Biden public health advisers reject national ‘lockdown’

Two public health experts advising President-elect Joe Biden on COVID-19 rejected the idea of “lockdowns” like those seen in the spring to bring down rising case numbers.

Those lockdowns also led to skyrocketing unemployment as businesses were closed down.

Celine Gounder, who sits on Biden’s COVID-19 task force, said on CNBC Friday the panel supports “targeted” closures of businesses that are actually leading to the spread of the virus, including indoor dining.

“Really the consensus is that we need a more nuanced approach. We’ve learned a lot since the spring, and we can be much more targeted geographically, and we can also be more targeted in terms of what we close,” she said.

“I think what we need to be tightening up right now is indoor dining, going to bars, indoor gyms, that sort of thing and we can really keep schools for example open much longer if we tighten up the areas where we’re most likely to see spread.”

Context: Still, NYC and other cities are considering closing down schools, even as evidence shows they are not the major source of spread.