Polling Shows American People Oppose Reopening Country Before Adequate Testing Capacity Dramatically Increases
Experts Say Trump Risking Second Virus Wave, Surging Death Toll By Reopening Too Soon
Epidemiologist Report Shows That 90% of Deaths Could Have Been Avoided If Social Distancing Had Begun Two Weeks Earlier
President Donald Trump announced yesterday that he would not extend federal coronavirus social distancing guidelines that expire tonight at midnight. Here’s why that’s a bad idea.
“Once again, Donald Trump is contradicting the advice of medical experts and endangering Americans’ lives by refusing to renew the federal social distancing guidelines expiring today that encourage people to protect themselves and their families from spreading the virus,” said Zac Petkanas, Protect Our Care’s Coronavirus War Room Director. “Public health officials overwhelmingly agree that these measures are crucial to limiting new infections, especially since testing is nowhere close to where it should be to safely reopen the country. Make no mistake: these actions right now will lead to a second wave of infections and even more deaths.”
The American People Overwhelmingly Oppose Lifting Social Distancing Without Adequate Testing
An April 29th NPR/PBS/Marist poll found that vast majorities of Americans on both sides of the aisle oppose ending social distancing measures without advanced testing. The poll found:
- 91 percent of adults, including 97 percent of Democrats and 83 percent of Republicans, say it is a bad idea to allow large groups to attend sporting events.
- 85 percent of adults, including 94 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of Republicans. say it is a bad idea to have students return to school.
- 80 percent of adults, including 92 percent of Democrats and 63% of Republicans, say it is a bad idea to open restaurants.
- Two-thirds of Americans oppose physically returning to work without advanced testing.
According to an April 22nd AP-NORC poll, eight in ten Americans support requiring Americans to stay in their homes except for essential errands. The poll also found that:
- Only 12 percent of Americans say restrictions to prevent the spread of coronavirus go too far. The majority (61 percent) of Americans, including 59 percent of Republicans and 62 percent of Democrats, say restrictions put in place are just right.
An April 23rd CBS News poll, 70 percent of Americans believe the top priority for the country should be staying home to slow the spread of the virus while 30 percent believe the top priority should be getting back to work to get the economy going. 76 percent of Americans, including 85 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of Republicans, think stay at home orders have been effective.
CBS found a large majority (63 percent) of Americans are more worried about lifting restrictions too fast and worsening the economy than worry about lifting restrictions too slowly and letting the economy get worse. The poll also found:
- Only 13 percent said they would definitely return to public places over the next few weeks if restrictions were lifted right now, regardless of what else happened with the outbreak.
- Only 23 percent support protestors who have been calling for the end of social distancing; 62 percent oppose the protestors.
Experts Say Ending Social Distancing Too Soon Will Lead To A Resurgence Of The Virus
Dr. Anthony Fauci Said Of States Reopening Without Robust Testing In Place: “You Can’t Just Leap Over Things And Get Into A Situation Where You’re Really Tempting A Rebound. That’s The Thing I Get Concerned About.” “‘We will get blips … there’s no doubt,’ Fauci told NBC’s ‘Today’ show. ‘When you pull back there will be cases, and what we need to do is make sure (states) have in place the capability of identifying, isolating and contact tracing individuals.’ Fauci urged states that don’t have that capability to go very slowly. ‘You can’t just leap over things and get into a situation where you’re really tempting a rebound. That’s the thing I get concerned about,’ he said.” [Associated Press, 4/30/20]
Dr. Anthony Fauci Predicts That If States Reopen Too Quickly, A Rebound Could “Get Us Right Back In The Same Boat That We Were A Few Weeks Ago.” “‘If by that time we have put into place all of the countermeasures that you need to address this, we should do reasonably well. If we don’t do that successfully, we could be in for a bad fall and a bad winter,’ Fauci said. If states reopen too quickly, Fauci also predicts a rebound could ‘get us right back in the same boat that we were a few weeks ago’ and that there could be more deaths in the country than are currently forecast.” [Washington Post, 4/30/20]
Director Of The Medical Critical Care Bioresponse Team At The Hospital Of The University Of Pennsylvania Dr. George Anesi Said Emphasized That When Reopening Economies “It Cannot Be Overstated How Important Diagnostic Testing Is.” “The most important way to ensure successful reopening, experts say, is to have a vast quantity of accurate tests to diagnose COVID-19 cases. ‘It cannot be overstated how important diagnostic testing is,’ said Dr. George Anesi, director of the Medical Critical Care Bioresponse Team at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Ideally, that means testing everyone, including people who never show symptoms. Properly identifying asymptomatic spreaders — as well as infected people who are contagious before they start showing symptoms — would cut the risk that people would unknowingly transmit the virus to other, vulnerable people. If the nation reopens ‘in a way that is not based on continued testing and understanding how the disease continues to circulate in our population,’ Anesi said, ‘then we could end up with another surge and another shutdown.’” [NBC News, 4/28/20]
Director Of The Machine Intelligence Lab At Boston Children’s Hospital Mauricio Santillana: “If The Only Concern Is The Health Of People, It’s Irresponsible To Go Back To Relaxing Social Distancing Anytime Soon.” “‘If the only concern is the health of people, it’s irresponsible to go back to relaxing social distancing anytime soon,’ Santillana said. ‘We’re not done, even if summer starts.’” [Vox, 4/29/20]
