It's Brian Lehrer, and this is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Tuesday, April 14th.

So when is the time to leave our homes and begin a return to normalcy? There is no clear answer yet, obviously. But yesterday we heard

Governor Andrew Cuomo give a joint press conference with governors from five other northeastern states

to announce a coordinated reopening plan to determine when and how to reopen our economies.

Here's about 40 seconds of that.

We've been talking today about the fact that New York believes we have reached a plateau

in the increase of number of cases.

They're not going down, but they're not going up at the same rate.

And we believe it's a quote-unquote plateau,

and that is relatively good news in a world of bad options.

And we should start looking forward to reopening, quote-unquote,

but reopening with a plan and a smart plan, because if you do it wrong,

it can backfire, and we've seen that in other places on the globe.

Governor Andrew Cuomo, and there was a similar announcement by West Coast states.

And today the president is expected to announce a similar task force on the federal level to help him make what he is calling the biggest decision of his presidency and of his life.

But how will any of those leaders make these calls? And with what kinds of gradual steps? Like in offices where desks and cubicles just are not six feet apart. What will they do there?

One of a gazillion examples. With us now, Sharon Begley, senior science writer for Statt News,

an author of Can't Just Stop, an investigation of compulsions. Hi, Sharon. Welcome back to WNYC.

Thank you, Brian. Good to be with you. So Cuomo referred to a smart

plan. Would most epidemiologists and other public health officials caution that the smart plan right

now is just don't rush to reopen? Absolutely. So there's clear agreement on both the when and the

how. The when is not yet. but as, you know, we heard

...