It’s confusing to me that any country/state would act surprised that reopening their economy would do anything besides lead to an uptick in COVID cases.

There is no “middle” of an ongoing pandemic. This is how things are until/if there's ever a viable preventative medication or treatment. It doesn’t matter whether a state feels it has closed down for “long enough” to flatten the curve - reopening means the # of cases will go up.

Any attempts to reopen economies as they were, pre-pandemic, are illusory. The desire to ignore sickness, to rush forward, to refuse to take time and care are all part of capitalist and ableist ideologies. They are built on disposability.

Crip time taught me that you either take time to rest/heal - or your body decides for you. A world that needs time to rest/heal is incompatible with ableist capitalism. Our only choice is to upend systems of speediness/endless expansion & build sustainable alternatives, or else.