The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Health Security has released this guidance to state leaders to help determine when and how to order reopening. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to progress, most jurisdictions have implemented physical distancing measures community-wide. As chains of transmission begin to decline, along with new COVID-19 cases, there will need to be decisions at the state level about how to transition out of strict physical distancing and into a phased reopening.
This document provides an assessment of the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in a variety of organizations and settings that have been closed. We outline steps to reduce potential transmission during the reopening of these organizations and settings, building on the proposed phased approach from the National Coronavirus Response: A Road Map to Reopening. Reopening businesses and other sectors represents one of many steps that will need to be taken to revitalize communities recovering from the pandemic, restore economic activity, and mitigate the unintended public health impact of the distancing measures that were necessary to confront the epidemic of COVID-19. A discussion of larger community-wide considerations for holistically enhancing recovery can be found in the Appendix.