Governor Bill Lee wants to start reopening economy in May, local officials respond

Governor Bill Lee is faced with keeping businesses closed to help flatten the curve of COVID-19 or re opening the economy in hopes each buisness owner will follow social distancing guidelines.

“We’ll extend our stay at home order through april 30th and plan to begin reopening our economy in may", says Lee.

Lee announced that he has plans to reopen the tennessee economy in May, but as the numbers increase health officials can not see that happening soon.

“As long as we are seeing increase in numbers it is hard for me to want to open things back up and just go back to life as normal", says Director of the Jackson Madison County Regional Health Department, Kim Tedford.

Madison County Mayor Jimmy Harris says there are plans to re open the economy in Madison County, but that will not happen overnight.

"But I don’t think it’s time to put a date on it at this point, at least for our community", says Harris.

City of Jackson Mayor, Scott Conger, has 4 points that the city has to meet before considering the reopening of the economy.

“I think the important thing is that our is going to be data driven. We are not going to go off what we feel, what we think it’s going to be what the data shows us, what the information shows us. How we can do this", says Conger.

The Governor also extended the statewide stay at home order until the end of April. In Jackson, for 39 News, I’m Imani Williams.