COVID-19: additional approach: large-scale testing, tracing; "flattening the curve" not enough; we need to mobilize NM resources not just let them wait, idle

March 23, 2020

Dear Secretary Kunkel (Kathy) and Governor Grisham, via --

The Los Alamos Study Group has worked on national security policy issues here and in Washington for more than 25 years.

My own background includes a few short years at what is now NMED, though at the time it was part of the Health Department. There I was a supervising hydrologist and enforcement specialist. I am an engineer and planner with a science background and a former educator.

First of all, we have been quite proud of the Grisham Administration's response to COVID-19. Governor Grisham has been articulate, forceful, compassionate, and intelligent, and evidently has an excellent cabinet. We disagree with her on certain other issues, but we count New Mexico lucky to have this team in place now.

I thought the following was important enough to send. I will send it to a few people in Washington also.

"Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance: What the Next 18 Months Can Look Like, if Leaders Buy Us Time," Tomas Pueyo

The gist of Pueyo's article, much of which is the math common to epidemics informed by COVID-19 experience, is that we have to hammer down transmission very fast, and then "take the fight to the virus," as WHO's Ryan said the other day:

LONDON (Reuters) - Countries can't simply lock down their societies to defeat coronavirus, the World Health Organization's top emergency expert said on Sunday, adding that public health measures are needed to avoid a resurgence of the virus later on.

"What we really need to focus on is finding those who are sick, those who have the virus, and isolate them, find their contacts and isolate them," Mike Ryan said in an interview on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.

"The danger right now with the lockdowns ... if we don't put in place the strong public health measures now, when those movement restrictions and lockdowns are lifted, the danger is the disease will jump back up."

Much of Europe and the United States have followed China and other Asian countries and introduced drastic restrictions to fight the new coronavirus, with most workers told to work from home and schools, bars, pubs and restaurants being closed.

Ryan said that the examples of China, Singapore and South Korea, which coupled restrictions with rigorous measures to test every possible suspect, provided a model for Europe, which the WHO has said has replaced Asia as the epicenter of the pandemic.

"Once we've suppressed the transmission, we have to go after the virus. We have to take the fight to the virus," Ryan said.

We need to break the rise of cases, obviously, but we also need a lot more testing capacity, monitoring, and more contact tracing.

If we don't use the time we make for ourselves with the strong measures being put in place now, the epidemic will come back, and with a vengeance.

The more we can trace and isolate cases and case clusters, the sooner we can get back to a modified version of normal social and economic activity. (The previous normal is never coming back, for reasons outside the scope of this note.)

This non-expert (but correct) author made a similar point: Coronavirus getting angry

Key point: The right policy is not “herd immunity” or even “flattening the curve”. The right policy is to try to eliminate as many cases as possible and to strictly control and test to keep cases to a bare minimum for maybe 18 months while a vaccine is produced.

We also think we could do much, much more in New Mexico. Too many of our resources are idle. About seven blocks from here UNM has a health research complex. UNM also has chemical engineers.

I think "we" -- we in New Mexico -- can make reagents if we try hard enough. I think we could make masks. I think we would make temporary hospitals for non-COVID-19 patients so we don't lose thousands of people from otherwise survivable heart attacks, etc.

Across society, from top to bottom, too many of our resources are idle, just waiting for "normal" to return. That will be a long time, or never if we do not do EVERYTHING we can do to stop this now. One day's delay can make a large difference in cases and deaths.

There are many things non-specialists can do also. Citizen morale will be improved if there are things for them to do.

If more help is needed to trace contacts, draw that help from other agencies. You need it now.

If more tests are needed, and they are needed right now, let no stone lie unturned to get them.

Don't be satisfied with "flattening the curve."

Yes, a lot more federal help is needed but we need to act with the resources we have, or can get. The sooner the better -- the far, far better.

New Mexico can lead nationally on this.

Thank you,

Greg Mello