MEMPHIS, Tennessee —
In Thursday's Ransom Note: predictions.
COVID-19 is a brand new virus, so I get impatient with the impatience of others about why scientist's projections about peaks and death counts would evolve over time. It's impossible to predict exactly how seriously humans would consider the danger, how governments would react, or what testing results would show.
But the Institute for Health Metrics Evaluation (IMHE) has done the best it could with the data it had. Nonetheless, the White House relies on IMHE and today knowing what it knows now, the organization has new updates on when states should reopen.
IMHE looked at each state's social distancing, the testing measures states are taking, and their infection rates.
Tennessee should start to reopen first the week of May 18-24; Mississippi, the following week May 25-31; but Arkansas shouldn't open until June 8th or later. In other words, the dates we're talking about now are too soon.
The scientists say a few weeks more could keep us from having to do it all over again.
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