'The barn's on fire': The Phoenix mayor and Arizona's former health director detail how the state's coronavirus response went from successful to catastrophic

Ross D. Franklin/AP Images

• Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego says Gov. Doug Ducey's decision to quickly reopen the state in May caused Arizona's explosion in coronavirus cases.
• For weeks in March, Ducey rejected calls from his own local officials to issue a statewide shutdown. He finally did so on March 30, but lifted the order after just six weeks. 
• Will Humble, who led the Arizona Department of Health Services under GOP Gov. Janice Brewer, says Ducey's mistake wasn't reopening the state in May, but failing to enforce social distancing policies that would have made the reopening safer.
• "The businesses that were doing mitigation ... their lunch was being eaten by their competitors who were just blowing it up," Humble told Business Insider. "So the behavior began to metastasize."  
• While Covid-19 cases are skyrocketed in Arizona, the state has a testing shortage, an underfunded contact-tracing effort, and a shortage of medical professionals. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego blames her state's Republican governor, Doug Ducey, for the explosion of coronavirus cases in Arizona. 

Gallego, a Democrat who leads one of the country's fastest-growing cities, argued that Ducey's decision to lift his state-wide lockdown order in mid-May sent the misleading and dangerous message that the public health crisis was over. 

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

NOW WATCH: Why thoroughbred horse semen is the world's most expensive liquid

See Also:

• Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is hospitalized with the coronavirus 11 days after attending Trump's Tulsa rally
• Trump claims he's 'all for masks' after refusing to publicly wear one himself for months
• Mayor of Miami suggests he's willing to shut the city back down if he's unable to contain the coronavirus surge with a mask mandate and new penalties

SEE ALSO: Mayor of Miami suggests he's willing to shut the city back down if he's unable to contain the coronavirus surge with a mask mandate and new penalties

from Feedburner https://ift.tt/2VE39Jm