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'We can't keep fighting the virus from our couches': Kemp reiterates support for reopening state economy during Macon visit

Governor Brian Kemp toured a Macon hospital and an industrial plant Wednesday morning.

MACON, Ga. — Governor Brian Kemp came to Macon to see some cargo containers in a parking lot.

If that sounds like an odd reason for a visit, you probably don't know what was inside the containers.

Construction crews spent weeks retrofitting them, building a 24-bed temporary medical unit designed to treat COVID-19 patients with less severe cases.

The field hospital stands in a parking lot on the Medical Center, Navicent Health's Macon campus.

Governor Kemp toured the facility Wednesday morning with hospital leaders.

After the tour, Medical Center, Navicent Health CEO Ninfa Saunders said the temporary medical unit, so far, has not been needed and the number of COVID-19 cases at the hospital has been dropping.

"This precautionary measure was taken in the event that extra capacity was needed," said Saunders. "Thankfully, we have not needed the (temporary medical unit) to date."

However, hospital leaders continued their months-long practice of declining to say exactly how many COVID-19 in-patients they actually have.

Saunders didn't take questions, and Dr. John Wood, the medical director for the emergency department of the region's largest trauma center, said he didn't know.

"I do the ER stuff," Wood said. "Once they go upstairs, I don't really keep up with the nine floors above me, so I don't know the exact number."

State representative Dale Washburn said the hospital should release that information.

 "I don't understand the reason that the numbers can't be disclosed," he said. "To me, that's a reasonable thing for the public to want to know."

Governor Brian Kemp called the temporary medical units a good investment for the state.

When the project was announced in April, the Georgia emergency Management Agency said they would cost about $3 million to build.

Kemp said their use wasn't limited to the COVID-19 response.

He said the units could be used in the future to help hospitals facing emergency situations like hurricanes and tornadoes.

"We now have a resource where we can quickly deploy," said Kemp.

He said many Georgians have been wearing masks and social distancing in public and encouraged everyone to follow suit.

"They have given us time to build up our hospital bed capacity," he said, though the governor stopped short of saying everyone must wear masks when in public.

"We're not a nanny state here in Georgia," Kemp said. "It's a good idea to wear a mask, not to protect you, but to protect others from you if you happen to have the virus and don't know it."

"But not everybody wants to do that," he continued. "I get that. I don't think we need to start pointing fingers at people. I think we just need folks to be smart. If you're just adversely not going to wear a mask, I would encourage you to (wear one) if you're out, but if you're not going to, I would just ask you to respectfully practice social distancing."

Kemp also stressed that Georgia's economy needs to keep moving toward recovery.

"We can't keep fighting from our living room," he said. "The hospitals have been fighting it every day right here. Our first responders are fighting it out there on the streets every day, and the general public's got to learn to do that as well and I believe that they have."

The governor also shed new light on a recent apparent uptick in the statewide seven-day average of new daily cases, saying the Georgia Department of Public Health is monitoring the data but believes the issue is more clerical than medical.

"We did have an uptick of cases over the weekend but the team at Department of Public Health is digging into that right now," said Governor Kemp. "We're pretty confident that that was a data dump from one of our private sector labs that that had a backlog of tests that they were doing. They finished that up over the weekend and did a dump of about 15,000 tests that date back to the end of April."

According to Navicent, the hospital and the state will split the roughly $3 million price tag for the temporary medical units.

However the hospital will likely be reimbursed with federal emergency-management money.

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