No states meet White House guidelines to reopen — even those reopening, expert says
As states begin to reopen from stay-at-home orders and coronavirus lockdowns, experts have warned that reopening economies before states are ready could lead to new coronavirus cases.
Caitlin Rivers, researcher at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, testified before the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations on Wednesday. Rivers said that states didn’t meet the requirements for testing, contact tracing, and enough personal protective equipment for health care workers to reopen.
“Many states are in the process of reopening, or are considering doing so, despite inadequate capacities to do diagnostic testing, contact tracing, and insufficient supplies of personal protective equipment,” she said. “Other states not yet reopening are looking ahead to those decisions, as we all are, to try to understand how and when that transition to reopening should unfold.”
“It is clear to me that we are in a critical moment in this fight,” she continued. “We risk complacency in accepting the preventable deaths of 2,000 Americans each day. We risk complacency in accepting that our health care workers do not have what they need to do their jobs safely. And we risk complacency in recognizing that without continued vigilance in slowing transmission, we will again create the conditions that led to us being the worst-affected country in the world.”
Rivers said that expanding testing, contact tracing, and PPE need to be fulfilled before states can reopen.
“Many of the cities that were first and severely affected have turned the corner. But it is too soon to breathe easily,” she said.
As of May 6, several states have partially reopened their economies under restrictions, including Texas, Florida, Maine, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Alaska, Indiana, West Virginia, and South Carolina, according to The New York Times.
Arizona, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island are considering reopening soon, The New York Times reported.
California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, Hawaii, New York, Minnesota, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont remain shut down, according to The New York Times.
Reopening states too early could not only lead to new cases in those states, but also spread to nearby communities.
“I do believe we are going to see additional surges of cases from this epidemic, and that will not be contained within a state,” public health preparedness expert Crystal Watson from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security told STAT News.
“So neighboring states and perhaps states across the country and countries across the world are going to have cases imported from those outbreaks.”
This story was originally published May 7, 2020 at 11:39 AM with the headline "No states meet White House guidelines to reopen — even those reopening, expert says."