ST. LOUIS — Across the country, people losing business and income are protesting stay-at-home orders.
On Tuesday, the demand will arrive in Jefferson City with a “Reopen Missouri” rally at outside the state Capitol. Organizers expect hundreds of people to be there.
“They're more than welcome to be here tomorrow and protest,” Gov. Mike Parson said during his daily news briefing Monday afternoon, adding the protesters are expected to stay 6 feet apart from one another.
"We're doing what we can to get this state open,” he said.
But public health experts, including the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, warn if we open too soon or too quickly, we could have a second wave of coronavirus that's even worse than the first.
“We have to think of the broader picture, which is decreasing the risk of transmission, which decreases the number of infections, which decreases the number of deaths,” task force incident commander Dr. Alexander Garza said Monday.
He said you can't change one without affecting the other.
Dr. Garza said the models show COVID-19 will likely peak in the St. Louis region this week.
And even though a downward trend in cases is part of the criteria for reopening, it’s not the only one.
"Testing is really the critical thing. Right now, we have been unable to obtain adequate number of tests,” St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson said.
The task force said it's confident there are enough tests for diagnosing COVID-19 but not for surveillance of the virus in the community.
"It's that surveillance piece which we need to be robust if we want to open up the economy,” Garza said.
The state said it's introducing rapid testing, and antibody testing should be available in about two weeks, as it works to meet the public health need under economic pressure.
Governor Parson said the target date for starting to reopen Missouri is May 4.
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