Reopening Our Country

Spanish Translation: https://www.covid19atf.org/blog/reabriendo-nuestro-pais

Hokkaido, a Japanese Island, lifted their three-week lockdown too early after seeing a stabilization in mid-March. Catastrophic events followed. On the first day of reopening, they reached a record of new cases. A month after reopening there was about an 80% increase in new cases.  Now Hokkaido will have to stay in lockdown for even longer than it would have before, dooming many small businesses. 

Beginning on April 24th, the state of Georgia has progressively been reopened. It, like the small Japanese island, is seeing a significant uptick in cases. Previously the state was only reporting a range of 200 to 700 new cases a day. Within the first 24 hours, over 1,000 new cases were reported. On May 1st, they had 1,232 new cases.
The United States government is allowing states to open up when they feel that it is safe. This un-unified front causes problems: for example, people are crossing into different states to receive services like hair cuts. In order to reopen and stop the spread of COVID-19 as soon as possible, our country needs to present a united front because unlike Japan, our country is one big landmass rather than separate islands. 

The Trump administration has now laid out phases of how our country should reopen but nowhere is a mandate requiring it. While most states will be inclined to follow these guidelines, some states may not and cause a second wave endangering our whole country.
​
A second wave could further stall our economy and make it harder to reopen in the fall when our nation's schools are planning to reopen. People are already having trouble putting food on the table, paying back debt, or keeping their businesses from going bankrupt. Our country's leaders need to be careful and to take precedent from what is happening elsewhere.

Kind regards,
Maddie

​