“It did not have to be this way. If the Trump administration had not bungled testing, if it were not to this day jerking and lurching in obedience to the president’s latest ego demand, we could by now begin to see the way to a safer reopening in the next few weeks.

As is, the United States will be nearly as blind in May as it was in March. The testing regime remains bottlenecked and slow. Contact tracing barely exists. The people called back to work in the next few weeks will wear masks and stand farther apart from one another. But we are nowhere near the point of promptly identifying sick workers and effectively isolating them while they remain infectious.”

“The White House on Thursday issued guidelines to states outlining a three-tiered approach to relaxing social distancing measures. But while Trump boasted of the country’s comeback from the coronavirus’ grip, health care authorities say that rushing to reopen the economy without adequate measures like widespread testing could have disastrous implications on containing the virus.”

“The precautions that kept Avtges away from his wife of 61 years took an emotional toll on him, his family said, and it pained them to see him upset. So last week, with the help of a friend and some acquaintances, they pulled together an unconventional plan to get the couple back together.”

“But the doctors generally offer the same advice before proceeding. ‘Now is the time to call your loved ones and tell them all the things you want to say,’ one doctor at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell hospital said he tells his coronavirus patients before they are intubated. ‘I’ll come back in 15 minutes.'”