US reopening hinges on testing surge

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump’s push to reopen the world’s largest economy hinges on a breakthrough that has so far eluded him: ratcheting up testing capacity to stave off another wave of coronavirus.
Trump is anxious to end economy-crushing social distancing practices that have curbed the spread of the illness. He declared that he has “total” authority to reopen the country, a claim disputed by legal experts and some lawmakers, while Democratic governors on each coast formed alliances to chart their own paths.
The president was expected to announce a council of doctors and business people on Tuesday that will advise him
on restoring the US economy, which little more than a month ago was his top argument for re-election in November.
But there are ample warning signs that Trump’s haste to move past the coronavirus could lead him into a trap: A premature abandonment of the social-distancing behaviors that the government’s top medical experts say have stabilised the rate of US infections, leading to a new outbreak and further economic damage.
Key to avoiding a second round of infections, death and social distancing is robust
testing for the virus, so that public health authorities can quickly identify any new flare-ups and contain them before they spread.
“We have to be able to watch this virus very carefully, so we know if there is evidence the wave may be growing and we can re-establish lock-downs,” Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy and a professor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, said in an interview. “We may have to do that multiple times for the next 20 months and we don’t have a plan right now.”
Trump acknowledged that he worries about having to reimpose economic shutdowns if a second outbreak occurs. “I certainly hope that won’t happen, but it does weigh on my mind,” he said at a news conference.
While the US has recently achieved the capacity to test more than 100,000 people a day, the country is still struggling with shortages of testing materials as well as the manpower necessary to administer the tests and process them.
Howard Forman, director of the Yale School of Public Health’s healthcare management programme, said it would require capacity of a million tests per day for the country to be confident the outbreak is contained. “It’s 100% essential,” he said. “We need to be doing testing on an individual basis to assure the public, send people back to work and prevent people from going to work when they’ve been sick.”
Trump’s testing czar, Admiral Brett Giroir, is confident the country will be in the “ballpark” of testing capacity by next month to accommodate reopening measures.