“We need to start reopening. If not, the dam will eventually burst, and people will reopen the economy as quickly as it was slammed shut.”
Andrew Noymer, Associate Professor of Population Health and Disease Prevention at the University of California, Irvine, is making his case on Twitter for why California should reopen soon. Noymer has been tracking the number of novel coronavirus cases and fatalities in the U.S.
He was initially “apprehensive” about reopening California since cases of novel coronavirus in the state continue to rise, but now Noymer says California should open “Slowly. Gradually. Smartly.”
In his daily briefing Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he wants to reopen California in “many days, not weeks.” This comes after the Governor closed all beaches in California after seeing massive crowds in Newport Beach last weekend.
Dana Point and Huntington Beach are resisting the Governor’s order.
On April 23, Noymer also told Inside the Issues that we might see a spike of cases of novel coronavirus in early May since people gathered for Easter celebrations in mid-April. He also said Californians have become “generally relaxed and [are] getting tired of social distancing.”
In his tweets, Noymer says “re-opening should include lots of testing, both PCR and serological,” but that “we cannot just keep everyone locked indoors till we achieve the mystical herd immunity... which we will never achieve if we keep everyone locked indoors indefinitely.” Noymer says if we “‘save ourselves for our vaccine night’ that may never come,” reopening will “be a short, sharp shock.”
Noymer is advocating for a slow reopening of the economy. He suggests that California businesses reopen 10 days apart so that they can be monitored appropriately.
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