Governors disregarding reopening guidelines
Many governors across the U.S. are disregarding or creatively interpreting White House guidelines in easing their states’ lockdowns and letting businesses reopen, an Associated Press analysis found.
The AP determined that 17 states do not appear to meet one of the key benchmarks set by the White House for loosening up — a 14-day downward trajectory in new cases or infection rates. And yet many of those have begun to reopen or are about to do so, including Alabama, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah.
Because of the broad way in which the nonbinding guidelines are written, other states, including Georgia, have technically managed to meet the criteria and reopen despite not seeing a steady decline in cases and deaths.
Asked at the White House on Thursday about states that are reopening without meeting some of the federal government’s benchmarks, President Donald Trump said: “The governors have great power as to that, given by us. We want them to do that. We rely on them. We trust them. And hopefully they are making the right decisions.”
The push to reopen across the country comes amid pressure from businesses that are collapsing by the day and workers who have been thrown out of a job. Over 33 million Americans have applied for unemployment benefits over the past seven weeks, and a highly anticipated report on Friday is expected to show U.S. unemployment as high as 16%, a level not seen since the Depression.
Elsewhere around the world, the Bank of England projected that Britain’s economy will shrink by 14 percent this year, its biggest decline since 1706, when Europe was embroiled in the War of the Spanish Succession.
The economic woes have affected even brand-name businesses, with Neiman Marcus filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the first U.S. department store chain to be toppled by the outbreak.
The reopening debate in the U.S. echoes that underway in Europe, where regional and political rifts are emerging over how fast to lift the lid on the lockdowns.
French mayors are resisting the government’s call to reopen schools, while Italian governors want Rome to ease lockdown measures faster. As the British government looks to reopen the economy, Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon has warned that acting too fast could let the virus wreak havoc again.
Public health experts around the world have cautioned that reopening too soon, without widespread testing and tracing, could enable the virus to come surging back with tragic consequences.
The U.S. has recorded over 74,000 deaths and 1.2 million confirmed infections. But this week, University of Washington researchers nearly doubled their projection of deaths in the U.S. to about 134,000 through early August, largely to reflect the loosenings of stay-at-home restrictions.
When Trump announced the guidelines April 16, he declared a “new front in our war” and said he was “establishing clear scientific metrics and benchmarks on testing, new case growth and hospital capacity that must be met before advancing each phase.”
Since then, many states have reopened while daily cases and infection rates have either plateaued or continued to climb, the AP analysis found. Some states are going it alone, using their own criteria, not the White House’s.
The White House has not been specific about how states should calculate the 14-day downward trajectory. Depending on how you calculate it, a state might pass or fail. The AP analyzed counts of tests and confirmed cases compiled by Johns Hopkins University and looked at the numbers using a rolling seven-day average to account for day-to-day variability in test reporting.
As governments grapple with when to restart their economies, the Trump administration has shelved a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document with step-by-step advice to local authorities on how and when to reopen restaurants and other public places. The 17-page report with detailed instructions on what precautions to take was supposed to be published last Friday, but agency scientists were told it “would never see the light of day,” according to a CDC official who was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
A person close to the White House’s coronavirus task force said the CDC documents were never cleared by CDC leadership for public release. The person said that White House officials have refrained from offering detailed guidance for how specific sectors should reopen because the virus is affecting various parts of the country differently. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
The rejected reopening guidance was described by one of the federal officials as a touchstone document that was to be used as a blueprint for other groups inside the CDC who are creating the same type of instructional materials for other facilities.
The guidance contained detailed advice for making site-specific decisions related to reopening schools, restaurants, summer camps, churches, day care centers and other institutions. It had been widely shared within the CDC and included detailed “decision trees,” flow charts to be used by local officials to think through different scenarios. One page of the document can be found on the CDC website via search engines, but it did not appear to be linked to any other CDC pages.
Some of the report’s suggestions already appear on federal websites. But the guidance offered specific, tailored recommendations for reopening in one place. For example, the report suggested restaurants and bars should install sneeze guards at cash registers and avoid having buffets, salad bars and drink stations. Similar tips appear on the CDC’s site and a Food and Drug Administration page.
But the shelved report also said that as restaurants start seating diners again, they should space tables at least 6 feet apart and try to use phone app technology to alert a patron when their table is ready to avoid touching and use of buzzers. That’s not on the CDC’s site now.
“States and local health departments do need guidance on a lot of the challenges around the decision to reopen,” said Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. “You can say that restaurants can open and you need to follow social distancing guidelines. But restaurants want to know, ‘What does that look like?’”
The White House’s own “Opening Up America Again” guidelines released last month were more vague than the CDC’s unpublished report. They instructed state and local governments to reopen in accordance with federal and local “regulations and guidance” and to monitor employees for symptoms of COVID19. The White House guidance also included advice developed earlier in the pandemic that remains important like social distancing and encouraging working from home.
The CDC is hearing daily from state and county health departments looking for scientifically valid information with which to make informed decisions.
Still, behind the scenes, CDC scientists like those who produced the guidance for “Opening Up America Again” are working to get information to local governments.
People have clicked on the CDC’s coronavirus website more than 1.2 billion times.
States that directly reach out to the CDC can tap guidance that’s been prepared but that the White House has not released.