Reopening 7 States: a mini-simulation at the GSB
How and when should your state reopen?
On May 14th, teams of 7–8 students in my Policy Time class designed plans to reopen seven states. Each student had a role: Governor, a mayor, or an advisor to the governor, on health, economics, education, or politics. The states considered were Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, South Carolina, and Texas.
Each governor had a long list of decisions to make. Most involved what could reopen when. The governor was the sole decision-maker, but in some groups there was tension with the mayors over state-vs-local control.
I gave them reputable sources of infection data, medical care supply, and economic conditions. A more realistic simulation would involve other inputs, especially direct contact with citizens and in-person exploration. In addition to good data, you need ground truth.
Students then wrote short memos about their sim-Governor’s decisions. They addressed these memos to governors of a different state (in real life, the student’s friend or family member). My teaching team identified the best memo from each State, which we present to you here, along with a brief synopsis of the decisions each Governor made for their state.
A few lessons are important. First, while public health policy best practice is to make local decisions based on local conditions, in a big state local conditions can differ quite a bit. The Florida panhandle, central Florida, and south Florida are different in many ways.
Second, in our system of government, the people in positions of authority matter. If we were to re-run the simulation, shuffling the states around among the student teams, some decisions would change. Within some states, a different governor would have resulted in a new plan.
Third, changing conditions require policymakers to adapt. I required teams to decide and announce everything in mid-May with the understanding that they were merely setting initial expectations for future decisions. This is particularly important for the big decision: what to do for K-12 schools.
Finally, it is easier to criticize than to make the tough call. Please treat these as well-intentioned, reasonable starting points for your discussion. These are complex, multi-dimensional decisions. Which of these judgment calls do you support? What would you do differently, and why?
Colorado
On May 14th a team of Stanford GSB students simulating Colorado state and local officials decided the following.
Stay-at-home order lifted: 15 May
Gatherings of more than 10 people allowed: 1 June.
Schools start on-time as a hybrid: 1 day/week in-person, the rest at-home and online.
Local officials can be more restrictive than the Governor in their communities but not less. (e.g., open later, or impose additional social distancing rules)
Open 15 May: Parks and playgrounds, golf courses, beaches, fast food and take-out, supermarkets and convenience stores, all retail (incl. malls and department stores), banks & finance, dentists.
Open 20 May: Places of worship, factories, farms and ranches.
Open 1 June: Museums and zoos, summer camps, sit-down restaurants, barbers & salons, sports (all), offices.
Open 1 July: Gyms
Open 1 August: Bars, casinos, movie theaters.
Open 1 September: K-12 schools (hybrid, see above), college and universities, stadium events.
Prisons: No change in policy.
PLAN TO REOPEN COLORADO
Sam Parker
This memo details the approach that Colorado is taking to reopen different sectors of the economy that have been shuttered by COVID-19. Because we cannot predict the exact trajectory of the virus, the categories of readiness are not fixed to set dates, and are instead tied to essential measures of readiness that must be satisfied.
Ready to Return
Shelter-in-place has already been lifted in Colorado, based on the low rate of hospitalizations that have remained well under our medical capacities. We believe that there is low risk of increased infections from the following activities, and recommend allowing them to resume immediately (assuming appropriate distancing and mask usage):
- Curbside pickup for all retail businesses
- Takeaway business for restaurants
- Elective surgeries
- Outdoor activities in public beaches and parks
- Golf
The first three items are critical to stabilizing retail, hospitality and healthcare businesses that have been devastated by the pandemic. The last two are important for providing safe opportunities for people to get outside and be active. I advise against opening Houses of Worship at this time because of the large crowds and difficulty in enforcing appropriate distancing, but recognize that it’s a very difficult decision to ban group worship, so include it in this section because it may be a political necessity to open them. If this is the case, emphasize the importance of symptomatic individuals skipping services as much as possible.
