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THREAD: I've been reading a lot abt post- #COVID strategies for reopening economies in absence of a vaccine anytime soon & to my surprise haven't found a lot policy guidelines. But wanted to share what I found so far (will perhaps write a post about it) 1/13
I found few credible approaches for reopening using metrics by geography, industry and/or workers. They all MUST be accompanied with increased hospital capacity & continuous tracking of disease so that we can go back immediately to social distancing measures if need be 2/13
The golden standard strategy that allows for reopening everything in a given geography faster AND save lives is @paulmromer approach of massive testing and targeted isolation. https://paulromer.net/roadmap-to-reopen-america/ 3/13
. @paulmromer's plan would definitely work once cities/states/countries have capacity to test massively, but it'll take time & money (e.g., $100 billion for the US but congress approved 25% of that thus far). This should be the gold standard. But until then, what to do? 4/13
To me @ricardo_hausman approach is second best: to track on a daily basis the R-naught of the disease at the state or city level & to reduce restrictions as long as the index is below 1 (meaning 1 person infects less than 1 person on average) 5/13 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/target-covid19-infection-rate-for-restarting-economies-by-ricardo-hausmann-2020-04
To effectively track R-naught testing on a daily basis a *representative* sample of people should be feasible for most countries/states/cities even today. A representative sample would give a right assessment of daily # of infections which is comparable across geographies 6/13
. @kevin & @tvladeck provided a great public good:an algorithm to compute Rt daily & could be applied to any geography using # of infected per day. Using # of infected based on random sample should make it much more accurate and serve as policy tool. 7/13 https://rt.live
This tracing strategy allows for reopening by geography. But on top of this, makes sense to have additional guidelines to reopen gradually which could be based on (non-essential) industry and worker characteristics 8/13
In terms of industry characteristics, a good starting guideline is in this @BrookingsMetro piece by Avdiu & @Gaurav__Nayyar, presenting an index on industries that require more face-to-face interaction vs. ability to work from home 9/13 https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2020/03/30/when-face-to-face-interactions-become-an-occupational-hazard-jobs-in-the-time-of-covid-19/
Industries where work from home is possible should be open if they aren't already. Industries for which face-to-face interaction is high will be last ones to reopen (& therefore gov support should continue to flow to those & avoid layoffs in those sectors) 10/13
Reintegrating workers based on characteristics: I know it's controversial & requires a strong social contract, but worth thinking abt. Would it make sense to maintain social distancing for more vulnerable to the disease + anyone who live with them, while relax on others? 11/13
I can see a lot of problems with this though: younger & healthier people also have risks + this could generate discrimination on labor markets. On the other hand, even in the medium run we would still need to protect the vulnerable & we have to think how best. 12/13
Would be happy to hear about more metrics for reopening that you know of out there. Please share them with me. I'll try to compile them all. 13/13
