My favorite "data-driven" thing the Governor did was open indoor malls before the beaches.
Genius.
This sounds like a regurgitated, overtly-political, anti-Northam talking point from a Facebook page to me, but I’ll bite.
Malls: Businesses
Beaches: Purely Recreational
Malls: Privately Owned and Operated
Beaches: City-Managed
Malls: Not Particularly Crowded in Spring/Summer
Beaches: Packed in the Spring/Summer
Malls: Local Audience
Beaches: Regional & Tourist Audience
So, beaches have limited
direct economic impact, require municipal resources to run, are packed this time of year, and draw tourists from out of the area. In contrast, malls and stores in malls employee a ton of people, can implement capacity limits, enhanced cleaning procedures, etc. like any other private business, won’t redirect local resources to manage, very rarely get crowded enough to not allow for social distancing, and won’t draw in people from out of the area.
I’m not even saying whether I think one should have been opened sooner or later than the other, but you coming in here all self-righteous-like and asserting that it was a radically out-of-line decision is just cringy. There are REALLY compelling arguments for opening malls before beaches. You can agree or disagree with the reasoning, but asserting that there isn’t a rational justification (what your post seems to suggest) is just wrong.
PS: This conversation belongs in the Politics thread. If it continues, I’ll split all of this off and move it over there.