More Testing Required
Spaces with multiple points of entry and/or larger crowds should not be opened until there is sufficient testing capacity OR proficient contact tracing to identify those who crossed paths with a COVID-positive individual. Those spaces include:
- Outdoor recreation and athletic facilities
- Retail malls
- Dine-in restaurants
- Manufacturing facilities
- Agricultural and food-supply facilities
- Office buildings
- Personal care businesses
100% testing for a small population will also allow for professional sports to resume without fans in attendance.
Longer Horizons Needed
Large events, and spaces designed for high-density crowds, should not resume regular business until patrons can confirm either a lack of symptoms, or a positive antibody test, before entering. These include:
- Stadium events
- Bars and clubs
- Theaters
If distancing measures are possible, such as only selling 30% of ticket capacity for theater events, then these events may become possible earlier. K-12 schools should employ distance learning to the greatest extent possible, which I leave to the fair evaluation of local officials.
Florida
On May 14th a team of Stanford GSB students simulating Florida state and local officials decided the following.
Stay-at-home order lifted: 15 May
Gatherings of more than 10 people allowed: 15 June
Schools: Delayed start: 1 January 2021
Local officials can be more restrictive than the Governor but not less. (e.g., open later or impose additional social distancing rules)
Open 15 May: Golf courses, parks and playgrounds, supermarkets and convenience stores, general merchandise stores, hardware stores, factories, farms, offices.
Open 15 June: Museums & zoos, summer camps, amusement parks, places of worship, restaurants (all), all retail, barbers * salons, banks & finance, dentists, childcare.
Open 1 July: Beaches, bars and nightclubs, casinos, movie theaters, colleges & universities, gyms, sports (all).
Open 1 January 2021: Schools (K-12), stadium events.
Prisons: Release nonviolent offenders with minor crimes. PPE for guards, staff, and prisoners.
A FLORIDA PLAN TO REOPEN
Will Golinkin
Problem
While continued caution is prudent and essential to prevent ‘avoidable deaths’, we are at risk of creating a suite of symptoms far more harmful than the pandemic itself.[1] Given the government’s weak preparation for this calamitous event, it now seems likely that herd immunity will be the only possible solution. Therefore, I am recommending a more balanced policy approach to combatting COVID-19 that addresses this reality.
Principles
While some level of uncertainty is guaranteed, denominator data is poor and both federal and state-level policies have failed to utilize reliable empirical evidence to inform decisions.[2] Safety is still paramount and opening without considerable mitigation measures is a false choice that will risk unnecessary suffering. The metrics that will govern how fast to open the economy are healthcare capacity and effective disease surveillance/contact tracing. As it stands, Florida has the available hospital beds necessary to treat even a large uptick in cases over the coming months.[3] This capacity, when combined with a surge in testing and effective disease surveillance will set conditions for moderate opening of the economy.
The objectives of opening are not to risk lives, but rather to protect livelihoods. We seem to have lost sight of a clear truth: this disease will disproportionately harm the least financially secure. 39 percent of Americans with incomes below $40,000 lost a job in March and only 20 percent of workers with high school degrees or less can work from home. Perhaps most startling, rising unemployment could lead to as many as ‘75,000 deaths of despair’.[4] Vaccine development ‘might take years’ and it is neither feasible nor desirable to destroy wealth while we wait.[5]
The last and least popular policy consideration is the impact of continued fiscal spending on future generations of Americans. According to Kevin Warsh, “The dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency is no birthright.”[6] We cannot borrow trillions forever in order to support well-meaning, but ill-informed measures to keep people at home.
Policy
I recommend K-12 education start in the fall, as planned. Furthermore, I propose an elimination of shelter-in-place measures in addition to opening most businesses on June 1st. In the interest of effective disease surveillance, ‘super-spreaders’ with high levels of contact and indoor activity such as gyms, places of worship, and sit-down restaurants should remain closed until we have better information or superior treatment capacity.[7]
FLORIDA STATE REOPENING PLAN
Jeffrey Kessler
I largely agree with the Governor’s proposed plan, and this memo outlines my support. However, I disagree with one policy: there should be regular K-12 school openings in the fall.
