MOULTRIE, Ga. — Colquitt County’s COVID-19 Task Force was formed in March to address the virus’ impact on the community. It’s anticipating a May 1 reopening date for the county.

With that in mind, the current focus is on the future of Gov. Brian Kemp’s “shelter in place” executive order. Should it continue or should it not, the task force is prepping for any eventuality.

County Administrator Chas Cannon said they don’t know what Kemp will say, but if the order is relieved, May 1 will be opening day.

“We looked at May 4, a Monday, as being the opening, but that leaves a three- to four-day gap where there’s no guidance in place,” he said. “If the governor comes out with an extension on the current shelter in place order then we’ll have to amend local guidance.”

In preparation of this, the task force is asking local businesses to complete an 11-question survey. 

This survey asked questions like if a business has closed and reopened, how long,  are you prepared for reopening or in need of a phased approach.

Cannon said response from the survey will determine the decision-making in enacting additional ordinances. Depending on Kemp’s decision, additional ordinances will be enacted — some duplicates or continuations of previous ordinances and others new.

These will not be in the same capacity as the previous ordinances, however.

“There will be some social distancing requirements — some recommendations,” Cannon said. “I don’t think you’ll see any requirement or enforcement action [behind it].”

As this task force is a co-op of local entities, like the county, the cities within it and the hospital, and some state entities, including the offices of Rep. Austin Scott, Kelly Loeffler, and Sen. David Perdue, Cannon said he expects most ordinances to reflect across the entities that enact them.

City Manager Pete Dillard said whatever’s done will be up to the decision of the city council, but if Kemp decides to give a statewide plan of action, they’ll follow that.

Right now, the council is waiting to see what’ll happen on the executive order’s end date, April 30.

“At this point, we think the governor will probably continue social distancing [and] have maybe a three phase phase-in — May 4, May 18 and June 1,” Dillard said.

Cannon said he thinks most of the cities will continue to have curfews. Dillard corroborates this saying personally, he thinks the previous 9 p.m.-6 p.m. curfew is still a good idea.

“But that’s a council decision so I don’t know what they’ll choose to do,” he said.

It’s all up in the air for now. According to Cannon, the task force is looking for the ordinances to emphasize the “three S’s”: screening, sanitation and social distancing.

“We’re trying to get our own data so we can see what’s happening locally with our own trends. That’ll help inform our decisions,” he said, saying that they’ll be using Colquitt Regional Medical Center stats and Georgia Department of Health guides.

The business survey can be taken at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JRY8K97.