It’s likely that the coronavirus will have a resurgence several months from now, according to health officials. But that doesn’t mean the country should delay the reopening process.
Because of the “degree of transmissibility,” a second wave of the virus is almost inevitable, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the top officials on President Trump’s coronavirus task force. But the outcome will be “very, very different,” Fauci noted, because next time, we’ll be prepared.
“Our ability to go out and be able to test, identify, isolate, and contact trace will be orders of magnitude better than what it was just a couple months ago,” he explained.
The hope is that mass testing will be available in the next few months so that we can identify asymptomatic carriers and isolate vulnerable communities. Hospitals will also be better prepared and stocked with the necessary medical supplies, which means the risk of overwhelming our healthcare system will be much less menacing than it is right now. And it’s also very likely that therapeutics for COVID-19 will have been developed by the time the virus reappears, Fauci said.
In short, we shouldn’t let the fear of a second wave stop us from beginning the reopening process. We will know more about the virus and how to treat it when it reappears, and that will radically change the outcome.
The problem with this first wave of COVID-19 was our lack of preparedness. Because we were not ready, the government was forced to take significant steps to make up for lost ground and slow the spread of the virus. That will not happen again if the state governments adhere to the phased steps outlined by the Trump administration, Fauci said.
And it’s not as if the United States is immediately returning to normalcy, either. The reopening process will be gradual, and in most states, it is dependent on the number of tests that health officials are able to complete and the amount of space available in hospitals. These are reasonable steps that balance long-term public health with immediate economic needs.
We should continue to treat the coronavirus with the utmost caution moving forward. But we shouldn’t let that caution turn into paranoia. It’s time to begin reopening — second wave or not.
