America faces an impending disaster. The extraordinary scale of the Covid-19 crisis is evident in the growing deaths and economic losses the pandemic has wrought in every state. Devastated minority and low-income families bore the brunt of those costs. As the virus tore across the country, it exposed the structural inequities that have underpinned and undermined our economy for decades. And it will only worsen during fall’s cold and flu season.

This terrifying tragedy was not and is not inevitable. America can function safely, even as we fight Covid-19. Other countries have shown that a better alternative is possible. But as we said in April – when we first released The Rockefeller Foundation’s National Covid-19 Testing Action Plan – testing is the only way out of our present disaster, and it will remain the case until a vaccine or effective therapeutics are widely available.

Read the full updated plan on the Rockefeller Foundation website.