From Fox News:
Hawaii’s top emergency response official said Monday he fears there will be civil unrest and rioting if the state doesn’t speed up its process of reopening the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“If we let the economy go the way it’s going, there will be, I feel, significant unrest that could lead to civil disobedience. In worst case, civil disturbance and rioting,” Maj. Gen. Kenneth Hara, the state director of emergency management, told lawmakers Monday.
Riots in Hawaii over the lockdown.
Understand that Hawaii is one of the Leftist places in the country.
It’s where Senators Schatz-for-brains and Crazy Mazie hail from. Voters there tried to recall Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard for not being Lefty enough on the campaign trail.
So for Hawaii to say “enough with this bullshit” on the Lockdown is saying something.
Hara, who heads the state’s coronavirus response team, argued before the state House Select Committee on COVID-19 in Honolulu Monday that, despite pushback from the department of health, Hawaii must accept the risk of an increase in new infections because the longer they wait, the harder it will be for the economy to recover, KHON2 reported.
Hawaii, as of Wednesday, has recorded 635 confirmed coronavirus cases, with 17 deaths, according to the state department of health. Just one new case was recorded within the last 24-hour period. At least 81 COVID-19 patients have required hospitalization.
The state’s tourist-centric economy, meanwhile, has taken a serious blow since the governor’s stay-at-home order took effect on March 25, which shut down all non-essential businesses and forced restaurants to switch to take-out or delivery.
Hawaii has a population of 1.4 million people, 635 people is an infection rate of 0.004%. That is what the state was shut down for.
Right now is the peak of the tourist season. It’s in the 80s and sunny. The lack of tourism and the mandatory lockdown is slaughtering the local economy.
For a sunny island to be shut down over a 0.004% infection rate because the government is acting like it’s New York City would piss me off too.
When the people who sent Crazy Mazie to DC are about to start setting fires because they are locked inside, it’s time to reconsider the policy.
I can see where being trapped on an island, where the economy depends on tourism, could be be a bit stress inducing.
By way of comparison, Hawaii is also home to one of the last remaining leper colonies in the world. The Kalaupapa Peninsula on the island of Molokai currently has a population of forty. It was close to 400 only a few decades ago…
The unfortunate problem for Hawaii is that they could certainly end the shutdown, and doing so would be eminently sensible. But that won’t help all that much because so much is tourism, and tourists won’t start returning just because Hawaii is open again. Especially since a bunch are from China.