reopened his state in September even as the number of cases rose, and he has repeatedly turned down calls from the medical community for a statewide mask warrant – even as other governors of the GOP have caved in to the common sense public health movement.
“We are a house on fire,” said Dr. James Lawler, an infectious disease physician and co-director of the Global Center for Health Security at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, of the coronavirus situation. “The cases are out of control and we have hospitalization rates in the Omaha metropolitan area doubling almost every two weeks and our hospitals are basically full. They will be full in the next two weeks. “
Lawler had advised the governor earlier in the pandemic, according to a spokesperson for Nebraska Medicine, and appeared with the governor at a press conference last month. While the spokesperson noted in a text message that Lawler had “spoken with the governor from time to time recently”, he “was not asked to give the same level of advice as before.”
Last weekend, as the state racked up an additional 3,200 cases, a group of Nebraska doctors launched a social media campaign to change Ricketts’ mind about masks.
His spokesperson, Gage, then called publicly several doctors on Twitter, showing recent retweets from some doctors celebrating the Democratic presidential election victory. Gage tweeted screenshots of the Twitter accounts of three doctors in which they tweeted or retweeted calls that “Gov. Ricketts, the time to act is NOW! With the tagline “Nebraska Doctors Fighting COVID” – obviously trying to imply that their COVID tweets, which reflected mainstream medical thinking, were somehow politically motivated.
On Monday, Ricketts held a press conference where he announced new restrictions given the “growing number of hospitalizations in the state.” New measures that begin Wednesday, according to the state, require 6-foot separation from groups in places like gyms, bars and restaurants; hide requirements in close-contact businesses such as hair salons, salons, and bowling alleys “where staff and customers are within six (6) feet of each other for 15 consecutive minutes or more”; and limiting indoor gatherings “to 25% of nominal occupancy,” according to details released by the state. Nebraska will also require people at a bar to “wear a mask when not drinking or eating.”
Yet he did not impose a statewide mask warrant.
The governor virtually appeared at a press conference on Tuesday and said he was “feeling fine” and had “no symptoms”.
Asked by a reporter if the dinner that quarantined him could be characterized as the governor “letting his guard down,” Ricketts pushed back.
“Guests wore masks when they entered the house and so on,” he said of the alfresco dining. “But I think it goes to show that we all need to be careful about social interactions and try to limit them to small group gatherings, because the virus is spread from person to person, so it will always benefit if it does.” can. . “
After opening the state in September, Ricketts put slightly tighter restrictions in place last month, according to a statement from his office, as the pandemic situation in his state predictably worsened.
The new restrictions announced on Monday did not allay Lawler’s fears about the pressure on hospitals, and he called the measures “well short of the kinds of interventions that need to be taken to bend the curve.”
Lawler said officials should ban gatherings of more than 10 people, eliminate indoor dining and shut down bars and clubs. A universal public face mask policy is also needed, Lawler said, along with an effort to “de-densify” schools.
Without stronger action and preventative measures, he warned that “in a month, people who need medical treatment in Nebraska will no longer be able to get it.”
The number of new daily positive cases in Nebraska has jumped since late October, according to state health data, and hospitalizations for coronavirus in the state have also increased dramatically. the Omaha World-Herald reported Tuesday that “This past week marked the sixth consecutive week (for Nebraska) of new record-breaking COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.”
The state is in critical condition, said Nebraska State Senator Adam Morfeld, a Democrat from Lincoln, who defined the governor’s response as “too little too late and confusing at best.”
He hopes the governor will change course, but he is not convinced he will.
“What the state is facing is an administration that is more concerned with appeasing its political base and attacking people than taking leadership and making the tough decisions that need to be made,” said Morfeld.
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