The Trump regime and their lackeys in conservative media have launched a coordinated chorus for reopening the economy next month, but we're about to fall back on the only thing that could make that possible.
The federal government is preparing to end financial support for virus testing sites and is leaving states to fend for themselves for better or worse in some cases.
Some local officials are disappointed the federal government will end funding for coronavirus testing sites this Friday. In a few places those sites will close as a result. This as criticism continues that not enough testing is available. [...]
The agency and a spokesperson for FEMA say the CBTS program originally included 41 sites. It was intended as a stop-gap to bring testing to critical locations, especially for health care facility workers and first responders.
"The transition will ensure each state has the flexibility and autonomy to manage and operate testing sites within the needs of their specific community and to prioritize resources where they are needed the most," the HHS spokesperson said.
If we're going to send people back to work and gather in public even in small spaces like restaurants or bars again, it's going to require testing nearly everyone so we know who can go out in public and who needs to stay home.
It sure seems like there's no chance in hell that's going to happen anytime soon. At the very least, it does not appear that anyone is preparing for that.
If government officials tell everyone to go outside again without tracking and tracing the virus, it could lead to a second, wider outbreak. A second outbreak later this year may be inevitable in any case because a vaccine may not be available until next year, but rushing out of the gate to restart the economy too quickly could lead to another outbreak sooner rather than later and that would defeat the purpose of reopening the economy just to shut it back down again.
Maybe states do know where resources are needed most, but I feel confident that we won't be able to do the wide-scale testing we need without major federal spending. Just preparing to reopen the economy will probably require it's own legislation from Congress. That is if we want to do it right.
If the plan is to reopen everything and simply hope for the best, I don't think it's going to turn out well.