Reopening Under Uncertainty

Stress-Testing California's COVID-19 Exit Strategy

Pedro Nascimento de Lima, Raffaele Vardavas, Lawrence Baker, Jeanne S. Ringel, Robert J. Lempert, Carolyn M. Rutter, Jonathan Ozik

Expert InsightsPublished May 10, 2021

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic required significant public health interventions from local governments. Early in the pandemic, RAND researchers developed a decision support tool to provide policymakers with insight into the trade-offs they might face when choosing among nonpharmaceutical intervention levels. Using an updated version of the model, the researchers performed a stress-test of a variety of alternative reopening plans, using California as an example. This Perspective presents the general lessons learned from these experiments and discusses four characteristics of the best reopening strategies.

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Nascimento de Lima, Pedro, Raffaele Vardavas, Lawrence Baker, Jeanne S. Ringel, Robert J. Lempert, Carolyn M. Rutter, and Jonathan Ozik, Reopening Under Uncertainty: Stress-Testing California's COVID-19 Exit Strategy. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2021. https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA1080-1.html.
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This research was funded by Mala Gaonkar and Surgo Foundation UK Limited and the Anne and James Rothenberg Dissertation Award and conducted by the Social and Behavioral Policy Program within RAND Social and Economic Well-Being.

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