Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience

April 20, 2020 -- Our bipartisan group of experts in economics, public health, technology, and ethics from across the country, with support from The Rockefeller Foundation, has released the nation’s first comprehensive operational roadmap for mobilizing and reopening the U.S. economy in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis.

"Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience: Massive Scale Testing, Tracing, and Supported Isolation (TTSI) as the Path to Pandemic Resilience for a Free Society," lays out how a massive scale-up of testing, paired with contact tracing and supported isolation, can rebuild trust in our personal safety and re-mobilize the U.S. economy. 

Among the report’s top recommendations is the need to deliver at least 5 million tests per day by early June to help ensure a safe social opening. This number will need to increase to 20 million tests per day by mid-summer to fully re-mobilize the economy.

For a video explanation of the Roadmap, see Vi Hart's video "How We Reopen" on YouTube.

You can also find the report and related material at the Pandemic Resilience Roadmap website, www.pandemictesting.org.


Correction: The April 20, 2020, 6am posting of the Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience contained an error which has been corrected in the 12pm posting. The earlier posting attributed to the Broad Institute (Cambridge, MA) estimates of a capacity to achieve 1 million tests per day. This was a reporting error. The correct information is that the Broad Institute, which analyzed 250,000 samples a day for the Human Genome Project, is a good example of the kind of lab that might be stood up to achieve a capacity of 1 million tests per day.


Press about the Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience

Danielle Allen, "The Bold, Necessary Step Trump Should Take Now," Washington Post (April 24, 2020). 

-----. "The Three Key Ideas at Stake for a Post-coronavirus Future," Washington Post (April 20, 2020).

Arman Azad, "The US Needs to Perform Millions of Coronavirus Tests per Week, Experts Say," CNN Health (April 21, 2020).

Mackenzie Bean, "US Must Perform 5M Tests Daily to End Social Distancing by June, Harvard Researchers Say," Becker’s Hospital Review (April 21, 2020). 

Denis Bedoya, "US to Need 20 Million Daily Virus Tests for Reopening," Info Sur Hoy (April 21, 2020). 

Jeffrey C. Billman, "The President Who Botched the Pandemic Is only Interested in Shifting Blame," Detroit Metro Times (April 22, 2020). 

Theresa Braine, "Coronavirus Biggest Threat to American Democracy since Great Depression or WWII, Need 20 Million Tests Daily to Reopen: Experts," New York Daily News (April 20, 2020).

Hilary Brueck, "How to Reopen the US, According to Johns Hopkins and Harvard: Test 20 Million People a Day, Hire an Army of Contact Tracers, and Expand Healthcare Coverage," Business Insider (April 22, 2020).

Thomas M. Burton, House Panel to Hear Coronavirus-Testing Strategies to Reopen U.S.,"The Wall Street Journal (May 13, 2020). 

Athena Chan, "Coronavirus US Deaths Top 40,000; Trump To Use Defense Production Act To Ramp Up Test Swab Production," International Business Times (April 20, 2020). 

Gail Collins, "Mutineers, Raise Your Hands," New York Times (April 22, 2020).

Kate Cough, "'Testing, Massive Testing' Needed to Fight Virus, Lab Expands Capacity," The Ellsworth American (April 22, 2020).

"COVID-19 Testing and Reopening the Economy," C-SPAN (April 24, 2020).

Carolyn Crist, "White House Reemphasizes COVID-19 Testing Capacity," WebMD (April 21, 2020). 

Charles Davis, "Attorney General Bill Barr Threatens that the Department of Justice could Sue States over Prolonged Social Distancing," AOL (April 22, 2020). 

Ed Dolan, "Tired of the COVID Lockdown? Here is What a Responsible Reopening Strategy Would Look Like," Medium (April 21, 2020). 

Dialynn Dwyer, "Harvard Researchers Have a Plan to Reopen the Economy Amid COVID-19. But It Would Require a Huge National Effort," Boston.com (April 27, 2020). 

