CDC quietly releases detailed guidelines for reopening America

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has quietly released detailed guidance for reopening schools, mass transit and nonessential businesses that had been shut down in an attempt to curb the spread of the coronavirus in the United States.

The 60-page document, dated only as May and posted on the website without a formal announcement, comes after some states announced they would lift stay-at-home orders and begin reopening parts of their economies. The CDC has remained largely quiet on the pandemic. Agency officials haven’t held a coronavirus-related briefing in more than two months.

The plan outlines a “three-phased approach” for reducing social distancing and proposes the use of six “gating” indicators to assess when to move through another phase. The gating indicators include decreases in newly reported Covid-19 cases and emergency room visits as well as a “robust” testing program.

“While some communities will progress sequentially through the reopening phases, there is the possibility of recrudescence in some areas,” the CDC wrote in its guidance. “Given the potential for a rebound in the number of cases or level of community transmission, a low threshold for reinstating more stringent mitigation standards will be essential.”