PRINCIPLE
The main principle (beyond health concern) that guided our decision-making was that at some point, economic turmoil matters as much as public health in saving aggregate lives. GDP declines and unemployment will cause reduced discretionary income.
— In the short term: without government help (and even with), people will struggle to pay for necessities (food, housing, healthcare), which could lead to more deaths.
— In the long-term: the economic disruption will cause structural slowdowns in growth, which will certainly lead to less overall well-being and will very likely lead to some increased level of poverty/mortality (that no amount of government spending can solve.)
THE PLAN FOR RE-OPENING
(A) Economic importance and health concerns should determine phasing. All else equal, more economically valuable and higher health-risk businesses should open before less economically essential and lower health-risk businesses:
— Low public health risk and/or high economic value activities should (are) open now: Examples include supermarkets (high economic value) and outdoor recreation activities (low health risk)
— The highest risk, lowest economic value activities should be closed through July (e.g., bars, gyms)
— Everything else should open by mid-June (e.g., cafes, clothing stores, barber shops)
(B) Decisions should be localized. At the state level, decisions should be as open as possible.
— Based on the local environment, local officials can be more stringent (e.g., extending stay-at-home orders, choosing later open dates). There is no reason that a public health concern in one county should affect another (especially if counties are far away from each other)
— Local officials cannot be less stringent (e.g., earlier open dates). This ensures a simple and reasonable governance structure, which will help ensure compliance.
AREA OF DISAGREEMENT
In contrast to the governor’s plan, I believe schools should open as usual in September:
— The economic disruption of closed schools would be huge. The parental supervision required would suck productivity out of the economy. Even if businesses are open, many people will be busy taking care of their kids.
— Schools re-opened in Denmark in April (with some additional accommodations) without a change in the case trend[8] — see figure 1 below. Whatever the cost of these accommodations, it is worth the economic loss. Florida schools and Danish school have similar enough numbers of students/teacher so their plan is likely similarly feasible in Florida.[9]
Figure 1:
Louisiana
On May 14th a team of Stanford GSB students simulating Louisiana state and local officials decided the following.
Stay at home order lifted: 1 June
Schools start in-person 13 August.
Local officials can be more restrictive than the Governor in their communities but not less. (e.g., open later, or impose additional social distancing rules)
Open 15 May: Beaches, golf courses, parks & playgrounds, fast food and take-out, supermarkets and convenience stores, farms and ranches.
Open 1 June: Museums & zoos, amusement parks, places of worship, movie theaters, all retail except where noted below, banks & finance, dentists, childcare, factories, offices.
Open 13 August: Schools (K-12), colleges & universities.
Closed through at least 31 August: Bars and nightclubs, casinos, sit-down restaurants, cafes, barbers & salons, gyms, stadiums, sports (youth & amateur recreation).
Open next year: Summer camps.
Prisons: Release nonviolent offenders with minor crimes and less than 90 days left on their sentence. PPE for guards and staff.
LEARNING FROM LOUISIANA’S REOPENING STRATEGY
Ben Ruxin
Reopening a state requires managing a delicate balance of health and economic priorities. In Louisiana, the Governor and her team designed a plan with guiding principles and key decisions that Minnesota should consider adopting.
Guiding principles
- Safety first: if a decision is unclear, defer to health officials’ recommendations
- Don’t be the Guinea pig: many states are reopening, in spite of health recommendations; better to monitor their results than allow our population to be human tests for unproven strategies
- Weigh health and economic benefits: researchers have mapped health risks and economic benefits of various activities; reopen first the places with the lowest health risks, relative to their economic benefits
- Any financial cost of enabling our economy to reopen is worth it: Buy every mask needed and hire every contact tracer that experts recommend
Key decisions
Louisiana has made the following key decisions:
- Extending stay-at-home order until at least 6/1 because it:
— Enables further reduction in cases
— Allows more time to hire contact tracers and procure masks
— Enables the state to observe reopening efforts across the U.S.
