Today Holden Beach closed the Beach strand, following Ocean Isle Beach and Sunset Beaches closures earlier this week.  This is all in anticipation of Easter Weekend and discouraging travel.  Today, the confirmed cases in the county climbed to 29 and another person was confirmed positive who was visiting.  Individuals who test positive while visiting the county do not get counted in the test results.

There is no telling what is going on with this crisis as most everything is conjecture even still.  The good news is their is continual evidence of “flattening the curve”.  More positive news is the CDC announced updated guidelines to allow some people to return to work who have had COVID-19 and are no longer positive.  Something still feels off, as the death toll continues to climb (14,842) and the cases have now reached 435,358.  By Friday we should have over 500,000 cases, which is nearly half of the originally projected million+ cases we could have had by Easter.  

Models are finicky, especially with a novel virus and limited data (and time).  Even still, I can’t help but wonder if the models assumed higher testing numbers and thus a higher case count.  Regardless, the deaths have been adjusted down to just over 63k projected deaths.  This number was originally believed to be 100-240K.  

This disease moves so slow, from the time of infection to first symptoms to hospitalization to death.  That can make the numbers difficult to forecast given they are always trailing by a decent margin.  It is encouraging to see the numbers dialed back a bit, but unfortunately many of our issues remain.

First, how do we open the country back up without having a second outbreak of the magnitude of the first.  

Second, how do we bridge the economy until we can safely do that.  Despite assurances the money is coming for small businesses, many still wonder how much longer they will be able to hold on.  Even more are having problems securing the SBA funds as the banks have been hesitant to roll out the program to the masses.  

Third, what contingencies do we put in place to create a place.  We need to have a well thought out plan with contingencies to pivot depending on how things go.  Opening the country up is easier than opening the borders back up to international travel.  In theory and based on the current modeling, we should be able to resume a “new normal” within the next 6-8 weeks.  

Summer is approaching quickly and social distancing is becoming more of a norm, so while I would expect case to rise as things get back to normal, hopefully they would be curtailed by both summer and our new “distancing” guidelines.  This will ultimately fall on our governor and local governments.  It would be reassuring to have some “formal” plan, however, to identify and rectify issues that arise due to COVID-19.

I think it is a bit crazy how we as humans can’t help but talk about “getting back to normal” when the death rates and case numbers are still very much “out of hand”.   The hope would be to work on a legitimate plan, rather than “feelings” or “hunches” to execute on once the cases do actually drop.  We have to be more prepared in “re-opening” the country than we were when everything abruptly got “shut-down”. 

My biggest fear at this point is that we open things up carelessly and are then too afraid to shut them back down if an outbreak happens because of the reaction to the markets and economy the last time.  This would prove truly tragic and far more fatal in the long run in every aspect of life.  Everyone is sick of this and ready for things to get back to normal.  Let’s just make sure we do it the right way.