It's Brian Lehrer and this is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios.

It's Monday, May 18th.

Different states are reopening, different kinds of businesses and beaches and other things to different degrees, even under similar

circumstances. The beaches in much of the Northeast open, starting next weekend, Memorial Day weekend.

Governor Cuomo in New York announced that over the weekend, for example, to some people's surprise,

but with certain distancing precautions. But in hard-hit New York City,

not for swimming, only for walking. Look at California. This is from USA Today. Last Tuesday,

the California State University system that comprises 23 campuses such as Fresno State, San Diego State, and San Jose

State announced it would cancel in-person classes for the fall semester. But the same article says,

Governor Gavin Newsom, on the same day, said more businesses could reopen statewide and approved

requests from counties to move ahead more quickly if they have been

minimally harmed by the pandemic. Business offices can reopen with appropriate precautions if

their employees cannot easily telecommute. So welcome back office buildings in some smaller places

anyway, but not the college campuses in some of the same

communities. That's California. Then there's Georgia with its controversial reopening. You've all heard

about this. We're in week three now. There has been no big spike, but the new case rate isn't

declining either. Is that success or is that failure?

What's the lesson for other places from Georgia?

The news this weekend was full of stories of people who defied states' orders and

reopen their businesses anyway, or were big on social media denouncing the rules as liberal snowflake big

government, and then guess what? They got the virus. Some of them even died. NPR's weekend edition

Saturday, some of you heard this with Scott Simon, had a moving story about one of those public

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