- Enabling any local government to enforce stricter restrictions than the state because certain areas have populations that are at higher risk of complications (e.g., St. John the Baptist Parish) and others have populations at higher risk of infection (e.g., dense cities like New Orleans)
- Opening outdoor venues and retail locations in June, but keeping restaurants, bars and personal care businesses closed through the entire summer and possibly for longer as conditions require, based on emerging data on health risks
- Planning to open schools in the fall, because education is so critical and online education is both inferior and inequitable, but planning for a hybrid approach in which parents can select online-only education and at-risk teachers will develop and administer this online education
- Sparing no expense to make reopening as safe as possible, including investing in masks, requiring masks be worn in public, hiring 750 contact tracers and assembling a hurricane evacuation task force
Absorb the criticism
This plan will be heavily criticized, as it outlines a slower reopening strategy than any other state. As you face this criticism, remember: you are extremely popular. You are not up for reelection. The stakes have never been higher. Now is the time to use that political capital: follow the science, walk back the reopening plan, recommit to a more deliberate strategy, and absorb the pushback from the legislature.
Michigan
On May 14th a team of Stanford GSB students simulating Michigan state and local officials decided the following.
Stay at home order lifted: 28 May
Gatherings of more than 10 people allowed: 15 June
Schools start at-home and online in the fall.
Local officials can be more restrictive than the Governor in their communities but not less. (e.g., open later, or impose additional social distancing rules)
Open 15 May: Fast food and take-out, supermarkets & convenience stores, general merchandise and hardware stores, dentists.
Open 28 May: Beaches, golf courses, parks and playgrounds, summer camps, sit-down restaurants, cafes, clothing & shoe stores, liquor & tobacco stores, pet stores, electronics stores, barbers & salons, banks & finance, childcare, factories, farms and ranches.
Open 22 August: Museums & zoos, amusement parks, places of worship, bars & nightclubs, casinos, movie theaters, schools (K-12), colleges & universities, car dealers, department stores & shopping malls, sporting goods stores, bookstores, furniture & home goods stores, office supply stores, gyms, offices.
Open 28 May 2021: Stadium events, sports (all).
Prisons: Release nonviolent offenders with minor crimes. PPE for guards and staff.
REPORT TO THE GOVERNOR OF MICHIGAN ON TEXAS’ STATE REOPENING PLAN
Laura Chen
This memo describes key elements of the new proposed Texas reopening plan and highlights considerations for Michigan as it navigates through similar decisions.
Assessing the Situation
Latest data shows promising trends in Texas:
1) Among the lowest total hospitalized cases per million of all states[10]
2) Flat 1-week average new cases since ~30 days after first case per million and at a lower level than that of most states[11]
3) Far below the ~2.2k available ICU beds (only ~400 needed per week)[12]
However, Texas is at the bottom of daily tests conducted, suggesting that it may be underestimating its true case count.[13] Additionally, while new cases have flattened, Texas has not seen the 14-day downward trajectory guidelines put out by the White House.[14]
Taken together, the administration concluded that Texas could take minor reopening measures now but must significantly increase testing capacity and continue to monitor case trajectory before reopening fully.
Local vs. Central
For large states, different localities can have different health situations, which has prompted politicians to call for local control. However, given COVID’s contagious nature and the fluidity of movement across local lines, it is prudent to maintain control at the governor level. Local officials can have the power to reopen later, but not earlier, maintaining the state-determined health standard.
Grouped Phased Reopening
Businesses are categorized according to a framework guided by Baicker et al.[15] and assigned initial reopening dates based on likelihood of contagion.
