Can we reopen before there’s a cure or a vaccine? It won’t be easy.

EXPECTATIONS ARE running high that reopening the United States will mean returning to offices, factories and schools, kick-starting the economy and rediscovering life before the novel coronavirus pandemic. At best these alluring goals are likely to be achieved haltingly, partially, more slowly than we would like — and how haltingly will depend heavily on how well the nation undertakes a mammoth set of public health tasks.

The inescapable fact is that in the absence of a vaccine or drug therapy for the next year or more, a highly infectious virus will roam the country and the world, and only strenuous actions can prevent continuing flare-ups or new explosions such as Wuhan, Bergamo or New York City.