Virologist: ‘Very dangerous’ for any state to be reopening right now

With many states taking measures to reopen in recent days, Columbia University virologist Dr. Angela Rasmussen remains skeptical that anyone is ready to reopen at a significant level.

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“I think that it’s a pretty dangerous thing for us to be doing right now given the testing capacity,” Dr. Rasmussen told KIRO Radio’s Gee and Ursula Show. “In order to open up really at any scale, we really need to be able to test people frequently for those situations in which they can’t do physical distancing.”

Beyond the need to test more people, Dr. Rasmussen also points to the need for “an army” of workers to meticulously follow the path of infections.

“[Those are] the people who can identify people through testing, and go and talk to everybody that they’ve been in contact with,” she described. “That part is also really critical to breaking chains of transmission before they can become established in the community.”

That’s also a job that doesn’t necessarily need to be done by health experts. According to Rasmussen, the job “in large part is just talking to people,” noting that “anyone can be trained to be a contact tracer.”

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In Pierce County, we’re already beginning to see that training take shape, where over 60 staff members and volunteers have received training. Fifteen of those people have already begun work on tracing cases.

In a situation where caseloads surge, the county plans to train as many as 200 total people to do the job.

“By taking all these measures together, we can actually conquer this, at least to the point where we can start going back to our normal lives, provided that we are working with testing and tracing,” said Dr. Rasmussen, while pointing out that even with places like Pierce County ramping up, we’re still not quite ready yet.

“We’re not anywhere near having either of those things, testing or tracing,” she added.

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