Doing it right . ..

or at least making a responsible effort. Several Republican governors are easing restrictions even though the rate of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths is still increasing in their states. And they're doing it with what seems not just a lack of judicious thought, but outright perversity, as in Georgia where the first businesses allowed to open included massage and tattoo parlors, followed in a few days by bars and restaurants. We'll see where that gets them in three or four weeks.

Meanwhile, Connecticut was one of the hardest hit states, because of its proximity to the initial severe outbreak in the eastern New York suburbs. People in Fairfield County take the same train to work in Manhattan as people in New Rochelle, and as a result there was a severe outbreak in western Connecticut before anybody knew what was happening. (And yes, Cuomo and DeBlasio screwed up initially. But they quickly realized their mistake and reversed course. They weren't getting urgent intelligence briefings starting in January either.)

Governor Lamont moved quickly to close non-essential businesses, to order people to work from home where possible, and to impose distancing requirements in essential businesses such as grocery stores. However, he allowed manufacturing to continue, again with safety precautions, and never closed state parks and beaches, again with distancing requirements. In a couple of cases where people weren't following the rules, he closed state parks, but most remained open.

This worked. The outbreak was largely contained to the western half of the state -- here in Windham County we've only had four deaths (all of which I believe were in a nursing home near the Massachusetts border), only three people are currently hospitalized, and and there have been no confirmed cases in the town where I live.  The story in western Connecticut was a lot worse, and the epidemic did spread as far East as the center of the state, in New Haven and Hartford Counties.

Now it's been on the decline for more than two weeks, however. The most important indicator in Lamont's view is  the number of people who are hospitalized. The confirmed case rate is partly a function of how many tests are done, and that's been steadily ramping up. The death rate is a lagging indicator. Although both are also down, the number of people hospitalized is a pretty hard indicator of how many people are getting sick, and it also means that hospital capacity is now adequate.

So he's planning to ease restrictions by May 20, but he has a set of criteria, and he's being transparent about how well we're doing. Here's a slide from the governor's office.



We don't have enough testing available yet, or contact tracing capacity. Protecting vulnerable populations in part means being able to test everybody in nursing homes, health care personnel, and disproportionately affected communities which basically means low income urban areas. That's why that needle is parallel to the testing availability needle. But he hopes to get there by May 20.

Then, however, we're going to do things carefully and smartly. Restaurants will be allowed to have outdoor seating only, with tables at appropriate distance and limitations on party size. Retail businesses that had been closed will have to follow the same guidelines as those that remained open, including limited capacity, distancing and mask wearing. Large gatherings are still prohibited and gyms will not open yet. Distancing at parks and beaches will still be required.

We'll see what happens but since we'll have adequate testing and contact tracing capacity we'll know if we need to reimpose some restrictions. If there is an uptick in infections, we'll know how it happened and be able to make a targeted response. Sure, there's some experimentation involved, we aren't sure what's going to happen, but Connecticut is trying to go about it smartly, informed by science and expertise. That, unfortunately, is not the Republican philosophy of governing.