In a new letter to Congress, bipartisan health experts who worked under the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations recommend that the US should invest $46.5 billion to try to ensure a safe reopening of its economy.

The letter contains four steps the experts say are necessary to safely open shuttered businesses, including a plan to offer $50 a day in aid — the same rate paid to those on a federal jury — to people who voluntarily self-isolate for 14 days after coming in contact with someone infected by the novel coronavirus.

Increased testing is necessary to determine whether "things are stable, getting better, or getting worse," Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, who signed the letter, told Business Insider.

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The coronavirus pandemic has brought together a group of health experts who worked under the Trump, Obama, and Bush administrations.

The bipartisan group wrote a letter to Congress on Monday contending that the US should spend $46.5 billion to try to ensure a safe reopening of its economy.

Among the names were Mike Leavitt, a secretary of health and human services under President George W. Bush; Andy Slavitt, who served as the director of Medicare and Medicaid under President Barack Obama; and Scott Gottlieb, President Donald Trump's former Food and Drug Administration chief. In total, 16 top health experts signed on to the letter to House and Senate leaders, which was first published by NPR.

The $46.5 billion plan consists of three major areas of recommended federal spending:

$12 billion to expand the contract-tracing workforce. The health experts said the number of contract-tracing workers in the US needed to expand by 180,000 until a vaccine was on the market.

$4.5 billion would be used to transform vacant hotels into self-isolation facilities for people unable to isolate in their homes. They estimated about 14% of people needing to self-isolate would require such facilities. They suggested the vacant facilities be used for 18 months to both "contain COVID-19" and "provide a much-needed stimulus for the hospitality industry."

$30 billion to support people who lose income while voluntarily self-isolating for 14 days. The experts estimated that 40% of people who come in contact with an infected person would need some sort of supplemental income to self-isolate. They recommend $50 a person each day, which is equivalent to the daily pay for someone serving on a federal jury.

'If you're not testing and people are getting sick out there, then by the time they show up to your hospital, you have a huge wave coming and it's too late'

Scott Gottlieb testifying during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on April 5, 2017. Zach Gibson/Getty Images

Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, the vice dean for public-health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who signed the letter, told Business Insider he wasn't sure what would happen when portions of the country began to reopen.

"It will depend in part on public-health tools to control the virus," he said. "In a place that has strong public-health tools, most people may be able to be back at work if there can be social distancing that works for them. If work is, I don't know, being in a dance troupe? That may be harder unless they can practice separated."

Increased testing efforts are key to relaxing social-distancing efforts, Sharfstein said, which US experts have said are crucial to battling future outbreaks or so-called second waves of the disease.

"If you're not testing and people are getting sick out there, then by the time they show up to your hospital, you have a huge wave coming and it's too late," he said. "That's what happened to us the first time. We need to be testing enough, and cross-community, so that you feel like you have a sense of whether things are stable, getting better, or getting worse."

The letter also called on Congress to "take steps to ensure the health of primary care practices," which it said should be instrumental in future COVID-19 testing efforts. It said Medicare should "establish a referral payment code for referring patients who test positive" for COVID-19 to the "proper contract tracing resources."

The bipartisan group is calling for another stimulus package

A healthcare worker testing people at a coronavirus drive-thru testing station run by the state health department in Denver on March 11. Jim Urquhart/Reuters

The authors of the letter said Congress should appropriate the funding in the next relief package and distribute it through block grants to states and territories two times a year.

"We believe the direct impact of this investment, along with an adequate testing and containment infrastructure that links in health care providers and businesses, will have a significant economic impact, allowing Americans to get back to work safely and quickly, create employment, stabilize our healthcare system, and stimulate the hospitality sector," the authors wrote.

Both chambers of Congress are expected to be back in session next week, on May 4, after an extended recess.

In March, Trump signed the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, which provided relief directly to most Americans in the form of checks distributed through the Internal Revenue Service. Last week, Trump signed a nearly $500 billion package, specifically meant to assist small businesses.

Lawmakers are expected to get to work on the next phase of their COVID-19 stimulus and relief efforts when they are back in session, though it's not entirely clear what could be included.