1. Outdoor, low-contact: golf, beaches, parks, outdoor facilities
— Reopen now at 50%
2. Indoor, low-contact: museums, retail, fast food
— Reopen now at 25%
3. Outdoor, high-contact: stadiums, sports
— Reopen 6/15/20 at 25%
4. Indoor, high-contact: gyms, dine-in restaurants, bars, theatres
— Reopen 7/1/20 at 25%
5. Essential economic: supply chain, agriculture
— Reopen now with heightened protocols
Additional measures will be announced at later dates according to case trajectories. Schools will remain closed and online until further notice.
Prisons (Not recommending Texas Plan)
All inmates with nonviolent offenses are released and given 14-day government-funded quarantine facilities. This is irresponsible:
1. It imposes additional stress on strained state budgets (facilities are expensive) or a health hazard to the public if no quarantine resources are provided
2. It releases inmates into economic and health uncertainty.
Instead, only those medically deemed to be high-risk and have committed nonviolent offenses should be released. The state should provide excess PPE above those needed by medical professionals to guards/inmates.
South Carolina
On May 14th a team of Stanford GSB students simulating South Carolina state and local officials decided the following.
Stay at home order lifted: 15 May
Gatherings of more than 12 people allowed: 20 July
Schools start in-person delayed until 1 September.
Local officials can be more restrictive than the Governor in their communities but not less. (e.g., open later, or impose additional social distancing rules)
Open 15 May: Golf courses, parks & playgrounds, fast food and take-out restaurants, all retail, banks & finance, dentists, factories, farms and ranches.
Open 20 June: Barbers & salons.
Open 29 June: Museums & zoos, places of worship, sit-down restaurants, offices.
Open 20 July: Beaches, bars & nightclubs, casinos, movie theaters, gyms, stadium events, pro & college sports.
Open 1 September: Schools (K-12), colleges & universities, youth & amateur rec sports.
Open next year: Summer camps.
Prisons: Release nonviolent offenders with minor crimes, but no more than 15% of inmates. PPE for guards, staff, and prisoners.
SOUTH CAROLINA’S REOPENING PLAN
Ilana Walder-Biesanz
South Carolina’s COVID-19 council met Thursday to plan the state’s re-opening. Decision-making principles and select plan details are below. South Carolina will re-open as quickly as safely possible, using a phased approach and data monitoring to avoid healthcare system overwhelm.
Principles for re-opening
- Because (1) case counts are stable with increasing testing, and (2) hospital and ICU demand are far below capacity (5% and 17%, respectively), begin re-opening immediately
- Re-open in waves, three weeks apart to ensure data reflects new cases. (99% of cases develop in <14 days. Third-week data shows the impact of each wave’s first week.) Make each wave contingent upon steady or declining cases and <50% hospital/ICU utilization
- Prioritize businesses for re-opening by balancing health and economic concerns. Methodologically, we asked our health and economics advisors to independently assess the impact of reopening each industry (the health advisor considered only health; the economics advisor considered only economics). We used a combined health-economics score to assign priority
- Local leaders understand their cities best. State guidelines are minimums to prevent exceeding healthcare capacity; mayors can choose to be more conservative
Plan overview
- First wave (May 15): open key state industries where risk is manageable, plus low-risk spaces. Includes manufacturing (15% of economy, medium-high risk), restaurants (take-out only) and essential retail (high economic impact, medium risk), and some outdoor spaces such as state parks (low-risk)
- Second through fourth waves (June 8, June 29, July 20): openings prioritized as described
- Treat school openings (mid-August) as a fifth wave, tentatively on schedule but dependent on the success of prior waves. Plan for failure: build online schooling infrastructure (including expanded internet access and drop-off/pick-up for free lunches)
- In public communications, emphasize health and safety. Encourage mask-wearing, hand-washing, and maintaining social distance
Difficult decisions
- Cities like Myrtle Beach depend on beaches and the surrounding tourism economy. Many public beaches are state parks, so some argued they should re-open on May 15. But beaches are high-risk: they attract dense crowds of people from many cities/states. We delayed their opening until the fourth wave and promised financial support to beach cities
- Our health advisor wanted the state to define “re-opening,” including capacity limits. People travel, so inconsistent local rules could cause confusion and noncompliance (and disease spread, if some cities are lax). The governor decided the state would issue recommendations, but since local authorities own enforcement, they determine requirements
Texas
On May 14th a team of Stanford GSB students simulating Texas state and local officials decided the following.
