So you might see something I’ve been working on in the news this week, a “Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience”. And this is a for-real thing that represents a consensus of people with every political belief and expertise, like, republicans and democrats and libertarians, economists and health officials and ethics and civil liberties folks (and at least one mathematician), all agreeing.

So there’s a few ways we could respond to this pandemic. In the US we already closed down a lot of stuff for a while and it’s hard, but now it looks like the curve is starting to flatten and we know it’s going to keep falling in the near term and all of us want to get back to our lives. We don’t know exactly what this side of the curve will look like, you’ve probably seen versions that are… optimistically symmetric but unrealistic, it’ll probably look less like this and more like this which I modeled off of Spain, ok so say we reopen soon, and… whoops that’s not ideal, ok say less-affected areas can reopen, NY is still closed, then some of us at least get a month of freedom and economic activity before we have to re-shut down and do it all again and again. 

It would be a reopening rollercoaster, and it would at least spread out the cases, but this plan has a lot of unknowns. It wouldn’t be back to business as usual when things are open, because businesses won’t be able to rely on each other to stay open, or on their workers to not all fall sick at once. Anywhere could be the next hotspot. It makes it hard to plan, and hard to feel safe.

So here’s another way to respond, the plan all these folks agree on is to reopen the economy this summer in 4 phases, so that the curve keeps falling and we can stay open, while protecting your health and civil liberties.

There’s three things we need to do this:

Number 1 is testing. We simply need more tests, a lot more, like millions a day. And these tests will be fast, no one wants to wait days for their results.

Number 2 is tracing. Contact tracing is how we let you know if there’s a chance you’ve been exposed, so you can get a test and find out fast whether you should isolate to stop it from spreading further.

And number 3 is supported isolation. Anyone who tests positive, or is waiting for their results, needs support to isolate at home, with health care, supplies, and job protections.

Testing, tracing, supported isolation.

It’s possible, but it takes resources, so we made our plan as epic as we need it to be to get this done responsibly this summer.

Ok so first is Phase 1.

Here’s where we see the curve flatten and fall by giving our essential workers the support and care they need. 40% of the economy is already open, thanks to essential workers like nurses, grocery store workers, utilities maintenance workers, police and firefighters, restaurant and delivery workers. They didn’t ask to be put on the front lines of this crisis, but they have stepped up to the challenges.

So in phase 1 we grow our resources to support our essential workers and turn our current limited-economy into a pandemic-resilient foundation.

We’ll hear from our neighbors and friends who work in delivery and law enforcement that thanks to testing and tracing they don’t have to wonder anymore if they might be spreading this disease without even knowing it, and don’t have to worry about coworkers having it without knowing it. When someone tests positive they get sick leave, they have other worker protections, so no one is worried about getting fired for being sick if they take a test.

We’ll hear from our elders in care facilities that now there’s testing in place to be sure that there’s no chance for this disease to spread out of control. That goes for anyone in frequent contact with essential workers, including folks in jails and prisons.

Some folks will be going through online training to fill in for essential workers. Maybe a teacher you know trains to do in-home childcare to sub in for someone who has gotten ill. And maybe a neighbor who has experience caring for an elderly relative decides to take the course and is ready to fill in.

How and where testing gets done might also depend on the community. We know that the best way to prevent spread is to find out who was in contact with someone who tested positive, so that those people can be tested quickly and have results within 24 hours. Some communities already have networks of contact tracers that people trust to do this work in a way that protects their rights, while in some communities we might hear about people working together to build these networks, maybe some will use technology to help. The better we are at contact tracing, the faster we can move on to phase 2, but worst case we just have to make a lot more tests, ‘cause in phase 1 most of us are still isolating at home so we only need to produce enough tests to keep those essential workers safe.

Meanwhile we’ll hear about all the innovative ways communities and companies are expanding contact tracing and making it work to bring down the number of cases to where we can move to phase 2.

In Phase 2

Now we’ve got our stable foundation of 40%, now we expand essential workers to 70%. Communities will be empowered to put programs in place to train and hire more people in essential jobs, lightening the burden on the current essential workforce. We’ll be able to address supply chain problems, you can find toilet paper in stores and order pasta online again.

We might see one city get more busses on the street and hire more folks to drive those busses, so that expanded essential workers can get to their jobs safely without being in a crowded environment. Another city without busses to spare might invest in hiring a set of workers to build out more public transit infrastructure.

More people will get hired to serve in roles in unemployment and retraining so more people can access support. A doctor who has tested positive and has to isolate might teach courses on how to do a swab test. A contact tracer with 20 yrs experience might partner with their county to start an online training program for contact tracers.

Maybe the Bay Area leans heavily on app assisted contact tracing. Maybe LA partners with an organization like the National Council of La Raza UnidosUS to work with immigrants on community run contact tracing they trust. In a rural county like mine maybe we do most of our contact tracing the old fashioned way over the phone with one of our local figures that everyone already knows anyway, and we can take a test at the old elementary school if we need to. Maybe we apply for funding to expand our tiny hospital, and there’s a demand for construction workers to build it out.

During this phase, which will probably be most of June, we can allow a relaxation of certain social distancing measures for those essential workers on the front lines. We’ll still have to cancel large