There are two ominous facts about the current economic situation in the United States: a staggering decline in Gross Domestic Product and over 30 million claims for initial unemployment benefits.

While everyone agrees that the reopening process must necessarily be gradual and subject to some measure of general government control, there is pervasive disagreement about what follows next. New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo, for example, speaks of opening the economy at one moment only to caution in the next against easing up on restrictions that could lead to a new surge of the virus.

Cuomo’s equivocation shows why it is useful to explore the question on two related dimensions. The first deals with understanding the general conditions required for reopening the economy. The second relates to which sectors of the economy should be opened when, in what order, and why.