What we need from our leaders now

The most urgent task for the president and national leaders is to articulate the purpose of the shutdown, what it aims to achieve, and how we will know when we have. The current answer — “15 days to slow the spread” — is arbitrary and unpersuasive. The question is not How many more weeks or months? but Under what conditions can we relax blanket national closures?

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Some … set of specific conditions needs to be offered by federal leadership and broadly understood by the public. Why are we doing this? How will we know when we’ve won? “Flatten the curve” has already sunk in, but it is not enough.

Ari Schulman, What’s the Plan?