MR A- I know you asked this of Ham, but let me take a shot at responding (not on his behalf, but just generally).
I understand your frustration and sympathize with your POV that some may not be fully appreciating the economic suffering of others who cannot easily work from home. I also think you have raised very good points about needing different solutions...at different times...for different states/counties. I also have read the federal guidelines for re-opening and my general conclusion is that they are pretty good: clear, gradual, focused and most importantly they IMPLY that this will take some time. But here's where I disagree with you...and I think it will require me to state some assumptions that you may not agree with, not sure so let's check. The purpose of the extensive stay-at-home orders was to:
- ensure that our healthcare system was not over run in the near term
- assess where we were impacted because lack of testing made us blind
- buy us time time to: increase healthcare capacity (beds, PPE, vents, etc.), tamp down hot spots, and develop re-opening plans
I think you and I are in agreement on the above, but where we differ is:
- you believe that "developing re-opening plans" means simply writing up guidelines like the federal ones released yesterday whereas
- I (and I suspect many others) believe that wide-scale testing and contact tracing are key components of a re-opening plane EVEN for the least impacted and least densely populated parts of the country
So, is that the disagreement? Is it that you believe that testing and tracing are NOT necessary in these (presumedly) lightly impacted areas? Because I (and I suspect others) fear that without this tool that there is a decent chance (25%?) that the results 60 days from now will be FAR worse. Alternatively, perhaps you believe that the 25% chance is greatly over-stated...or that the ability to "shut down any resurgence," regardless of the probability, is much higher than I believe. That is, with the lack of testing, lack of seriousness I think some are taking, lack of realistic expectation-setting from these state and federal politicians for what re-opening means, and lon incubation period I have serious concerns that this is a steam train we won't see coming until it is on top of us. That's why I am concerned about re-opening discussions with wide-scale testing and contact tracing.
Now, one thing that could get me to join your side is IF I was told that wide-sale testing (i.e. 1M+ tests per day, results within 24 hours) just isn't possible within the next 30 days. If THAT is true then I'd probably agree that we need to go to war with the army we've got...and in this case that army doesn't include wide-scale testing. Ok, I've rambled on but that's my POV and I think there is alot of agreement between us...I just wanted to probe for the specific points of disagreement as I don't think that has been very clearly expressed.
Does that help?