ProPublica outlines lessons learned from interviewing frontline officials and experts from Italy, Germany, Spain, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea about reopening society in the wake of the epidemic.

To safely move to a more open society, the following 7 steps are commonly recommended:

1. Build an army of contact tracers – according to former CMS chief Andy Slavitt, “It usually takes four or five people over three days to do one full contact trace, on average.”
2. Test. Constantly.
3. Isolate people with suspected infection from their families.
4. Protect health care workers.
5. Don’t try to go back to “normal”
6. Watch out for the second wave – use sentinel surveillance to remain vigilant against a rise in cases
7. Communicate. Clearly. Constantly. This will include governors and other state leaders having to “pursuade voters to do things they won’t like at a moment of unparalleled partisan rancor, record unemployment, disarray in your state’s traditional media outlets and divisions among eminent scientists.”