Hillsborough County considers phased economic reboot

Hillsborough County officials began discussing ways to reopen the local economy Thursday as Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to make an announcement about reopening the state economy Friday.

DeSantis is expected to relax restrictions by May 1.

County health officials and experts presented several ideas to the Emergency Policy Group, the theme of which was an integrated response that balanced public health with economic vitality.

Eric Eisenberg, Dean of the USF School of Arts & Sciences led the discussion. He compared the necessary economic re-start to a dial, not a switch.

“Either/or is not going to match the reality of how this virus works,” Eisenberg said. “What we’re all hoping for is that we can turn the dial to the right.”

However, doing so too quickly could lead to a resurgence in the virus, he said.

The goal is to have a flexible plan that allows the county to adjust. Implement a change, watch how it affects cases over a couple of weeks and reevaluate as necessary. If a reduction in regulation doesn’t lead to a new surge in cases, it would pave the way for further reductions.

He also said the strategy needed to take into consideration that one size does not fit all. Some businesses might be ready to open right away, while others might need to phase in their reboot.

Tom Unnasch, a health professor at the USF College of Public Health, showed a variety of data estimates showing what Hillsborough County’s caseload would have looked like had it not implemented a stay-at-home order and what it would look like if it reopened the economy all at once.

On the former, Unnasch said the county saw what was probably a “100-fold” reduction in the epidemic. The virus peak, which has already passed, would have not come until June. Hospital beds would have been overrun.

Meanwhile, if the county were to withdraw those restrictions all at once, rather than phasing them, the county would likely see a new spike in cases that could be just as bad as not having implemented restrictions at all.

He estimated as many as 275,000 new cases could emerge.

“The take home message here is that the community and you guys (EPG) did a really great job,” Unnasch said. “Unfortunately, we still have a lot of susceptible people. If we open up we’ll be right back in the situation we were in six weeks ago.”

Those susceptible people are the 99% of Hillsborough County residents who have not yet been tested for the virus.

Officials discussed that testing disparity as a crucial component to reopening.

An ideal situation would see a combination of more testing, targeting testing, rapid testing and antibody testing.

Health officials have been using, and plan to continue using, “syndromic surveillance” to track where people are experiencing symptoms in order to deploy testing in that area and stop the spread before it becomes pervasive.

Increased antibody testing would help the county ascertain individuals who may have had the virus, but didn’t show symptoms and therefore weren’t tested.

Still, the Emergency Policy Group doesn’t plan to make any decisions on a reopening plan until DeSantis announces a statewide plan.

Local restrictions will depend largely on his eventual order. Some restriction rollbacks might be required while local officials might have some authority to continuing imposing stricter regulations if it’s appropriate in their communities.

But it was clear EPG members are ready to start getting back to some semblance of normalcy.

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, who had been the most vocal proponent for a countywide stay-at-home order, said it’s time to start planning.

“I don’t believe we have the ability to wait two weeks,” Castor said, referring to the May 1 reopening date, signaling Hillsborough rollbacks could be coming even sooner locally than at the state level.