Fauci says 'rolling reentry' of US economy possible in May

[Nacht Owl]

Source: Associated Press

By MARK SHERMAN and DARLENE SUPERVILLE
49 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States’ top infectious disease expert said Sunday that the economy in parts of the country could have a “rolling reentry” as early as next month, provided health authorities can quickly identify and isolate people who will inevitably be infected with the coronavirus.

Dr. Anthony Fauci also said he “can’t guarantee” that it will be safe for Americans to vote in person on Election Day, Nov. 3. Rather than flipping a switch to reopen the entire country, Fauci said a gradual process will be required based on the status of the pandemic in various parts of the U.S. and the availability of rapid, widespread testing. Once the number of people who are seriously ill sharply declines, officials can begin to “think about a gradual reentry of some sort of normality, some rolling reentry,” Fauci said.

In some places, he said, that might occur as soon as May. “We are hoping that, at the end of the month, we could look around and say, OK, is there any element here that we can safely and cautiously start pulling back on? If so, do it. If not, then just continue to hunker down,” Fauci said.

Whenever restrictions ease, Fauci said, “we know that there will be people who will be getting infected. I mean, that is just reality. “

Social distancing guidelines imposed by President Donald Trump are set to expire April 30. Trump is eager to restart the economy, which has stalled because most Americans are under orders to “stay at home” to help slow the virus’ spread.


Read more: https://apnews.com/d8bb23be7a589b28768fd33aa24ace55

---

Remember when George Dubya Bush used (and ruined) Colin Powell's good reputation to sell the bullshit Iraq War? Can't help but wonder if Trump-Fauci might be a sequel. Just sayin'

[turbinetree]

1. This sequel is going to be a disaster..........if they "all" think it is safe Start shaking hands ..

in public .......................lead away, lets see how long this BS lasts..........it is not safe, and I will not become statistic for this guy to add me or my family to the list of him, when he failed to prevent this when he knew 4 months ago, and now he has BLOOD ON HIS HANDS .....fuck them....................

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Yeah can't tell if Fauci

is being a loyal Republican or is acting as buffer between Trump and health policy, or more likely both. It's like he's talking out of both sides of his mouth, first something to placate Trump, then veiled reality to sort of report the truth.

[ArizonaLib]

5. He is the voice of that group of doctors meeting separately from the president's council

He is in a difficult spot for sure - but how well he is handling it is debatable and of course unprecedented because it is this 'president', so there is little to compare it to. If he loses his platform during these briefings, we are all screwed even worse than we have been so far, because he won't be replaced by anyone better for the people (i.e. see AG Barr's recent comments).

I am not defending Fauci, but he manages to cross white house madness without getting removed. So far.

[Chemisse]

11. It might be his way of getting Trump to do the testing that must be done for safe reopening.

He says May is possible in places where there is not much virus, but the only way to know is to do a lot of testing . . .

[iluvtennis]

14. + agree. nt

[SergeStorms]

22. Unfortunately the majority of commerce....

is done on the coasts, not the "heartland". If there was ever a demonstration of "red America/blue America" regarding the wheels of commerce, it's the corona virus crisis. The areas where the majority of this country's commerce takes place are in the blue states, where the virus is still running rampant, and Trump's abject failure to react to this crisis is plainly visible.

[oswaldactedalone]

3. From paying close attention to the data of this crisis since February

and having worked as a healthcare professional in a variety of medical settings, my thinking is that to avoid a second huge wave of covid-19, we shouldn't open up the economy until we get through the July 4th holiday. However, there's no way that Drumpf will wait that long. I hope he, and the others in position to decide when the restrictions are lifted, will at least wait until May 26th, which is the Tuesday following Memorial Day.

Opening up prior to then is reckless and irresponsible. For most presidents, even a failed president such Dubya Bush, this wouldn't be an issue. However, Drumpf seems to take pride in expanding his recklessness and irresponsibility.

[Initech]

7. I've been saying the last week that they're gonna torpedo this thing.

The GOP is on a death march, and they've got their Kool-Aid (hydroxychlorquine) and now they're going to take the lazy man's way out, which is going to make this infinitely worse. I don't like these lockdowns one bit and I hate social distancing with the fiery passion of 1,000 suns. But considering I'm a blood relative of a doctor who is working on the front lines, I know that we have these lockdowns in place for a reason.

The thing is I'm completely worried that Trump is going to do something reckless and irresponsible. This is hitting him where he lives and he doesn't like it one bit. If he does something stupid, we're screwed for the foreseeable future.

[47of74]

16. Thing is if we waited until it was absolutely, postively safe we would never be able to leave....

...our homes ever again and wouldn't be able to so much as leave our beds to take a shit without someone looking down their noses at us and complaining how selfish we were.

[LeftInTX]

17. The Boston Globe said until there is a vaccination cases will spike.

Until there is a vaccine we are stuck like this or we could cycle loosening restrictions and tightening them back up quickly. They will spike, but it won't tax health resources the way.

The said flattening the curve delays the inevitable until there is a vaccine or herd immunity or treatment or something.

[pat_k]

19. End of May/Start of June is consistent with...

...approaching the bottom of the downward curve.

But the ONLY way to keep the curve from going back up is to continue social distancing for at least another six weeks and spending the time pulling off "the Apollo program of our times..."

Seattle Times
When will this end, and what comes next?

Keeping the virus under control in the long term will require an ambitious strategy that one Seattle scientist calls “the Apollo program of our times.”

The basic approach is no different than for any other epidemic: Identify those who become infected, as well as those who have been exposed, and isolate them. But that would mean a massive scale-up of testing and contact tracing, at a time when even nursing homes still can’t get enough test kits and public health agencies are swamped.

