The big news this weekend, at least in the U.S., was that a handful of states took the first small steps towards reopening their economies by permitting businesses to get back to work. Georgia’s efforts have gotten the most attention, largely due to President Trump’s apparent flip-flopping on whether he thought it was a good idea, but partial re-openings also went into effect in Alaska, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. In every case, the reopenings are limited in scope and come with restrictions—in Alaska, for example restaurants can only be filled to 25% of capacity, no walk-ins are allowed, and condiments have to be in individual packets or in bottles that are sanitized between customers, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
Certainly, people everywhere are suffering from the economic impact of COVID-19. But it’s far from obvious whether it’s a good idea to be trying to kickstart the economy back into action at this point in the pandemic. At the news conference announcing Georgia’s reopening, Governor Brian Kemp said the state was on track to meet the Phase 1 criteria laid out by the White House’s “Opening Up America Again ” plan: essentially, a downward trajectory of documented cases over the past 14 days, and a health care system able to operate in normal (not crisis) mode. It’s not clear whether Georgia fits that bill. Even now, nearly a week later, it’s hard to look at the number and make a compelling argument that new cases are falling.
Perhaps more importantly, without significant testing, there’s really no way to truly grasp the scope of the virus in a given area. An object lesson in this problem came out of New York just this week: At a press briefing, Governor Andrew Cuomo shared the results of a study where 3,000 people in New York City were randomly selected for COVID-19 testing. One in five were positive. So far, New York state has confirmed about 282,000 positive cases; if that 20% number were to be true of the entire state, we should be looking at something closer to 4 million.
New York is currently testing at a rate of nearly 400 tests per 10,000 people, according to the COVID Tracking Project. Here’s a look at how the four semi-reopening states compare:
Georgia is certainly not New York, which has had to marshal resources at a scale of no other state in order to deal with the worst COVID-19 challenges of the country. But no matter where you are, testing at mass scale will be the only way to keep further waves of outbreaks tamped down, regardless of how well the first wave is controlled. In Anchorage, Alaska, restaurants will be required to keep a record of all guests for 30 days, on the premise that if a case is uncovered in a previous diner, everyone else who ate at that restaurant that day would be easily tracked down, tested, and quarantined if necessary. But that’s premised on the fact that that first case would be uncovered, and that means far more testing than even Alaska, which hovers around the U.S. national average, is currently capable of. Governors, health agencies, and hospitals across the country are still saying they don’t have the test kits the need.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, made this clear early this week. Speaking to TIME about testing capabilities, he said “I am not overly confident right now at all that we have what it takes to do that. We are doing better, and I think we are going to get there, but we are not there yet.” Without that, reopening likely just means another, second shutdown is on the way.
All numbers below are As of April. 26, 1 PM eastern time.
New Zealand
New Zealand has recorded 1,470 cases and 18 deaths. Even for a relatively small country of about 5 million people, these are strikingly low numbers, and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has laid out an ambitious plan for New Zealand to eliminate COVID-19 entirely. What’s so special about the island nation? Read more here.
New York City
A study published earlier this week looked at the electronic health records data of 5,700 COVID-19 hospital patients in the New York City area, offering one of the clearest pictures of the risk factors for serious illness connected to the virus.
The median age of patients was 63 years old, and 94% of them had at least one comorbidity, meaning that they had at least one other disease in addition to COVID-19. Read more here.
Greece
On paper, Greece seems a country almost certain to be hit especially hard: it’s a tourist destination with a fragile economy and an elderly population. It has only 5.2 ICU beds per 100,000 people. And yet, it has recorded only 2,517 cases and 134 deaths, both far lower than most other European countries. There are lessons to be learned, experts say. Read more here.
Hokkaido
Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido contained an early outbreak with a three-week lockdown. But, when the governor lifted restrictions, a second wave of infections hit, forcing the island back into lockdown. A doctor who helped coordinate the government response says he wishes they’d done things differently. “Now I regret it, we should not have lifted the first state of emergency,” says Dr. Kiyoshi Nagase, chairman of the Hokkaido Medical Association. Read more here.
IMPACTS ON OUR MOST VULNERABLE
America’s Food Banks Can’t Keep Up With Pandemic Demand
The strain on food banks is multifaceted. At the same as time demand is surging, it’s getting harder than ever to keep shelves stocked. With most Americans cooking and eating at home, grocery stores and restaurants have fewer products to donate to charities. Some relief organizations have resorted to buying food at retail prices, but that puts an enormous—and unsustainable—squeeze on their already-tight budgets. To top it all off, the increased risk of severe COVID-19 symptoms among older Americans is leaving some food charities without a core bloc of their typical volunteer base. Read more here.
The Heart-Wrenching Decisions Behind Rationing Health Care
If there are more patients than ICU beds and ventilators available, how and to whom should doctors distribute these life-saving supplies? Which patients should they prioritize if supplies dwindled? There are no clear national criteria that answer these impossible questions, so hospitals are turning to loose industry guidelines that some doctors say are both ethically and legally discriminatory. Read more here.
The Unique Risks Now Faced by Millions of Incarcerated Americans
A month ago, U.S. Attorney General William Barr ordered federal prisons to “immediately maximize” the release of prisoners—especially those medically vulnerable—to home confinement, to limit the impact of COVID-19 on the incarcerated. The response, according to the Marshall Project, has been minimal at best. And new data out of the Marion Correctional Institute, an Ohio state prison facility, show how serious the issue is: when the entire facility was tested, 78% of those incarcerated there had the virus already. Read more here.
For People With Disabilities, It’s Now Harder Than Ever to Get Care
With hospitals restricting visitors amid the pandemic, those who rely on family and aides for assistance and advocacy would no longer be guaranteed that resource. If access to life-saving care became limited, Americans with disabilities would be up against potentially discriminatory state health plans to ration care. And if they make it out of the hospital, they would need to ensure they could continue getting support at home without exposing health aides to the virus. Read more here.
BEFORE WE GO
The Art of Emailing During the Coronavirus Pandemic
Social mores are transforming and falling left and right these days. The many of us now communicating professionally and otherwise almost entirely digitally may have noticed some changes in email etiquette. There’s always been disagreement about the best way to sign an email, but in the current context, neither “cheers” nor “all best” feel right. And already, thanks to commercial and marketing emails rapidly joining the rest of us in using “stay safe” and its ilk, those, too, have started to feel rote and relatively meaningless. Read more on how to navigate this tricky social art.
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