‘Exit strategy’ for COVID-19 pandemic: How can we return to normal life? (3)

So, let’s shift the discussion to exit strategy for the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic as an expert in biosecurity and mass casualty infections. How do you see a path to return to normal life and work for patients? What’s going to happen is once we have hospital capacity is sure that we know that the number of cases is going to accrue only at a rate that is manageable by hospitals, I believe you will start to see Governor’s lifting some of the economic restrictions, trying to modify our daily routines to respect social distancing norms. But also realizing that there is a real cost of these economic shutdowns. Dr. Amesh Adalja. That is going to be the exit strategy. Once we get through this acute phase, once we see does New York City because New York City is where everybody is watching. Does New York City survive this without going into crisis? Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Meaning, do they have to ration care? Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Do they run out of ventilators, if that does not happen? Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Hopefully, it won’t. I do think that you are going to see some consideration of how we move forward. Is, does that mean we Do widespread serological testing? Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Does that mean we continue not to have mass gatherings? Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Does it mean that we allow more businesses and schools to open maybe with some modifications? Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Dr. Amesh Adalja. That is what’s going to happen because this virus isn’t going to go anywhere until there is a vaccine. Medical second opinion is important. Dr. Amesh Adalja. We have to be prepared to find some way to find a middle ground between letting the virus spread without abandon on the one hand. Doing a Wu Han style lockdown on the other. Dr. Amesh Adalja. That we are starting to get there. There is a lot of considerations there. New York City’s numbers are the real key to watch before when we make that transition. Oh, it was said that the COVID-19 pandemic optics seems to be a rolling West. Then certain other areas from New York City. Do you think that the US can return to a sound form of normal life by the end of summer? Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Or How long do you think those lockdowns need to stay in place? I do think that we are going to have some economic shutdowns occurring differently across the United States because this is a governor’s decision that we are going to have different governors making different decisions. What I do think is that we made some decrease in transmission during the summer based on what we know about other Coronaviruses. But we had to be prepared for this to come back after summer in respiratory virus season as other Coronaviruses do. But hopefully, by that time, we have increased hospital capacity, improved diagnostic testing. Better able to find these cases and isolate them, so they don’t spread it. But I do think that you may see some lifting. But then again, we are going to have to deal with this again in the fall. There is going to have to be some consideration of what social distancing measures are appropriate in the fall. As we get back into the season at the same time, we will be going into flu season, so this is an open question and a public debate. Dr. Amesh Adalja. We need to see how things play out over the next couple of weeks to be able to know for sure what it is going to look like in summer or later on in the seasons.