Daily Testing Of All Americans Is The Only Answer To Going Back To Work

The only way to save potentially millions of American lives and prevent a depression that will make the Great Depression look tame is to do daily testings of all Americans.
Testings refers to doing temperature scans, a quick chest exam by stethoscope, a quick questionnaire about Coronavirus (CV) related symptoms, multiple PCR (swab) tests, antibody tests (as soon as they are available), and saliva and urine tests if such become available. Anyone who is negative on all indicators/tests would be given a badge to wear during the day that would permit them to go work, frequent restaurants, shop, etc. Anyone who is positive on the indicators/tests would be quarantined together with their family members and have their contacts be subject to immediate tracing.
The reason we need to do daily testing is because of the potential to be infected without showing physical symptoms or having enough virus to be detected by the physical checks and diagnostic tests. Moreover, someone could be healthy today and infected tomorrow because they catch the virus later in the day.

Contact tracing needs to be done with the help of a CV App downloaded on all our cell phones. The CV App would record all our contact information, but also be able to communicate on its own with the CV Apps on other people’s phones and record all past physical contact. Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook should be teaming up this very minute to produce such an App with the help of countries where similar Apps already exist.
Governors and CEOs are not going to restart their economies and businesses without this type of system to assure them they aren’t sending people to their deaths. It’s that simple. The pictures out of Italy and New York are just too grim to treat this as the standard flu, which kills a lot of people too. The president is right that the cure can’t be worse than the disease. But we have no way to compare the loss of national income to the loss of even a single life.

The only way the economy will restart is daily testings of all Americans. It’s as clear as day. It’s also the solution the president rejected just yesterday. He’s not likely to reverse his decision without strong political pressure. Consequently, the Chair of the National Governors Council should announce this policy and pressure the congress and president to adopt it. In addition, congress should pass legislation mandating and funding daily universal testing.
The cost of this policy is minuscule compared to the cost of keeping the economy closed. It’s also the best and surest way to save potentially millions of lives. Not going this route would constitute a moral disgrace and guarantee an economic disaster.
Laurence Kotlikoff is a professor of economics at Boston University, a Fellow of the American Academy, a Research Associate of the NBER, and President of Economic Security Planning, Inc. — a company that markets personal financial planning tools at maxifi.com, maximizemysocialsecurity.com, analyzemydivorccesettlement.com, and economicsecurityplanning.com. Recent books: Get What’s Yours – The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security Benefits (a NY Times Best Seller with Phil Moeller and Paul Solman), The Economic Consequences of the Vickers Commission, The Clash of Generations (with Scott Burns), Jimmy Stewart Is Dead, and Spend ‘Til the End.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2020/03/27/daily-testing-of-all-americans-is-the-only-answer/#7d98dd6c2873