DOVER – Widespread testing, along with a decline in the number of new coronavirus cases, will be needed for Delaware’s economy to gradually reopen.

Delaware Gov. John Carney said Tuesday that the state is following the guidance of the White House task force document “Opening Up America Again.”

That guidance has three phases, along with gating criteria to meet before beginning each phase.

The first check box is a decline in cases.

Delaware’s number of new cases, by day, had been dropping. However, there is some flaws in the timeliness of test returns that has to be considered.

“You can see on this bar chart that we are on a downward decline,” said the governor during his Tuesday press briefing.

The chart showed 248 cases on Friday, 215 on Saturday, 207 on Sunday and 186 on Monday.

The Delaware Division of Public Health reported 269 new cases for Tuesday. How the state will apply the case numbers in a trend is problematic because of the way results are reported.

“To get to the starting line, you need 14 days of declining cases,” said Gov. Carney. “We do have to factor in the fact that the test results we get back kind of aren’t even and consistent. So we might have to correct for that in our day-to-day analysis.”

Test results have taken anywhere from a few days to two weeks to come back, he said. The exception is that the state lab results arrive in 24 hours.

Another important part of the criteria is hospital capacity, and so far Delaware’s hospitals have been able to handle the demands of the coronavirus.

Additionally, Delaware will need widespread testing that allows public health to have a “rigorous contact tracking system,” the governor said.