Economy: States Starting To Reopen
Easing of social distancing restrictions. The real progress in controlling the virus has led to talk of easing social distancing restrictions and reopening the economy—and several states have started doing just that. While there are concerns that this shift could lead to faster spread of the virus, that will not be apparent for a few weeks when new infections actually show up in the data. So, a continued decline in the spread of the virus over the next couple of weeks will not be an argument for (or against) any such opening.
Increase in testing. Another concern is that when states do open up, more comprehensive testing will be needed to track and isolate infected and exposed people. Opening up essentially means switching from isolating everyone to isolating only those who are sick or at risk. To do so, we need to know who those individuals are. The only way to make this identification is through widespread testing. In the past week, encouragingly, we have seen testing increase substantially, to around or above 200,000 per day (up from 150,000 per day last week). This increase is real progress, and it looks likely to continue.
We aren’t yet certain about how many tests per day we will need, but initial estimates were in the 1 million per day range. That number now looks too low. In any event, the current test run rate remains too low to support any kind of meaningful surveillance operation to support reopening economies, but it is at least moving in the right direction.
Positive test results still high. Another way to look at where we are now is to examine the percentage of tests that are coming back positive. Ideally, if everyone were being tested, this number should be quite low. In fact, between 10 percent and 15 percent of all tests are coming back positive, which suggests two things. First, the tests are primarily being given to people who are likely sick with the virus. Second, given the limited availability, most people who might have the virus are not being tested. The level of positive results should likely be 5 percent or below. Until we get down to that level, we will not have enough data to reopen economies without risking another wave of the virus. Again, while we are not there yet, we continue to make material progress.