Trevor Bedford, the Fred Hutch computational biologist who made the moonshot analogy, says what’s needed is new technology, including simple home tests and the use of cellphone location data to alert people who may have been exposed. Some epidemiologists say it could even be necessary to impose intermittent lockdowns through the end of the year, to keep hospitals from being flooded with patients.

If the strategies work, they will buy time for the development of lifesaving treatments and a vaccine.

“People really do need to understand the sad truth here, related to the fact that we’re not going to be able to stop this outbreak,” said Dr. Jeff Duchin, health officer for Public Health – Seattle & King County. “We’re trying to manage it, but people will continue to get sick. People will continue to get critically ill. People will continue to die.”

We ARE capable of getting this done -- of an "Apollo program of our times." We are capable of containing this and preventing a massive rebound, while preserving the economy. Keep the lockdown in place until numbers are down and don't lift it until we are capable of EFFECTIVE targeted quarantine.

Trump won't do it, but a coalition of governors could. And to get private industry on the stick, they should pledge not to "reopen" until they have the capability to carry out the widespread testing -- including a home test and ability to process VERY large numbers of them -- necessary, along with task forces to carry about aggressive tracing of contacts, notification, and quarantine of every case identified.

If big business wants to get back into business, they better pony up bucks. It would be the best investment they ever made.

[Rhiannon12866]

24. Good article, thanks!

[Maxheader]

4. And just how trusting...

will the workforce be? Sweet Jesus...what a dilemma for people...Need to work for a paycheck and worried if it is safe...

[ArizonaLib]

6. After decades of labor's power and decline, the workers are desparate

Will they revolt and take action? Not sure - we have been frogs in the boiler.

[Fullduplexxx]

8. The NPR-ing of dr fauci

[CountAllVotes]

9. Dr. Fauci: You don't make the timeline, the virus does

And here is what Dr. Fauci dated March 20, 2020:

[yaesu]

10. it will be up to the governors, not come lately. I don't believe any tRump puppet anyway so. nt

[Igel]

12. This was something really explicit at the beginning of the whole "lockdown" business.

Whenever restrictions ease, Fauci said, “we know that there will be people who will be getting infected. I mean, that is just reality. “

Flattening the curve wasn't to stop transmission, it was to slow it so that it didn't overwhelm hospitals. That was shouted from every tv and radio. It's not a new thing.


The other seriously important reason to slow it was to tamp down the infection, but a lot of people can't accept having two reasons for a single thing, so you keep it simple. It's nonetheless true that you can't contact trace under current conditions. You have to have staff to talk to the sick person, and send staff out to those locations for the people that are always there (stores, for instance) or test family and those the person interacted with.

You have to do this for a very high percentage of those infected.

You have to have someplace to quarantine those who are infected, and isolate those who *might* be infected but wouldn't show it yet or ever.

Then, for those who test positive at the time and are shedding virus, you contact trace *them*.

You have 300k people infected, you need to have millions of trained public health workers *just* for contact tracing.

We need the numbers down. And we need facilities freed up for isolating the infected but not severely sick.

If it turns out antibodies produced block the virus, then maybe we can have serological testing in place to identify some portion of the population as immune and not in need of being PCR tested. Until there's a vaccine.

If the antibodies produced don't block the virus, we're in a world of hurt and have to hope that it eventually mutates or repeated infections produce immunity.

Or there's the long view. One line of research suggests that a mutation in the human gene controlling part of the immune response is responsible for a portion of the severe COVID-19 cases. Over time that mutation would be driven to extinction. That would reduce the average severity of the disease. (It's a coldly harsh view, but there you go. Nature's got no compassion.)

[appalachiablue]

13. The Guardian & some Eur sources reporting how Denmark,

Austria, Cech Rep and other areas are planning to selectively open up. But these are small nations, the US has a much larger population and more complex issues. *It can't be rushed here, to do so would be very risky and more.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/relief-and-anxiety-as-european-nations-get-set-to-ease-lockdowns

[Grokenstein]

15. Keep yourself safe and do what you can to keep others safe.

You don't need me to tell you that, just like you didn't need WHO to tell you when to wear a mask or the CDC telling you that the real problem is reusable bags (SMFH).

But the instant Donny "Chaos" Littlehands yells "all clear," idiots from sea to shining sea are going to throw away their hand sanitizer, burn their masks and start coughing on everyone and everything. And two weeks later the curve is going to be a mountain. What are our surviving, already-tapped-out medical personnel going to do? I suspect many of them are going to throw their hands in the air and walk away, and I won't blame them.

Wear your masks. Make your kids wear their masks properly and enforce all the proper hygiene practices. (While out briefly yesterday I saw four idiots with their masks pulled partially/completely down, and only one of them was a child. The child was digging around in one of his nostrils.)

Keep it going long after Donny says stop, because Donny wants the coronavirus to "wash over" you.
Listening to Donny will kill you.
Donny will kill you.

[pat_k]

18. "provided health authorities can quickly identify and isolate people who will inevitably be infected

"...provided health authorities can quickly identify and isolate people who will inevitably be infected..."

And how is that supposed to happen when no state or metropolitan area has the sampling supplies or tests necessary for the requisite widespread testing? When there is no home test? When there is no capacity to process the number of tests needed??

There is absolutely nothing in the works as far as I can tell to prepare for the kind of massive testing and contact tracing needed for targeted quarantine to effectively contain.

As one expert put it, we need "the Apollo program of our times" -- and we have no leadership to get us there.

[ansible]

20. Question to those of you angry at this - how do you expect people to survive past May with no job?

Do you realize how so many people are already utterly fucked right now with no job, nothing to pay rent and no food??

[lark]

21. There will NOT be quick and easy availability of testing.

I guarantee it! drumpf has shown in tons of ways that he is using this to kill the working class & poor and destroy the economy to set up the biggest theft of our $$ in history.