Epidemiology expert on keeping restrictions in place: “This is frustrating, but lives are at stake”
Some experts are worried that reopening the economy and relaxing restrictions on stay-at-home orders would cause the number of coronavirus cases to rebound.
This is because the population does not have immunity to the virus yet, according to Anne Rimoin, a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at UCLA.
“We’ve made so many gains by having a really good national effort at social distancing and doing everything we can to flatten the curve. But if we start to open up, we’re going to see these numbers rebound. We don’t have a population immunity to this virus,” Rimoin said to CNN’s John King.
Other factors that make it dangerous to relax guidelines right now is the lack of a vaccine, other therapeutics and the ability to conduct wide-spread testing, Rimoin said.
“This is frustrating, but lives are at stake. We’re seeing the impact of the lack of social distancing and the lack of early action throughout the country at this point and throughout the world. We have to let the global data speak,” she said.
