How We'll Know When It's Safe To Reopen The U.S. Economy

Is there a way to reopen the U.S. economy amid the coronavirus pandemic without risking second and third waves of the virus? What’s possible and ethical? We take a hard look at some proposals to get us back to work with the experts who wrote them.

Danielle Allen, lead author of the “Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience,” a report on how to reopen the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic. Director of Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. (@dsallentess)

Tom Frieden, president and CEO of 'Resolve to Save Lives,' an initiative that aims to prevent epidemics. Former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Former commissioner of health for the City of New York. (@DrTomFrieden)

Reprinted from "Roadmap to Pandemic Resistance." Copyright © 2020. 

Reprinted from "Box It In" by Resolve to Save Lives. Copyright © 2020.

The Washington Post: "The three key ideas at stake for a post-coronavirus future" — "In the debate about how many covid-19 tests are enough, we have to ask 'enough for what?' Enough to handle the cases coming into our hospitals? Or enough to control the disease without collective quarantine, so that we can safely go back to work without fearing repeated stay-at-home orders? I want the latter and would guess that most Americans do, too."

STAT News: "Many states are far short of Covid-19 testing levels needed for safe reopening, new analysis shows" — "More than half of U.S. states will have to significantly step up their Covid-19 testing to even consider starting to relax stay-at-home orders after May 1, according to a new analysis by Harvard researchers and STAT."

ABC News: "'Road map' to recovery report: 20 million coronavirus tests per day needed to fully open economy" — "With President Donald Trump saying he wants to lift stay-at-home novel coronavirus orders and open up parts of the country, more than 45 economists, social scientists, lawyers and ethicists say there's a growing consensus pointing to a major step necessary to put Americans back to work: dramatically upscaling testing."