As states across the country approach the back half of stay-at-home orders — and as many report better-than-expected case counts and death totals — there’s new momentum for Americans to return to work. The president has formed a task force designed to reopen parts of the economy as early as May 1. Some of his advisers don’t even want to wait that long, and “reopen” movements are popping up across the country, including in North Carolina, where a group with more than 22,000 supporters wants Gov. Roy Cooper to let people go back to work at the end of April.

It’s a bad idea. Let’s make plain what will happen if the nation’s governors — who, despite Donald Trump’s assertions, get to make this call — were to follow that advice:

— If we try to go back to normal too quickly, more people will die.

— If we decide too soon that our national and local economies have to be rescued, people will die and those economies will suffer.

— If we look at the better-than-expected COVID-19 numbers and conclude that the models were wrong instead of public health restrictions being right, we will face a new and catastrophic surge.

Public health officials have told us this again and again about fighting COVID-19. And they have been right. Not the people who insist, even now, that the virus is no worse than the plain old flu. Not the people who promote the persistent lunacy that COVID-19 is being hyped by anti-Trumpers to take down the president’s economy. The experts have been right about the need to close schools, to shutter restaurant dining rooms, to stay six feet away for everyone’s sake. They’ve been right about such measures being necessary everywhere, including rural states and counties, despite some stubborn leaders risking their constituents’ lives.

No, public health officials have not been flawless, but they and the governors who acted decisively have saved their states from a president who for weeks delivered a much different message about COVID-19. Now those same governors — both Democrat and Republican — will have to save us from human nature, from the tendency to believe what we see instead of what we’re told.

We understand that for most, the reopen movement is fueled by genuine economic fear. People are out of work. Their businesses and dreams are dying, and there are legitimate questions in North Carolina and elsewhere about when the cost of shuttering businesses will outweigh the benefit of continued restrictions.

Those questions are not yet answerable, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said April 14. Public health officials need better data about the virus to evaluate the risks of bringing people together again. That includes more robust testing of people who have had COVID-19 symptoms, as well as those who have been exposed. It also includes contract tracing to reveal where and how fast the virus is spreading or abating, as well as blood testing throughout states to track immunity and exposure.

That information, along with COVID-19 data states already possess, needs to be made widely available so that policy makers and the public are better equipped to make decisions. “Trust us” should not be an option for any state, including North Carolina. Especially now, Americans need to understand why COVID-19 demands sacrifices from us, and why the alternative to those sacrifices remains, at least for the near future, a very dangerous path to take.

— The Charlotte Observer