Several states, including Tennessee, have started re-opening a variety of businesses. Several more are states are planning to start this process as well. I think this is too early. One of the indicators that we are ready would be a noticeable decline in the acceleration of cases. While social distancing measures appear to have flattened the curve in most states, there is no clear sign that the acceleration has turned negative. See the graph below for a comparison for several southeastern states during the month of April.
For most of the states in the chart, the acceleration has bounced around zero, but has not turned decidedly negative. The one exception is Louisiana, which had the most severe outbreak in the southeast during the month of March and at times rivaled New York on a population-adjusted basis.
My friend and colleague, Doug Howarth pointed out to me that the Spanish flu in the early twentieth century had a deadly second wave of infections throughout the U.S. when social distancing measures were relaxed too early. Re-opening the economy now has the possibility of something similar occurring with COVID-19.
In my next update, I will provide a best-case projection over the next three months in Tennessee, just to see how bad it can get.