Updated: Wed 3: 20 PM, Apr 15, 2020
(CNN) – Health policy experts and government leaders across the country are looking ahead on how to best ease coronavirus social distancing, with some experts predicting “another battle” with coronavirus will come again in the winter.
Health and government leaders are looking ahead on how best to ease social distancing. (Source: CNN)
As President Trump continues to push for a symbolic first reopening, officials around the country are focused on their communities. Many are following the lead of California governor, Gavin Newsom, confirming this “new normal” is here to stay. In New Orleans, the mayor suggests major events like Jazz Fest won’t be back until 2021. In Mississippi, schools are closed for the remainder of the academic year.
Experts predict the virus will return.
“We’re going to have another battle with it upfront and aggressively next winter. This is why it is so important we take the time right now to improve our testing capacity, expand our public health capacity to do early case recognition, contact tracing and isolation,” Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said.
Los Angeles is now offering same or next day testing to its 10 million residents. Anyone with COVID-19 symptoms is eligible.
Major league baseball is also pitching in for antibody testing with players, their families and even concession workers volunteering in a nationwide study to better understand coronavirus and its spread.
“It is very hard to bring this to scale quickly and we need the federal government to be part of this,” New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, said.
As New York cautiously embraces a plateau, Georgia is preparing for a potential surge and midwestern states discuss a coordinated regional plan to reopen, similar to efforts in the Northeast and on the West Coast.
“This is not a light switch going on or off. This is going to be making a change, testing it, modeling it and then seeing whether it works, and then if it does, you can make another change,” Oregon governor, Kate Brown, said.
A vaccine may be the key to any lasting change.
“We’re targeting fall for the emergency use, so that would be for healthcare workers and people who might be in constant contact and risk of being exposed over and over,” Kizzmekia Corbett, the lead scientist in coronavirus vaccine research for the National Institutes of Health, said.
For the rest of America, the vaccine is likely a year away.
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