Roadmap for Re-Opening the Massachusetts Economy

Massachusetts High Technology Council

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The War on COVID-19

Global cases & deaths continue to rise. Mitigation efforts have led to some level of “flattening”, but with severe economic consequences


- The US new daily cases are beginning to decline, but still account for 1/3 of global daily new cases
- MA new daily cases still high, but are seeing frequent periods of declining. Hospital ICU beds only ~54% filled

- JP Morgan estimating Q2 GDP down ~40% QoQ. MA unemployment ~2x the GFC, with low income workers particularly hard hit


Determining when to re-open is dependent on modeling out “supply and demand”

- Key supply considerations include availability of beds and healthcare workers (taking into account burden of other illness/need) and therapeutic availability and effectiveness

- Key demand considerations include a manageable current new case trajectory (“flattened curve”), confidence in ability to track case counts, and anticipated effectiveness of segmentation & worker safeguards


If reopening causes a demand imbalance, risk a rolling lockdown scenario

- 1918 Spanish Flu data warns of opening too early or with too little preparation – could result in a second, larger spike in cases than the first

- Spain re-opened once COVID-19 cases reached 20% of their prior peak, but was still too soon – cases rapidly rose and Spain was forced to shut again

Critical to design a “back-to-work” plan that does not overload hospitals and keeps people safe

Source: US Department of Labor, Google
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