On the night of April 2, as the hands of time approached 10 p.m., Tommy Ahlquist got on the phone with the lieutenant governor of Utah to talk coronavirus.

The number of COVID-19 cases nationwide had surpassed a quarter-million. The number of new unemployment claims had just surpassed 6.6 million. That very day, the number of cases in Idaho – 894 – shot past Oregon’s.

Ahlquist, a former emergency room doctor and gubernatorial candidate who is CEO of the Ball Ventures Ahlquist development firm, knew what was needed: testing. He didn’t want to wait around for the government, and he knew the economy couldn’t be responsibly opened without much more information.

Utah’s Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox told Ahlquist about a private, business-led effort to expand testing in the Beehive State, called Test Utah. The next morning, Ahlquist began calling business leaders in Idaho.

“Everyone jumped right in,” Ahlquist said Tuesday. “We immediately had 28 CEOs on board.”

By the following night, Ahlquist had rallied many key leaders in the Idaho business community to support an effort that would become Crush the Curve Idaho – an entirely private, roughly half-million-dollar effort, now supported by almost 50 CEOs, that has tested thousands of Idahoans for coronavirus and begun testing for the antibodies to the disease.

Working in conjunction with a lab at the University of Washington, among others, the effort has now provided enough information that Idaho could move sooner than planned, if it’s cautious, to reopen the economy, Ahlquist says.

Gov. Brad Little has remained more cautious, noting Idaho is not ready to conduct widespread testing of people who aren’t symptomatic, that the state is still targeting a phased reopening to begin May 1.

Ahlquist said the Crush the Curve program has the capacity to continue into the foreseeable future, providing testing response that will be crucial when – not if, Ahlquist says – a disease outbreak occurs. When that happens, rapid testing will drive the ability to identify the infected, trace contacts and target quarantines more narrowly.

“Testing is critical,” Alquist said. “Testing will be the foundational piece of how we get through this.”

Whether private companies should be forced into this position is another question entirely. An effective national response was called for and never materialized, and the failure to provide sufficient testing and contact tracing is high on the list of key failures.

What’s emerged has been a crazy quilt of approaches, state by state. A scramble for gear and resources has played out unevenly and without consistency or wisdom. State testing efforts in Idaho have been disorganized and fallen far short of the need, according to an investigation published by the Idaho Statesman.

Meanwhile, impatience and economic anxiety – especially in rural, conservative parts of the country where cases are mostly low – is driving rash political decisions and fueling the idea we can carve up the virus response by region.

Without testing and good data, though, a regional approach to a pandemic makes as much sense as a smoking section in a restaurant.

Ahlquist has occupied a kind of middle ground on the virus. He supported a more aggressive response earlier in the curve. Unlike many who are pushing to reopen more quickly, he has not minimized the risks of the virus, tried to poke holes in the science or attacked politicians or public health officials.

Some of his best friends are ER docs in the Treasure Valley and Blaine County, which has been the state’s hot spot for the virus – he’s heard about the awful effects of the illness.

“I thought it took us too long to shut down and do social distancing,” he said. “I was a big stay-at-home guy. Now that we have testing, I am 100% the other way.”

As it began its efforts in early April, Crush the Curve had to reach out to labs to reserve space for testing and explore the supply chain to see where equipment and resources were available. It heard back from UW officials within 20 minutes of emailing them and asking to arrange testing of collection kits, Ahlquist said.

They initially encountered the same problem that states, hospitals and everyone else had: actually finding the basic collection kits comprised of the swab to take a sample and plastic tube to get it to the lab.

“You couldn’t find them anywhere,” he said.

But they persisted, and kits have become more accessible, though most experts say we still fall far short of the numbers needed nationwide.

Now, “we literally have tens of thousands of these kits available and ready to go in Idaho,” he said.

Crush the Curve has been conducting testing in the Treasure Valley and Blaine County, and has begun testing programs in Idaho Falls, Pocatello and Twin Falls. He said they’re working to offer testing in Kootenai County. The tests are usually billed to insurance, but the nonprofit will pay for those who can’t.

And they’ve begun doing antibody testing, which shows whether someone has had the disease earlier. This is important to individuals – and may eventually tell us something about whether having the disease makes someone immune to it – but it’s most important right now for evaluating the prevalence of the disease in the population.

Ahlquist said the program’s testing in the Treasure Valley has found 1.7% of those tested have had the disease; that doesn’t represent a perfect statewide number, given that most of those who seek testing were symptomatic at some point, and we know large percentages of people who have the virus do not show symptoms. (State testing has shown a positive rate of 9%, and some in Idaho are still calling for more thorough testing before any reopening. This illustrates one problem with limited testing: It doesn’t tell us the overall prevalence, because it’s focused only on the most obviously sick.)

The Crush the Curve Idaho numbers show a very small prevalence overall, and Ahlquist says it’s enough to feel good about carefully returning to business. For now. Crush the Curve Idaho plans to keep testing, and be on the job going forward as the economy opens – continuing to use tests to gather information and make informed, responsible decisions when the virus pops up.

“We still need to be very cautious, because it’s going to come back,” he said. “We have very little disease right now. But what we need to prepare for are the outbreaks.”