Phase Two: Maximum Uncertainty
AS WARM WEATHER SIGNALS A START TO SUMMER, Americans are yearning for a return to normal. Restrictions are falling by the wayside throughout the country. Maine’s governor is allowing sleep-away camps to open. New York City is considering opening beaches. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis lifted prohibitions on all youth activities. “At the end of the day,” he said, “we trust parents to be able to make decisions.”
The United States and the rest of the world are entering a new, uncertain phase of the COVID-19 outbreak. Severe social-distancing measures have broken the initial wave, with cases flattening and heading downward in hard-hit places like New York, Italy and the U.K. What comes next is the trickier task of loosening up on restrictions enough to save people’s livelihoods and sanity while keeping the virus from roaring back to overwhelm emergency rooms and intensive-care units.
The trouble is, there’s no consensus on how to
