Drs. Hotez and Rimoin: Controlling coronavirus — this plan could allow us to safely reopen by Oct. 1

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The U.S. is experiencing a significant resurgence of COVID-19 this summer, especially in the South and possibly now the Midwest. We have a path to contain the virus, reset the nation and renew American optimism.

The summer of 2020 saw a dramatic surge in COVID-19 across the Southern United States. By July, more than 20 percent of the new confirmed daily global COVID-19 cases occurred across the southern states from Florida to California.

The deaths are also increasing, so that in some states COVID-19 has become a leading cause of daily deaths – a situation similar to what we saw in New York and New Jersey last spring.

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Within the last week, the number of new cases reported each day in the Southern states has started to level off. Clearly mask mandates and bar closures have helped, but also individual citizens are figuring things out that they must maximize or maintain social distancing.

But even with these measures, the plateau reached for new cases is still consistently and dangerously high. It remains difficult to operate businesses, as both employees and employers worry about contracting the virus in the workplace.

Also at this high level of virus transmission, contact tracing may not be feasible. These daily counts in confirmed cases are underestimates — testing rates remain low and often confined to people showing symptoms of illness.

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Moreover, the epidemic is not stopping in the South. Dr. Deborah Birx who heads the White House Coronavirus Task Force has publicly expressed concern that COVID-19 will soon move into at least 11 U.S. cities in the Midwest and elsewhere

Assuming this happens, we will need to take a hard look at the American landscape and recognize that our current trajectory will bring even more disease and disability to households across the country. According to some, the current death toll could double in a few months as many more experience significant or long-term injuries to their internal organs or depression and other psychiatric illness.

The impact — physical, psychological, social and economic — on American life will soon touch almost every home.

We are especially worried about schools. Children over the age of 10 transmit the virus very efficiently, and even if very young children are not efficient virus spreaders, we have to remember that parents, vendors and siblings are visiting schools on a regular basis. If we open schools in areas of substantial virus transmission, teachers and staff will get sick with COVID-19.

The good news is that America has the ingenuity, resolve and power to fight back.  Along those lines, one of us just published an “October 1 Plan” to bring the entire nation back to low level of virus containment and transmission. The main aspects of the plan are:

• Shape a national plan with an objective of a national level of containment.
• Some experts benchmark containment as one case per million residents per day, but we might select less strict criteria.
• With containment, contact tracing actually becomes feasible, whereas this is not the case currently in those states with high levels of virus transmission, especially in the South.
• Each state would either agree or be required to meet that containment benchmark.

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But is it achievable?

We believe the answer is yes, given some states in the Northeast may already be close to that level, whereas many states in the South and more recently, the Midwest, would require a fair amount of work to get to that point.

It will place significant demands on many American families but it is achievable.

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On October 1 we can reopen with masks and contact tracing in place, thereby preventing another resurgence in virus. In so doing we can experience a productive and rewarding fall in which schools and colleges reopen, or even host major sporting events.

These are both aspirational and achievable goals, but ones giving Americans hope and renewed optimism.

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Anne Rimoin PhD MPH is professor of epidemiology at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health