Moving Past Lock-down

It feels good to finally begin moving out of lock-down, while the world awaits a vaccine.

The next step is a debatable matter in the organized exit strategy for our country when it comes to COVID-19. At this point, it has primarily been left in the hands of the states.

Novel Strategy Needed

I believe the most successful strategy will require a novel approach to managing our socio-economic zones that are not defined by Federal, State, or County organization charts, especially the latter two.  The reason is that our socio-economic patterns of movement and interactions in the US are not confined to a specific county, nor are they all uniform in any given state.

 The Trump Administration strategy of leaving the post-lock-down COVID-19 management largely to the states has created chaos.  This is primarily because states are progressing through asynchronous phases of unlocking their citizens.

But the real issue is that the phased state policies reflect the worst-hit cities/areas in their state, while the rest of mildly effected socio-economic zones are required to follow the same set of rules as those hard-hit zones.

The Commuting Zone Model

French strategists have proposed a model worthy of our consideration that involves breaking socio-economic regions into either a green zone (safe) or red zone (locked down) designation. This does not follow the normative channels of social or economic profiling, but rather is a mathematical model that involves our patterns of movement.

By partitioning our nation into cells or socio-economic groupings with an average of 10,000-20,000 inhabitants, we can more accurately organize and manage the movement of people within “commuting zones”.  These zones represent our primary social and economic movements in an area. They represent our socio-economic footprint.

Green Zoning

Zones that do not record new infections despite thorough randomized testing are labeled green after seven days, After seven additional days, neighboring green zones are merged to form a larger green zone. Within these zones, interactions are again progressively allowed, albeit with some restrictions.

Red Zoning

When a new infection is detected in a cell that is part of a green zone, this zone is progressively broken into its smaller constituents, until each red cell is isolated. The inhabitants of red cells remain isolated (i.e. under strict monitoring or on a lock-down policy)

This fundamental difference between Green and Red zones within geographic regions is recognized by most citizens in the US.  They may not call it a “commuting zone” but they understand the core idea that some regions are less risky than others.

Frustrations With Statewide Mandates

Unlike antiquated governance structures, our “commuting zones” are not fully defined by State or County designations.

This structural dissidence represents the tension of the matter for most of us, including me as a physician and small business owner.

If I know my area is a green zone, it should have fewer restrictions. It’s that simple. It’s why so many small business owners are perplexed by lock-down policies that are applied to their green zone located businesses.

Many are frustrated that their micro-economy and liberties in a primarily green zone are forced to comply with the same rigid lock-down rules of the red zones.

Flaws With State Management

The tragic flaw with leaving states to manage this without any federal guidance is twofold:

1. The citizens of each state don’t all uniformly fit into a green or red zone. Therefore the blanket approaches to unlocking them don’t allow for any zoned strategy. This will really become an issue when new outbreaks start to peak again.  The current “all or nothing” approach has massive negative social and economic effects.  This approach is crippling to the economy and isn’t necessary for a good portion of any state that is filled with numerous green zones.
2. “Commuting zones” often straddle state and country boundaries. So these regions are governed as citizens who aren’t viewed as a zone, but instead are myopically required to follow the mandates of their geographic boundaries. The differing strategies used for each state leaves the citizens unclear about the rules required for compliance.

Need For Federal Policy

This flawed policy of state control is why a national green zone strategy is needed. Our federal government would need to vet the policy that each state, county, and city would administrate uniformly with the same sets of rules for green and red zones. 

The hardest part would be breaking down our country into “commuting zones” that are agreed upon by both parties, a seeming impossibility. Thus the White House could lead the charge in pushing this forward through its Corona Task Force.

The truth is that most of us are organized into large and dynamic networks of economic and social structures based on our activity.   This represents our movements and interactions. Our social media networks and devices are very aware of these movements. Due to the ubiquitous nature of smartphones, the giants like Facebook, Google, and Amazon all know about our socio-economic footprint, and use it for their purposes. This same data and information should be used by our government to help our exit strategy from this pandemic.

Benefits Of Green Zoning Policy

There are numerous benefits to a green zoning policy that have been summarized by  the French strategist that include:

1. Minimize economic damage by allowing for re-opening zones with strong economic links, local micro-economies can still be allowed to thrive. This would be a major boost to small businesses.
2. Non-invasive tracking. Both macroscopic and microscopic tracking methods can be used in tandem in Green Zones that convert to Red Zones.
3. Minimize societal damage. Slowly restarting normal relational behaviors helps restore the well being and fiber of communities.
4. Easily combined with other measures. The notion of a green zone is flexible, it can be adapted to fit the current possibilities of each region, e.g. availability of testing or immunity certificates, the practice of sanitary precautions, voluntary social distancing, etc.

The truth is that most of the country has experienced the disruptive socio-economic effects from our national lock-down strategy. A strategy that did save an estimated 100,000 lives or more.

But for those who reside outside of the several well-documented red zones, most of us feel a disconnect between what we see on the news each day, and we see in our community daily. For instance, in my rural Indiana region of 45,000 people, we have had <100 documented cases and only 1 death. So why am I still walking through a phased unlocking process?

It’s now time for our national leadership to work with states to deploy a novel lock-down model that will re-open our country in a more strategic manner, and allow for a more rapid socio-economic recovery.

The answer is found in carefully looking at our socio-economic footprints.

Dr. Inc.