*What if it's repressed here and there, and booms here and there, but just doesn't go away? What if it just stays?
*This is quite a gloomy article, but it also assumes that a miracle coronavirus vaccine shows up in 18 months. I can't see how that is any kind of given. We might just have to live with an endemic pandemic that's here to stay.
(...)
How long will it all last? These words – in their various forms – are thrown at politicians and civil servants at the government’s daily press briefings. The answers may inspire more or less confidence depending on to whom you listen. Johnson's initial register was optimistic hubris, telling the public on March 19 that in twelve weeks we could “turn the tide” on coronavirus and eventually “send it packing” altogether. Ten days later, the deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries struck a more sober tone, warning that social distancing measures might be in place for six months, and perhaps even longer.
READ NEXT
What is coronavirus and what happens now it is a pandemic?
What is coronavirus and what happens now it is a pandemic?
By MATT REYNOLDS AND SABRINA WEISS
Either of these scenarios – twelve weeks or six months – will likely only encompass the beginning of our fight against Covid-19. While there is a faint hope that transmission could fade away altogether during summer, it is more likely that the threat of this disease – its devastating impact on health and insidious undermining of our society – is here to stay until we have a vaccine. Things are unlikely to be normal again for a long, long time....
