(File Photo by Zoran Milich/Getty Images)

(CNSNews.com) - Fitness centers are among the small businesses that are allowed to reopen in Georgia on Friday, subject to specific social distancing, sanitation and health screening restrictions.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is facing criticism for his decision, but as he told Fox News's Martha MacCallum on Tuesday, it's not like he's ordering people to go to the gym:

And, listen, if people don't want to go, Martha, they don't have to go. If people don't want to open the gym, they don't have to. But when you close somebody's business down and take their livelihood of that individual and those employees, and they are literally at the face of losing everything, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I think they're going to do the right thing. And we're going to continue focus on testing and contact tracing and all the other things.

Kemp said taking the city of Albany out of the equation, Georgia's COVID-19 caseload doesn't look as dire.

Because of a person going to a funeral a month and a half ago, when people didn't know that that was not a good thing to do, Albany has had more deaths, I'm pretty sure in saying this, than Atlanta has. So, you know, you have to be relative with the data that you're looking at. You know, I'm looking at it every day, every hour of every day. And I know in Albany, their hospital down there is now taking patients from other areas. So that tells you we are in a good space down there, because we reacted quickly to a really bad situation, and we're prepared to continue to do that around the rest of our state.

Georgia, with a population of 10.6 million people, had a total of 20,166 confirmed coronavirus cases, 3,885 in the hospital, and 818 deaths, as of April 21, according to the Georgia Department of Public health.



Those cases are concentrated in the metro Atlanta area and the Albany area further south, as the Department of Public Health map shows (below).

(Map, updated on April 21, is from Georgia Department of Public Health website)

Kemp told MacCallum, "I got heavily criticized for keeping our state parks open and our beaches open. And we've had absolutely no problem with allowing people to go out and get some exercise. They have practiced social distancing. They have behaved themselves.

"And, in fact, we had people from other states coming to Georgia because they had closed their parks."

MacCallum asked Kemp about the possibility of asymptomatic people walking into Georgia gyms and unknowingly spreading the virus:

"Yes, and the same -- the same could be -- the same could be happening at the grocery store and other places," Kemp replied.

"That's why the fitness owners, I have great confidence in them spreading people out when they're doing a workout, doing this additional sanitation that we've all been, you know -- learned how to do now, and taking those precautions with hand sanitation and having the folks working in the facilities wearing masks and other things. And we'll be putting those guidelines out."

President Trump told a news conference on Tuesday that Kemp is "a very capable man. He knows what he's doing. He's done a very good job as governor."

Dr. Deborah Birx, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, urged governors to show the COVID-19 data in their states by zip code:

And so I believe people in Atlanta would understand that if their cases are not going down, that they need to continue to do everything that we said -- social distancing, washing your hands, wearing a mask in public. So if there is a way that people can social distance and do those things (go to the gym), then they can do those things. I don't know how but people are very creative, so I'm not going to prejudge, but we have told people very clearly, and the president's guidelines made it very clear about the expectations of Phase 1. And remember, phase I also included social distancing in restaurants, social distancing in every place that was entertainment and keeping your own individual social groups to less than 10. I mean we have been very clear in the guidelines, and I think it is up to the governors and mayors to ensure that they are following the best they can each of those phases to make sure that both the public is completely protected, but the governors and mayors also need to communicate very clearly on the data that was used for decision-making and make that transparent and available to their communities.

Also See:

Georgia Governor Is Reopening His State, 'Incrementally and Safely'

