As Midwest governors discuss when to reopen their economies, one infectious disease expert says most states, including Indiana, aren’t ready to have that discussion.
Graham McKeen is the assistant director of public and environmental health for Indiana University. He says if Indiana’s economy is reopened in early May, Hoosiers can expect to see another spike of cases in July.
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He adds that because COVID-19 is a respiratory illness, it has the potential to resurge this winter.
"This really appeared at the end of our flu season this year," he says. "But it's going to be there, and coming back, potentially with the seasonality, along with the flu this year."
He says a large resurgence of COVID-19 cases coinciding with flu season could be more complicated to handle.
Before states reopen nonessential business, McKeen wants testing to be readily available, as well as a system to track the spread of the virus. He says to contain spread of the virus, states need to have the capability to test everyone, even asymptomatic people.
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McKeen says that social distancing is working.
"[Case] numbers would be atrocious if we weren't at home right now," he says.
McKeen says federal guidance recommends states can consider taking steps to reopen nonessential business after 14 days of decline in reported cases, and that kind of decline hasn't happened yet in Indiana.
"Our single-day high was just a few days ago at 642 cases," he says. "We're still in this kind of acceleration phase, riding the top of the wave. It's kind of like a seesaw right now."
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