Center For Global Development Senior Policy Fellow Jeremy Konyndyk Said The U.S. Was Not Even “Remotely Prepared” To Reopen. “‘We’re not remotely prepared neither in terms of the epidemiology of the outbreak in the United States, nor in terms of our preparedness capacities to begin suppressing this virus in ways other than through social distancing,’ said Jeremy Konyndyk, senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, a think tank. His expertise includes global outbreak preparedness.” [CNBC, 4/28/20]
A Model Being Used By The White House Itself Acknowledges States Are Not Ready To Start Easing Distancing Measures For At Least Weeks. “The model, by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, projects that states can start easing but not totally eliminating social distancing requirements sometime from mid-May to late June. For example, Texas should keep social distancing measures in place until June 15 given the current trajectory of infections, and Massachusetts should do so until June 22 — weeks beyond Memorial Day.” [NBC News, 4/29/20]
- Because States Have Started To Lift Restrictions Prematurely, “Researchers Are Working To Revise The Model To Account For The Additional Deaths Over A Longer Period Of Time.” “The model projects that if states were to wait until those dates before easing up on some restrictions, the number of daily deaths nationwide would be down to the double digits by the end of May. But the model assumes that current social distancing measures are maintained until a specific number of infections for each state is met, which isn’t happening, Mokdad said. Instead, a number of states have already started to lift restrictions, so researchers are working to revise the model to account for the additional deaths over a longer period of time.” [NBC News, 4/29/20]
As Of April 28th, NBC News Reported That No State Had Met The Trump Administration’s Guidelines That States Should Have A Two Week Decline In Case Numbers Before Reopening. “As a handful of states begin to ease stay-at-home restrictions, no state that has opted to reopen has come close to the federally recommended decline in cases over a 14-day period. Even as the U.S. hit the grim milestone of more than 1 million cases Tuesday — one-third of the world’s total — Georgia, Minnesota and other states are pushing to reopen businesses, even though new infection rates are still rising. Some states, such as Colorado and Kentucky, have reported fewer new cases in the past week. But no single state has had a two-week decline in case numbers.” [NBC News, 4/29/20]
Austin, Texas Interim Health Authority Mark Escott Emphasized It Was “Too Soon” For Texas To Begin To Open, Noting That The State Was Still Preparing Contact Tracing And Ramping Up Testing. “This is too soon for us,” Mark Escott, Austin’s interim health authority, said Tuesday during a City Council meeting. “As we’re still preparing contact tracing, ramping up testing, working to protect vulnerable populations, now is not the time to flip on the light switch.” [Texas Tribune, 4/29/20]
Former HHS Assistant Secretary For Preparedness And Response Nicole Lurie Worries That The United States Still Lacks An Early Warning System To Detect Emerging Hot Spots. “Nicole Lurie, who served as assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS during the Obama administration, worries that the country still lacks an early warning system to detect emerging hot spots. If the first wave of infections tumbles into the second, ‘How are we going to know?’ she said. ‘We will miss totally when a second wave starts and things get worse.’ Once hospitals start filling up, it’s too late to head it off.” [Politico, 4/29/20]
Chief Strategy Officer For Population Health At The University Of Washington Ali Mokdad Said Of Trump Wanting States To Go Back To “Normal”: “’Normal’ Will Never Be A Thing Until We Have A Vaccine.” “‘It will not look like normal. ‘Normal’ will never be a thing until we have a vaccine,’ said Ali Mokdad, chief strategy officer for population health at the University of Washington, who has been working on a key model that the White House has been including in its projections.” [NBC News, 4/29/20]
Epidemiologist David Rubin Said Of Forecasts About Reopening The Economy: “It Comes Back Really Quick, And The Peaks Are Much Higher Than What You’re Seeing Right Now… I Was More Optimistic Before We Did Our Models.” “There’s no simple, one-size-fits-all protocol for reopening the economy, said David Rubin, director of PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Rubin is developing a model to forecast how reopening 260 large U.S. counties on May 15 would play out if residents maintained only half the social distancing measures now in place… ‘It comes back really quick, and the peaks are much higher than what you’re seeing right now,’ Rubin said. ‘It was sobering. I was more optimistic before we did our models.’” [Washington Post, 4/22/20]
Trump Risks Making The Same Mistakes He Already Did — 90 Percent Of Cumulative Deaths So Far Could Have Been Avoided Had Social Distancing Began Just Two Weeks Earlier
Epidemiologists Britta Jewell And Nicholas Jewell Estimate Estimate That 90 Percent Of Cumulative Deaths In The U.S. During The First Wave Of COVID-19 Could Have Been Prevented By Implementing Social Distancing On March 2.“But an estimated 90 percent of the cumulative deaths in the United States from Covid-19, at least from the first wave of the epidemic, might have been prevented by putting social distancing policies into effect two weeks earlier, on March 2, when there were only 11 deaths in the entire country.” [New York Times, Britta Jewell & Nicholas Jewell, 4/14/20]
Had Social Distancing Policies Been Implemented On March 9, Epidemiologists Britta Jewell And Nicholas Jewell Estimate That 60 Percent Fewer People Would Have Died Because Of COVID-19 In The U.S. “The effect would have been substantial had the policies been imposed even one week earlier, on March 9, resulting in approximately a 60 percent reduction in deaths.” [New York Times, Britta Jewell & Nicholas Jewell, 4/14/20]