Part of the CDC / FEMA plan for coming out of lockdown was leaked and has been published by the Washington Post. It's a high level summary, so it’s hard to come to conclusions on it. They get some basic things right -- dramatically increased testing capacity and PPE production. Their criteria for reopening are reasonable. They also note a plan to put a large number of unemployed people to work to support COVID-related public health work. There’s also a good discussion of how reopening schools will allow for a significant impact on the productivity of adults with kids.
However, there's no mention of having members of the public wear masks, which is one of the cheapest ways of stopping the spread of the disease. There’s a brief mention of a formal contact tracing program under the “COVID Corps” section but not a top-level discussion of it – hopefully this is taken seriously.
California also released a high level summary of their plan, and it’s somewhat better, though there’s limited information. In addition to increased testing and contact tracing, the approach emphasizes the cultural norm shift of wearing masks in public as well as a push towards the development of therapeutics.
South Korea has proven that there are three things we need to get out of lockdown now:
- Drastically increased testing – to the point that we have 100 tests for every person who tests positive with COVID
- A robust contact tracing program run by humans doing interviews and possibly supplemented by apps if adoption can be high
- Get everyone to wear masks in public
Research into therapeutics is also vital, but it’s high risk / uncertain return.