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Josh's avatar

He also was the first GOP governor to go full on team virus, so much so that Trump rebuked him for recklessness.

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Eastern Promises's avatar

His decision to reopen was widely supported, across racial, ethnic and even party lines. Most people understood that we could not stay locked up in our houses for 6 months. Just was not feasible.

The reopening had strict requirements and was not forced; many stores still chose not to reopen and those that did had stringent mask requirements. Again, I live here and experienced it firsthand; going out in Atlanta during that time was like living in Beijing or some other Asian Metropolis: everyone was wearing masks.

The other thing he did well was distributing the vaccine. He set up gigantic vaccine distribution centers where people could go and get their shots, no charge. Same for testing as well.

While I am no fan of his and did not vote for him, I think he was reelected precisely because of his response to the pandemic. He also is not an a-hole like DeSantis, which at the very least makes him less unlikable. Its just that GA is more Democratic than FL, mainly due to Black voters. So the GOP will never win in GA by the margins they do in FL.

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Josh's avatar

Not being from the area I can't speak to the local support, but I will point out that he executive-ordered a prohibition against local mask mandates.

Also one point on the vaccine distribution- it was free of charge all over the country, though if he had a good distribution network then that is a credit to him.

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Feb 2, 2023
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knowltok's avatar

Looks like statistically this is backfiring on them. African Americans lag behind whites in vaccine use by a few points, but when you put a political lens on it, they'd be well ahead of white Republicans.

And vaccine use or non-use is a very likely cause of the higher excess mortality rates being seen in Republicans.

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