Gov. McMaster held a press conference Thursday evening to give updates on South Carolina and COVID-19.
On Thursday, Gov. Henry McMaster announced plans to get South Carolina’s economy “humming” by the end of June. Next week McMaster will give details of his coronavirus pandemic recovery plan, which he calls Accelerate SC.
“It is to find the best practices to get us back to working at full speed and to ramp back up to wherever we were before the virus came along,” McMaster said.
McMaster noted that before the pandemic, the state had record numbers of job growth, and he hopes to get back to that point.
After a teleconference with President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and other governors, McMaster decided the recovery plan will consist of a group of leaders from manufacturing, tourism, hospitality and state agencies. He said they will come up with the best practices to get the economy back up and running again as quickly as possible.
“It’ll be measured just as we measured it carefully going into where we are now, restricting some businesses, restricting activities and asking people to comply with certain things,” McMaster said. “Coming out too quickly will be reckless.”
One of the first steps McMaster said the state will take is reopening public boat ramps for fishing and recreation. It’s a small step, but there will be many more steps ahead in the near future.
“In earlier orders we asked people to take life a little easy, to relax, to recreate,” McMaster said. “Well, a lot of that happens on the water. So we’re going to open those ramps back up, but we still insist on practicing social distancing.”
