The Washington Post reports:

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer says a return to nearly normal life is possible this summer if the United States does wide-scale testing for the coronavirus.

Romer is calling on the U.S. government to test everyone in the nation once every two weeks and isolate people who test positive for the deadly coronavirus. He estimates that doing so would cost $100 billion, a hefty sum but far less than the $2 trillion Congress has spent so far and less than the cost of keeping the economy partly closed for months to come.

“I’m on the optimistic end of how quickly we can scale testing up,” said Romer, who won the 2018 Nobel Prize for economics. “I do think there’s a way most people could feel safe returning to what feels like normal life this summer if we do this wide-scale testing.”

So far, the nation has tested about 5 million people — or less than 2 percent of the population. Last week, Congress approved an additional $25 billion for testing as part of the latest funding bill, which Romer calls a good start but not enough.

Restarting the U.S. economy isn’t just about government officials clearing certain businesses to reopen. People have to feel safe enough to venture out. Romer says that will happen only when nearly everyone in the country is getting tested on a regular basis and people who are sick are being quarantined.

“It’s totally in our control to fix this,” Romer said in a phone interview. “We should be spending $100 billion on the testing. We should just get it going. It’s just not that hard.” [Continue reading…]