In the letter, which you can read in full here, the experts write: “Right now we are on a path to lose more than 200,000 American lives by November 1st. Yet, in many states people can drink in bars, get a haircut, eat inside a restaurant, get a tattoo, get a massage, and do myriad other normal, pleasant, but non-essential activities.” They add that: “The best thing for the nation is not to reopen as quickly as possible, it’s to save as many lives as possible. And reopening before suppressing the virus isn’t going to help the economy. " According to the experts, U.S. leaders should do these eight things right now: “Then, and only then, we can try a little more opening, one small step at a time,” the experts write. The letter was organized by the advocacy organization U.S. Public Interest Research Group. It’s signed by doctors, epidemiologists, physicians, and health experts from Harvard, Yale, Northwestern, Brown, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania, like Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, vice provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania; William Hanage, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health; and Angela Rasmussen, PhD, virologist at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. And the list continues to grow. RELATED: For more up-to-date information, sign up for our daily newsletter. Similarly, the Harvard Global Health Institute’s COVID Risk Level Map indicates that 11 states are in need of a shutdown. Ashisha Jha, MD, director of HGHI, tweeted on July 11 that he was “worried [these states] are heading towards full shutdown unless [their] path changes.” In the large majority of them, the trajectory has not changed in the two weeks that have followed. After a White House document was obtained by the non-profit news group the Center for Public Integrity and leaked in mid-July, Jha told CNN’s Jake Tapper that states in the “red zone” should be following the document’s orders and shutting down. Meanwhile, Anthony Fauci, MD, has recently made clear that he does not believe the country needs to return to a full lockdown. But in a July 15 interview with The Atlantic, he said we should push the “reset button.” And here’s how he recommends doing that: This Is How Dr. Fauci Says We Can Push a “Reset Button” on Coronavirus.
