Time for a poll:
If your daily fare is magic bullet stuff -- vaccine, meds, herd immunity ...
A question: Do you wear a mask outside the home ? Only when I am going into a building or into a crowded area.
Do you wash your hands before eating or preparing food ? Yes
Do you wash your hands after you go to the bathroom ? Yes. And my policy is to not use any public restrooms anymore.
Do you maintain social distancing outside the home ? Yes. I may make exceptions for friends in the future where I know the history.
I know you have me on mute, so I have no idea what exactly you're trying to advocate for here. Certainly masks will be required for the foreseeable future. And they are a good idea for the most part. But I don't see them necessarily bringing R0 anywhere near 1 in the absence of many other measures, unless we're operating an extremely hobbled economy.
So what would be your plan for opening up the country again, exactly, and how long would you wait? (Maybe someone else who is not muted can repeat my question?)
I've been pretty clear on what I think is needed:
1) Prodigious testing capacity, used strategically (I'd suggest at least 50x the capacity we currently have). 1 billion tests per year for the US would be nice. The exact quantity I'm not sure of, but the point is to be able to scale rapidly to whatever is necessary.
2) Extensive buildup of public health authority capacity to trace people and manage surveillance (additional trained personnel)
3) Use technology to aid tracking and integrate with public health authorities (they need to be the only ones who can "notify" of a positive test result, otherwise the system will be abused).
4) Use technology to generate a nationwide database of cases and contact tracing and to allow tracking of cases & prevalence in real time. Perhaps people can come up with other ideas to allow technology to more quickly identify outbreaks and ease quarantining.
5) Substantial buildup of support methods (monetary, food delivery, etc.) for people who are confined to quarantine to motivate people to do the right thing.
6) Antibody tests would be good to figure out approximate prevalence (if high quality and used correctly), and to identify those who can return to work - but the numbers are currently so small relative to the population I don't really see this as being a huge help in the short term, even in New York.
Timing:
There's no way the biggest states most significant to the economy will be able to open before mid-May. The current number of cases is just too high, and in order for things to cool to a level where things can open up in any significant way, we'll have to wait. It will also take time to build up the items above, and have them ready in advance of re-opening. If they aren't in place we'll just end up with a massive second wave. If we don't wait for the number of new cases to diminish to a trickle, we won't be able to reopen, either.
State by state reopening is possible, but only if strict travel restrictions between states are imposed (as long as there are any hot states).
