I’d like to consider the repercussions of lifting the COVID-19 restrictions too soon. According to Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Nirav Shah, it takes up to two weeks from the time of infection to the time epidemiologists become aware of a case, so the “current” number of cases is actually a snapshot of the epidemic two weeks ago.
If we end social distancing measures today, the next two weeks would look good, as we would still be seeing the positive effects of the governor’s restrictions. People would go back to work and restaurants would reopen.
Only after two weeks would we start to see new infections that arise after restrictions are lifted. It would take two weeks after that to again see a noticeable increase in cases.
Six weeks out, after another virus life cycle, the spike in cases would finally show us that we acted too soon. We would need to close everything again, bringing us back to where we were around March 17 (four weeks ago).
We would have wasted 10 weeks getting ourselves back to where we are today. Can our economy afford to do this for two or three months longer than the already-significant amount of time that recovery will require?
Daniel Smith
Yarmouth
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