North Central College Dean interviewed by The Beacon-News

Dean Marci Swede weighed in on reopening the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Due to mounting pressure to ease stay-at-home restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, public health experts in northern Illinois and city leaders statewide outlined measures that could be necessary to fully reopen businesses.

Those measures, including increased testing and a viable vaccine, remain far off and reopening businesses will likely be a lengthy process.

North Central College’s Marci Swede, dean of the School of Education and Health Sciences, spoke with The Beacon-News on keys to reopening the country and how to be successful in “flattening the curve,” which has been the goal of the stay-at-home order, and widespread testing and a vaccine.

“Testing and a vaccine can be tools to tailoring more finely an approach to “flattening the curve,” rather than a one-size-fits-all stay-at-home order,” said Swede. “We’re really bad at-risk assessment. So, to put the ownership of risk assessment on the general public is hard, and it’s asking individuals to make choices without having all the tools they need.”

Click here to read the full article in The Beacon-News.