Speaking from a perspective in Nola, the hospitals are more or less returning to normal operation this week and are more than prepared for an inevitable spike. They were prepared for way more than what they saw actually.
I tend to agree it's time for the next step but even under the Federal Phase Guidelines that means we need a robust testing program for all healthcare workers. I don't know if that is happening or even possible.
And then when you open you are supposed to have mass testing and tracking the contacts of those that tested positive. I don't think we have the tests available to do that, but I could be wrong. We are even supposed to be testing for asymptomatic cases which I don't think we are doing or able to do at this point. Then we have to have two more weeks meeting the original phase One criteria before moving to phase two.
The problem it seems to me is the lack of the ability to test. Yes, our numbers are looking very encouraging, but I don't think we have the tests that we need to move forward. Unless we decide to ignore the Federal Guidelines. And I don't see LaToya doing that.
But I do think that in New Orleans at least, it's probably time to start letting some businesses open up with strict limits on the number of people allowed and strict social distancing. But, I also think that businesses that can do work from home should be ordered to do so whenever it is possible. But, to be honest, I fear that once we let the cat out of the bag people are going to start ignoring all the social distancing rules and try to return to life as normal without masks or social distancing and we are going to end up with another stay at home order with businesses shut down in another month. But we might be able to avoid that if we could actually do wide spread testing.