Stay at home order lifted: 15 May
Gatherings of more than 10 people allowed: 15 June.
Schools start at home and online only.
Local officials can be more restrictive than the Governor in their communities but not less. (e.g., open later, or impose additional social distancing rules)
Open 15 May: Beaches, golf courses, parks and playgrounds, fast food and take-out restaurants, supermarkets and convenience stores, general merchandise stores, hardware stores, auto dealers and repair, liquor and tobacco stores, pet stores, electronics stores, office supply stores, banks and finance, factories, farms, and ranches.
Open 15 June: Museums and zoos, houses of worship, department stores and shopping malls, sporting goods stores, clothing and shoe stores, bookstores, furniture and home goods stores, dentists.
Open 1 July: Summer camps, amusement parks, sit-down restaurants, barbers and salons, gyms, sports (pro, college, amateur, youth rec), offices.
Open 15 July: Bars and nightclubs, casinos, movie theaters.
Prisons: Release those with minor crimes. PPE for guards, staff, and prisoners.
A REVISED PLAN TO REOPEN TEXAS
Cameron Strong
Rationale for Revision
Three key considerations should be more thoughtfully integrated into our plan:
- Compliance: We are already struggling with compliance — Texan Mark Cuban recently commissioned secret shoppers who found a stunning lack of compliance in Dallas (96% of opened stores failed the test).[16] Given this apparent struggle with current rules, we cannot intensify policies without reason.
- Data: If we are attempting to flatten the curve to protect our healthcare system, we have. Regressing to April policies is not supported by data.
- We have 67% of ventilator capacity still available[17], showing we can lift restrictions on our economy without crippling our hospitals.
- Despite reopening much of the state weeks ago, we have yet to see an uptick in hospitalizations[18] and have seen a decrease in the percent of positive test results.[19]
- Diversity of State: Blanket rules applied to a state that is the larger than many countries[20] are illogical. Texas is the “second-most diverse state in America”[21] and what works for one county will not be the same as what works for others.
Below find the proposed changes.
Local Authority
All decisions should allow for local control. It is known that Texans have a “small-government, low regulation”[22] philosophy. We should be letting democracy do its job which will hopefully encourage compliance. The executive branch risks overstepping its authority here.[23]
A rural county in East Texas with no cases[24] should not have to force its economy to suffer because Austin’s case count is skyrocketing (hypothetically speaking).
School System Operations
School districts should be permitted to start the school year in-person as soon as local officials deem safe for the following reasons:
- As seen in Denmark, there is no evidence that school reopening increases the spread of COVID-19.[25]
- 1 in 3 Texas households do not have broadband internet access,[26] making virtual learning unsustainable.
- Texas ranks 34th in the nation for Pre-K-12 education,[27] we cannot risk more time away from the classroom.
- Scientists are saying summer climates like Texas’ could slow coronavirus spread.[28]
Phase Timing
All phases should be in line with the “Texans Helping Texans”2 plan unless it can be proved that the plan is backfiring. The new plan neglects to provide Texas-specific data-based rationale for rolling back the reopening of our economy, instead relying on information from coastal states whose COVID crisis has not resembled our own.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7191286/
[2] https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/
[3] https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/florida
[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2020/05/15/daily-202-billions-are-out-of-work-and-millions-of-kids-could-die-from-coronavirus-s-economic-fallout/5ebe2696602ff11bb1182c6d/?utm_campaign=wp_the_daily_202&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_daily202
[5] ibid
[6] https://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2011/TIE_Warsh.pdf
[7] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/06/opinion/coronavirus-us-reopen.html
[8] Source: worldmeters.info, nytimes
[9] ~11 students/teacher in Denmark (knoema.com) vs. ~14 students/teacher in Florida (fldoe.org)
[10] http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/
[11] Ibid.