"Experts Offer Road Map to Reopen the Country,Good Morning America (April 19, 2020). 

Dan Froomkin, "Here's What Trump Must Do to Boost Testing--and Reporters Must Tell Him That," Salon (April 22, 2020).

Kashmira Gander, "20 Million Coronavirus Tests a Day Might Not Be Enough To Fully Protect U.S. Public from Covid-19, Harvard Report Says," Newsweek (April 21, 2020).

Dave Gilson, "Trump Says “We’re in Very Good Shape on Testing.” A New Report Shows How Far off He Is," Mother Jones (April 21, 2020). 

"Governors Plead for More Testing Equipment," Newsy (April 22, 2020). 

"Harvard Report Details Steps to Pandemic Resilience," Morning Joe, MSNBC.com (April 20, 2020). 

"How to Build and Deploy Testing Systems at Unprecedented Scale," The Economist (April 23, 2020). 

Stephen Johnson, "Harvard Group: Here's How the U.S. Economy Can Reopen by August,Big Think (April 22, 2020). 

Nicole Karlis, "Lab Workers Face Unprecedented Supply Issues in Coronavirus Testing Ramp-up," Salon (April 21, 2020). 

David Knowles, "Reopening after Coronavirus Is a 'Much Bigger' Job than Most Americans Realize, Harvard Study Finds," Yahoo! News (April 22, 2020). 

Paul LaRocco, "Army of Contact Tracers Crucial to Containing Coronavirus Spread," Newsday (April 22, 2020.)

Jaimy Lee, "The Future of Succesful Coronavirus Response: Mass Testing at Work and in Church and Self-Administered Tests," Marketwatch (April 22, 2020).

Mara Liasson, "Coronavirus Response Shows How a National Crisis Can Again Transform Politics," WCMU Public Radio (April 22, 2020).

Gideon Lichfield, "This Is What it Will Take to Get Us Back Outside," MIT Technology Review (April 20, 2020).

Bob Oakes, "A Harvard Ethicist Explains Why Reopening Must Be Done Carefully," Morning Edition, WBUR.org (April 20, 2020). 

Caitlin Owens, "Harvard Roadmap: U.S. Needs to Significantly Ramp up Coronavirus Testing," AXIOS (April 21, 2020). 

"Rallies and Dodgeball Won't Solve Idaho's Real Problem of Getting Back to Work," Idaho Statesman (April 22, 2020). 

Wade Roush, "Podcast: The Long Path to a Post-Pandemic Reality," MIT Technology Review (April 22, 2020). 

Jackie Salo, "US Must Conduct 20M Coronavirus Tests per Day To Fully Reopen, Harvard Report Says," New York Post (April 21, 2020). 

Mallory Simon, Christina Maxouris and Jason Hanna, "As States Consider Reopening, CDC Director Warns Coronavirus Outbreak could Be Worse this Winter," CNN Health (April 21, 2020). 

Michael Snyder, "The Twisted Political Considerations that Are Going To Extend the Lockdowns and Deepen this Economic Depression," Prison Planet (April 21, 2020). 

Jim Tankersley and Emily Cochrane, "Congress Shovels Trillions at Virus, With No Endgame in Sight," New York Times (Aprl 24, 2020). 

Robert Verbruggen, "Another Plan to Reopen," National Review (April 21, 2020). 

Voice of the Highways, "How Mass Testing Is the Only Way to Return to 'Normalcy' but Bottlenecks and Questions Persist," Safety Radio (April 22, 2020). 

Teri Whitcraft, Bill Hutchinson, and Nadine Shubailat, "'Road Map' to Recovery Report: 20 Million Coronavirus Tests per Day Needed to Fully Open Economy," ABCNews.com (April 20, 2020).

Justin Wise, "US needs to conduct 20 million coronavirus tests per day to reopen fully, Harvard report says," The Hill (April 20, 2020).