The COVID-19 shutdown enters its second month in the USA and
the flattening curves are encouraging the Americans to ‘reopen’ some of the states to facilitate its economy and workforce.
However, ‘we are not
out of the woods,’ indicates the documents received from the Center for
Public Integrity. According to the estimates by the federal health officials,
the reopening may cause over 300,000 more deaths. This number is five times
greater than the current estimate by the government of 60,000 with social distancing
measures strictly in place.
Additionally, the documents reveal other scenarios that may
lessen or increase the amounts of deaths if social distancing protocols ceased
off. This includes two scenarios that involve COVID-19 having a moderate
severity and transmission rate, where differing levels of asymptomatic
transmission could lead to deaths between 90,000 and 150,000 in total.
On the other hand, if the COVID-19 levels reach a high level
of severity and transmission, the death toll can reach between 1.1 and 1.8
million in the USA.
The report came after President Donald Trump issued new
guidelines to loosen the lockdown. Several governors also echoed his policy and
started making plans to reopen some businesses before the end of April while
protestors started lining up on streets with a mantra to ‘shut down the shutdown’,
signifying the economic hardship due to the lockdown.
As of Saturday, the United States of America had 927,000
confirmed diagnosis of the coronavirus with cases occurring in all 50 states. Health
officials observe that threat to the Americans is far from over. They also
claim that they have limited testing capacities and reopening the states in
this condition will give disastrous results.
