By: Dr. Alejandro Díaz-Bautista, Economist (Ph.D.)
- The United States reaches almost 100,000 deaths due to coronavirus.
- Millions of daily coronavirus tests are needed to reopen the economies of North America safely and responsibly during 2020.
The United States, Mexico, and Canada need to perform millions of daily coronavirus tests in order to start the reopening of the economies for the three countries of North America. “Millions of tests per day need to be conducted in North America over the next few months to offer a safe social and health reopening of regional and national economies,” said Dr. Alejandro Díaz-Bautista, an economist, as well as a research professor at the Northern Border College (El Colef).
At the end of May, the state and federal governments of North American countries began preparing to gradually lift the healthy distance measures against the coronavirus in order to reopen the economies during 2020.
The United States President, Donald Trump, continues to support an early reopening of economies, encouraging people to express themselves against stay-at-home orders issued by successive state governors. The foregoing, thinking of the presidential election of November 2020 in the United States.
An initial proposal is to consider the use of social distancing to combat the spread of the new coronavirus until an effective vaccine is developed, so in that case, economies could be closed for up to a year and a half, at a cost of billions of dollars for the economies of North America.
Another proposal is to reopen in steps and stages the North American economies through a massive investment program in public health infrastructure, especially diagnostic tests, combined with effective contact location and warning programs, and support for quarantine with effective individual and social isolation.
The coronavirus pandemic has closed or significantly disrupted most of the economy, testing the resilience of the economies of Mexico, the United States, and Canada during 2020.
Necessary public health measures to prevent the spread of the virus have halted production, tourism, closed restaurants, forced many to work from home, severely limited most exchange companies with their clients, and provoked unemployment and economic uncertainty for millions of people in the North America region.
As hospitals develop the capacity to care for patients with the COVID-19 coronavirus, and national and state governments take initial steps to reopen parts of our society and economy, our communities must be prepared with effective health strategies that prevent the transmission of the coronavirus.
The goal in the coming months for North America is for the region to be ready to safely begin its economic recovery by following health protocols.
The North American area and the entire world must be able to unite and face the Covid-19 coronavirus in an intelligent and coordinated way, following sanitary protocols and performing millions of tests.