Although 22 states have reopened their economies on a restricted basis, no states are ready to do so, according to a report from the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.
“Based on evidence-based thresholds for incidence and testing, no state is ready to substantially relax its stay-at-home order,” the report states.
The report argues that the standard the Trump administration and state governments are relying on, a sustained reduction in coronavirus cases for at least 14 days, is inadequate. It also finds that no state has the sufficient testing capacity needed to stem future outbreaks.
The CAP argues in favor of the “absolute incidence” threshold instead of the 14-day standard. That threshold would use the daily rate of infection per 100,000 averaged over 10 days as the guide to reopening.
The report notes that the absolute incidence in South Korea, which has managed the pandemic without a lockdown, was 1.77 new cases per 100,000 people per day at its peak. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention defines the low incidence of an infectious disease as 0.71 new cases per 100,000
The CAP report finds that only Alaska, Hawaii, and Montana have met the more stringent 0.71 threshold. Idaho, Maine, Oregon, Vermont, and West Virginia have met the 1.77 threshold.
The report further claims that states need enough testing capacity to reach a positive rate of 2%. The CAP report derived that number from South Korea, which had enough testing to reach a rate that low. A lower positive is an indication that testing is sufficiently widespread, according to epidemiologists.
Based on that standard, no state at present has a sufficient testing capacity.
Research from Harvard University and STAT released last Monday showed that 19 states had sufficient testing capacity. They based their findings on the Los Alamos National Laboratory model used by the CDC.
