CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta slammed Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp for statements made about the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
On Tuesday, the two reviewed Kemp’s claim that he was unaware asymptomatic coronavirus patients were capable of spreading COVID-19. “We didn’t know that until the last 24 hours, and, as Dr. Toomey told me, this is a game changer for us,” said Kemp on Thursday.
Cooper asked Gupta if it had been publicly known if asymptomatic coronavirus patients were capable of spreading the virus.
“Anderson, this is inexcusable. It’s just inexcusable,” Gupta said, citing several instances where public health officials discussed the matter.
“To say that we just found out in the last 24 hours, and that’s why we’re doing this, this is just not right. I mean, you know, that’s an excuse. I don’t know. Maybe he really didn’t know that, which means someone didn’t tell him, although I find that very hard to believe.”
Cooper stopped just short of calling Kemp’s knowledge of the virus “criminal” but said, “If the governor of a state has not briefed himself on everything about this virus, that is inexcusable.”
Cooper added that scientific rationale ought to overrule religious exemptions that allow people to disregard social distancing. “Science is what rules the day in a pandemic,” he said.
More than 1,000,000 people have tested positive for the coronavirus globally. Of those, at least 51,000 have died from it, and more than 208,000 have recovered. The United States has seen at least 236,000 confirmed cases, with nearly 8,800 reported recoveries.
