I saw Dr Peter Hotez on the TV last night mention his October Plan on how we can get the COVID19 pandemic under control by October 1. He didn’t talk about it in any detail but he said he’d sent it to the White House a few days ago. I believe he should send it to every Governor, Representative, Senator, and mayor of a big city as well as the general public.
I had to hunt a little to track it down but this seems to be the gist:
Through federal leadership and guidance, we could bring our entire nation towards a level of containment sufficient to safely open schools, colleges, and even host sporting events. We could return Americans safely to the workplace.
To do this by October 1 we now need to do the following:
- Shape a national plan with an objective of a national level of containment.
- Some experts benchmark containment as one case per million residents per day, but we might select less strict criteria.
- Upon achieving this level, it would be possible to reopen schools, colleges, and businesses safely, provided a full and functioning health system is in place.
- With containment, contact tracing actually becomes feasible, whereas this is not the case currently across most of the nation.
- Each state would either agree or be required to meet that containment benchmark.
- Some of these states, such as those in northern New England (NH VT ME) might already be close to that level. Others, such as FL TX AZ may require aggressive stay-at-home measures.
- Starting October 1, we could begin a national re-opening for schools, colleges, and even outdoor high school (“Friday Night Lights”), collegiate and professional sports.
Source: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/microbes-and-infection/the-novel-coronavirus-sars-cov-2/covid19-in-america-an-october-plan
It’s all still masks, distancing, quarantining if sick or exposed, testing, and contact tracing. Not rocket science but far beyond the seeming capabilities of those in power in Washington DC now.
It is interesting to me to see the various experts like Dr Hotez and Dr Ashish Jha night after night on various news programs trying to talk sense to the irresponsible. I see on their faces how tired and worn down they are at the stupidity of “the people in charge.” This is my tiny effort to help them get the word out. Pass it on if you think it’s useful