Do it right: Shut down U.S., restart coronavirus response
More than 160,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, accounting for about 22% of fatalities worldwide. Nationally, we could lose 300,000 lives by Dec. 1.
If our country had responded differently and quicker, many of those lives would have been saved. It’s time to shut down the country, start over and do it right.
California is an example of why. In March, the state became the first in the nation to implement a lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. We all heeded the call to action and stayed home to keep our loved ones, neighbors and communities safe. But our government did not use this time to develop a sufficient plan to safely reopen.
As COVID-19 case numbers improved, Gov. Gavin Newsom started to reopen bars, salons and restaurants before meeting his own testing and contact-tracing standards. Lifting public health restrictions too early — combined with outbreaks in prisons, senior care facilities and homeless shelters, and among agricultural workers — has led to a complex epidemic in the state that was once a shining example of COVID-19 response.
We need to take stock of how decision-making by our state and federal government officials has affected the outcome of our response. Estimates show that if our response had been as effective as in South Korea, Australia or Singapore, the vast majority of American deaths could have been prevented.
Next, let’s acknowledge that the health of the economy is dependent on the health of the public. Economists have stated that “the only way to end our financial crisis and restore the economy is to address the pandemic itself.” Public health professionals have made clear that even after we have contained the virus, we can’t safely reopen American cities and towns without significantly more testing and contact tracing. It’s time to listen to them.
California has only about a third of the testing capacity considered necessary to suppress the virus and continues to have challenges with testing availability, turnaround times and accurate reporting of cases. Additionally, the state lacks sufficient contact-tracing capability.
Most urgently, we need to break the chains of transmission. California data indicates a seven-day positivity rate of about 5%. However, the state Health and Human Services Agency recently warned that technical problems with data reporting means we don’t know accurately how widely the virus is spreading.
The governor should close nonessential businesses. Restaurants should be limited to takeout and delivery services. People should stay home and go out only if they work in an essential service or need to get food and medicine, go to the doctor or exercise. The statewide mask mandate should be extended and enforced in all situations, indoors and outdoors, where we interact with others.
Once the rate of those testing positive comes down to 2% or less, we can try to slowly lift public health measures one small step at a time. As we cautiously reopen, we must contain the virus through robust testing and tracing protocols.
To save more lives in the long run, decision-makers must make difficult decisions now.
President Trump and Congress need to let scientific evidence lead their decision-making. They need to provide federal support to scale up testing and contact tracing capacity and to provide a safety net for those who need it.
Meanwhile, Newsom, who led the way in March by instituting the first statewide lockdown, needs to prepare to do that again. We need to do whatever it takes to contain COVID-19 and prevent any further loss of life.
Dr. Krutika Kuppalli is an infectious disease physician in the Bay Area and Emerging Leader in Biosecurity Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Matthew Wellington is the public health campaigns director for U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
California has only about a third of the testing capacity considered necessary to suppress the virus and continues to have challenges with testing availability, turnaround times and accurate reporting of cases. Additionally, the state lacks sufficient contact-tracing capability.