Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey accused of firing scientists who say he shouldn't reopen the state

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey is being accused by health experts of firing scientists who warned him of reopening the state from threats of coronavirus too soon.

Ducey, a Republican, recently extended his stay-at-home order until May 15, but on the day before President Trump visited the state and toured a Honeywell mask factory, the two-term governor announced barbershops and hair salons could reopen on Friday and restaurants on Monday.

With continued positive trends and in alignment with public health officials and the data, Arizona is taking the next steps to safely reenergize our economy.

MORE: https://t.co/RtIHM1XBKR #ReturnStronger #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/8mKGCkqtq4

— Doug Ducey (@dougducey) May 4, 2020

Laurie Roberts, a columnist for the Arizona Republic, said in an op-ed piece that the governor has dismissed the scientific reports to keep the state from easing social distancing and allowing coronavirus to get a foothold.

The Arizona Department of Health Services told a modeling team of nearly two dozen professors at Arizona State University and the University of Arizona to “pause” their work of compiling a model of statistics of covid-19 in Arizona.

The email said ADHS would also “pull back the special data sets which have been shared” with the researchers who are no longer assisting the department. The letter thanked the modeling team members, but it gave no reason for discontinuing their work.

‼️#AZ Department of Health told @ASU scientists to pause work after its #coronavirus model showed that delaying reopening to the end of May was the *only* way to avoid an exponential explosion of #COVID19 cases.@dougducey plans to reopen in a few days.?https://t.co/tDqw8NT2C1

— Dr. Dena Grayson (@DrDenaGrayson) May 6, 2020

“Just hours after Ducey announced on Monday that he’s accelerating the reopening of parts of the state’s economy, state health officials told a team of university experts to stop working on models that project what will happen next,” Roberts wrote.

Glad to hear that ASU will continue its modeling, with or without the contributions of AZ DHS. That’s what real leadership looks like. Ducey should take note and release the “special data” publicly. https://t.co/kCjX1V2Sc1

— Ruben Gallego (@RepRubenGallego) May 7, 2020

The universities’ model had shown waiting until the end of May to reopen was the only scenario that didn’t dramatically increase coronavirus cases. Instead the state will utilize federal models that are not available to the public.