'Without a doubt, the best option': Former World Bank chief economist proposes $100B plan to test everyone biweekly
by Jay Heflin
| April 23, 2020 04:57 PM
Nobel laureate in economics and former World Bank chief economist Paul Romer released a plan to reopen the economy Thursday centered on testing every person in the United States every two weeks, at a cost $100 billion a year.
“Until a vaccine is developed and deployed, the simplest and safest path to this outcome is a national testing strategy that marshals our existing resources to test everyone in the U.S. once every two weeks and isolates all those who test positive,†the plan states.
Romer estimates that the plan would be economical given that during the pandemic, the U.S. is suffering $500 billion each month in lost output and lost capacity to produce in the future.
The plan proposes establishing a testing network at national and university laboratories to test every person in the U.S. every two weeks. There are over 328 million people living in the U.S., according to the latest data available from the Census Bureau. To meet the two-week objective, the plan would require 25 million tests per day. Currently, the U.S. is testing 150,000 people a day.
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/without-a-doubt-the-best-option-former-world-bank-chief-economist-proposes-100b-plan-to-test-everyone-biweekly
