How Will We Know When It’s Time to Reopen the Nation
By Aaron Carroll, New York Times and professor of Pediatrics at Indiana University.
Carroll made the following points:
To date we can only guess as to when we can reopen the country
A recent report by Scott Gottlieb (Former FDA Commissioner), Caitlin Rivers (epidemiologist at John Hopkins), etc. staked out some goal posts
These four criteria are a baseline. Other experts think we will need to add serological testing, which is different from the viral detection going on now. This type of testing looks for antibodies in the blood that our bodies created to fight the infection, not the infection itself. These tests can be much cheaper and faster than the ones we’re currently using to detect the virus in sick people.
Testing for antibodies will tell us how many people in a community have already been infected, as opposed to currently infected, and may also provide information about future immunity.
Originally published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune
