Perspectives: Re-opening the Economy During Coronavirus

Last week, which was 84 years ago, we wrote the pandemic-gripped world is like that kid on the long car ride asking “Are we there yet?” The analogy was off by just a bit, at least in the U.S.: Here, that impatient kid is actually driving the car.

President Donald Trump has obviously been itching to end lockdowns, and yesterday he released guidelines on how states could do it. These were surprisingly deferential to governors, but that didn’t last long. This morning he was on Twitter, calling on Minnesota, Michigan...

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...