Nobel laureate in economics and former World Bank chief economist Paul Romer released a plan to reopen the economy Thursday centered on testing every person in the United States every two weeks, at a cost $100 billion a year.
“Until a vaccine is developed and deployed, the simplest and safest path to this outcome is a national testing strategy that marshals our existing resources to test everyone in the U.S. once every two weeks and isolates all those who test positive,” the plan states.
Romer estimates that the plan would be economical given that during the pandemic, the U.S. is suffering $500 billion each month in lost output and lost capacity to produce in the future.
The plan proposes establishing a testing network at national and university laboratories to test every person in the U.S. every two weeks. There are over 328 million people living in the U.S., according to the latest data available from the Census Bureau. To meet the two-week objective, the plan would require 25 million tests per day. Currently, the U.S. is testing 150,000 people a day.
The testing would start with healthcare and other front-line workers, such as grocery store clerks, before broadening to people who urgently want to return to work. Tests can then be offered to everyone and performed in schools. Those who test positive for the virus would be isolated.
“Mass testing is, without a doubt, the best option right now with the resources we have and the challenges we are facing,” Romer said.
To restore confidence and enable people to leave their homes and revive the economy, the total number infected needs to be below 5%, according to the plan.
The “test and isolate” strategy presented by Romer would continue until a vaccine is created and circulated throughout the world. Officials say that a vaccine is between 12 and 18 months away.
Regarding the $100 billion annual price tag for the tests, the plan estimates that each test would cost $10 for the labs to purchase. With 25 million tests being conducted every day, that totals roughly $90 billion. Another $10 billion would be required to develop a testing strategy.