[12] https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america
[13] http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/
[14] “Guidelines for Opening Up America Again.” The White House (April 16, 2020).
[15] Katherine Baicker et. al. “Is it safer to visit a coffee shop or a gym?” The New York Times (May 6, 2020).
[16] Cuban, M. (2020, May 7). I Hired a Team of Secret Shoppers to Find Out How Businesses Were Opening in Dallas. It’s Not Good. Retrieved from Blog Maverick: The Mark Cuban Weblog: https://blogmaverick.com/2020/05/07/i-hired-a-team-of-secret-shoppers-to-find-out-how-businesses-were-opening-in-dallas-its-not-good/
[17] Statistic given by Public Policy Officer in discussion group, referenced: Texas, G. S. (2020, April 27). Texans Helping Texans: The Governor’s Report to Open Texas. Retrieved from Texas Governor: https://gov.texas.gov/uploads/files/organization/opentexas/OpenTexas-Report.pdf
[18] Sunseri, G., & Torres, E. (2020, May 16). Texas COVID-19 cases rise, governor’s office says more testing being done. Retrieved from ABC News: https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-cases-covid-19-increasing-thousands-reopening/story?id=70720497
[19] Walters, E., & Astudillo, C. (2020, May 15). As Texas reopens, coronavirus cases are increasing while testing misses benchmarks. Retrieved from Texas Tribune: https://www.texastribune.org/2020/05/15/texas-reopening-coronavirus-cases/
[20] Solomon, D. (2015, January 14). How Big Is Texas, Compared to Other Land Masses. Retrieved from Texas Monthly: https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/how-big-is-texas-compared-to-other-land-masses/
[21] Kingery, J. (2019, September 17). Texas is 2nd-most diverse state in America, according to report. Retrieved from CBS Austin: https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/texas-is-2nd-most-diverse-state-in-america-according-to-report
[22] Fernandez, M., & Montgomery, D. (2020, March 24). Texas Tries to Balance Local Control With the Threat of a Pandemic. Retrieved from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/us/coronavirus-texas-patrick-abbott.html
[23] As seen with Wisconsin Supreme Court decision against state orders. Jimenez, Omar, and Paul LeBlanc. “Wisconsin Supreme Court Strikes down State’s Stay-at-Home Order.” CNN. Cable News Network, May 14, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/13/politics/wisconsin-supreme-court-strikes-down-stay-at-home-order/index.html.
[24] Diamante, R. (2020, May 7). Mobile Testing Reaches Rural Texas Counties with Zero Positive COVID-19 Cases. Retrieved from Spectrum News: https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/san-antonio/news/2020/05/07/mobile-testing-reaches-rural-texas-counties-with-zero-positive-covid-19-cases
[25] Orange, R. (2020, May 17). Split classes, outdoor lessons: what Denmark can teach England about reopening schools after Covid-19. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/may/17/denmark-can-teach-england-safe-reopening-of-schools-covid-19
[26] Ramsey, R. (2020, April 1). Analysis: A digital divide with dire consequences for Texas. Retrieved from Texas Tribune: https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/01/digital-divide-dire-consequences-texas/
[27] Overview of Texas. (2018). Retrieved from U.S. News and World Report: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/texas
[28] Freedman, A., & Samenow, J. (2020, April 24). White House promotes new lab results suggesting heat and sunlight slow coronavirus. Retrieved from Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/04/23/lab-study-coronavirus-summer-weather/
