Key Steps to Re-Starting the U.S. Economy

If you ask Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, he’ll tell you that until the U.S. implements critical testing and tracing procedures. we cannot get fully back to business. “We have to have something in place that is efficient and that we can rely on, and we’re not there yet”. With approximately 7.5 million small businesses on the verge of closure, many wonder how long that will take.

Fauci has stated that a May 1 re-start target is “overly optimistic” for many areas of the country. Any relaxing of the strict social-distancing rules set in place will need to occur on a “rolled out” basis, and not at once, he said.

Among Fauci’s top concerns is that new clusters of outbreaks in areas where social distancing has been relaxed, will occur. However, public health officials don’t have the resources or ability to conduct rapid testing for the virus. It’s vital to isolate all new cases and track down everyone that an infected person came into contact with. This is widely known as the two T’s: “Test and Trace”.

As soon as measures such as these are in place state-wide, then we can potentially gauge a realistic time frame to re-start to the economy.

Another complication is that scientists still do not have a true understanding of how often people who show either no obvious symptoms or very few symptoms are spreading the virus. It’s “purely a guesstimate” but no less than 25% and no more than half of overall cases may be from the relatively asymptomatic people, Fauci states.

He adds, a second wave of infection isn’t inevitable. “If you mean it goes way down and then come September, October, November, we have another peak, I have to say I would not be surprised. I would hope that if and when that occurs, that we jump all over it in a much, much more effective way than we have in these past few months.”