Atlanta, GA — Gov. Brian Kemp’s new executive order on COVID-19 takes effect today, April 8, and it lifts many restrictions that have been in place for months due to the pandemic.

Effective April 8 there will no longer be a ban on public gatherings and there will be social distancing requirements in restaurants.

Kemp told Fox News that continuing the restrictions would hurt businesses.

Here’s a summary of that executive order:

– Eliminates the Gatherings ban

– Eliminates Shelter-in-Place requirements

– Removes the critical infrastructure distinction and collapses all organization suggested measures into one main list, with a small number of additional industry-specific requirements remaining

– Reduces any remaining distance requirements (i.e. distance between parties at restaurants, bars, and movie theaters, and between patrons of group fitness classes)

– Eliminates the ability of law enforcement to close an organization for failure to comply with the Executive Order provisions

The state of Georgia as of April 7 has 858,268 cases and 16,827 confirmed deaths. As of April 7, there are 59,356 hospitalizations, 9,712 ICU admissions, 209,931 antigen positive cases and 2,478 probable deaths.

In DeKalb County there have been 55,742 cases and 882 deaths. In Fulton County, there have been 79,201 cases and 1,216 deaths.

In DeKalb County the current two-week average of cases per 100,000 people is 167. Last Wednesday, it was 192 per 100,000 people.

The positivity rate is the percentage of positive results per tests given, and in DeKalb County, that number hasn’t changed much since last week. DeKalb County’s average positivity rate for the last two weeks as of April 7 it is 4.5 percent. On March 31 it was 4.7 percent.

Fulton County is reporting an average of 134 cases per 100,000 people over the last two weeks as of April 7.  On Mar. 31, that number was 157 per 100,000 people. The positivity rate in Fulton County has slightly decreased compared with last week. On March 31, the two-week average positivity rate was 5 percent. As of April 7, the two-week positivity rate is 4.6 percent.

Writer Alex Brown contributed to this story. 

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