Ep | 62 America getting back in business

Some states moved immediately to remove total prohibitions on places like public beaches in Florida, while maintaining strict social distancing measures. But the gating criteria to enter phase one of the national plan is not going to be met very quickly by many states such as Louisiana, New York, and New Jersey. The gate requires 14 days of measuring three areas of symptoms, cases, and hospitals to enter that phase. Now that virus epidemic peaks have been reached in state’s like Louisiana, downward trajectories in the symptoms, cases, and hospital capability categories is being reached. However, the requirement for a robust testing program, has not been met yet according to state officials. As recently as the April 20th Louisiana governor’s press conference, a medical expert projected the state wouldn’t reach the capacity they estimate they’ll need until the end of May, meaning a capability to do 200,000 diagnostic tests per month statewide (set by the state and may differ across states). The greatest limitation, believe it or not, is the limited availability of the various swabs needed to take a sample from a patient. We need to be able to do all of this simply to be able to respond rapidly and appropriately when the second wave arrives, an inevitability that no amount of social distancing or economic closures can prevent. Rapidly and appropriately likely means less painful if we’ve all done our jobs right, and successfully phase this reopening effort. In our next response, before we have a vaccine, we’ll be capable of precision targeting instead of relying on broad swath approaches to mitigation measures. Louisiana’s Governor and President Trump have both said they are on the same page and that appears to be so. In the same April 20 press briefing Governor Edwards announced reopening of non-essential medical care operations and said he hopes to meet the gate requirements by May 1, while stopping short of an economic reopening process. The state legislature and the Governor are set to work together, with the legislature establishing a reopening task force last week. But what will the reopening look like? How will the recent disaster of negative oil prices affect the timeline? My state representative, Mark Wright, says he’s been involved in talks with his colleagues for weeks and he joins me today to discuss, how we get back to open for business.