Donald Trump originally wanted to reopen the country by Easter Sunday, now he’s been hinting more at May 1st, but several experts are warning that date is unrealistic. Today Dr. Anthony Faui, the nation’s top infectious expert told the Associated Press procedures to get back to business, as usual, aren’t in place yet:
“We have to have something in place that is efficient and that we can rely on, and we’re not there yet.”
Fauci said a May 1 target is “a bit overly optimistic” for many areas of the country. Any easing off the strict social-distancing rules in place in much of the country would have to occur on a “rolling” basis, not all at once, he said, reflecting the ways COVID-19 struck different parts of the country at different times.
And there is a report out today from Harvard researchers that shows we may not be there for two years. The information published in the Science journal reads:
“Under current critical care capacities, however, the overall duration of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic could last into 2022, requiring social distancing measures to be in place.”
Lifting social-distancing measures all at once could risk simply delaying the epidemic’s peak and potentially making it more severe, the scientists warned in an article published Tuesday in the journal Science.
The course of the pandemic will depend on questions not yet answered: Will the virus’s spread change with the seasons? What immunity will people have after they’re infected? And does exposure to coronaviruses that cause mild illnesses confer any protection against the pathogen that causes Covid-19?
The bottom line? There are a lot of outstanding factors that need to be worked out, this can’t be rushed or we will be back to square one. As New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has said, “What the art form is going to be here is doing that smartly and doing that in a coordinated way.”