Well there is no doubt, people everywhere formed 2 parties; either in the favor of lockdowns or against them. I need to share some thoughts around that.
I’ve been reading & news since a while now and I think people need to be realistic when it comes to lifting lockdowns! I still hear from people they are waiting the moment the government lifts the lockdown, even others took it further & called for protests with their kids to end the lockdown! It blows my mind how people are not aware of any scientific or medical facts. It’s like the government’s decision is the magical word that would set us all free and kill the virus!! Being hopeful, being optimistic has to be accompanied by being realistic. Being insanely, unrealistically optimistic is exactly like crossing a highway hoping no car would hit you!
I guess the saying “People will always fear what they don’t know” surprisingly doesn’t apply here!
So in my opinion (still an opinion) nothing will go back to normal in the near future, at least for few months in the best case scinario. Without a vaccine nothing should. At the moment, the earliest vaccine testing seems to start in a couple of months before it might be available end of 2020 or beginning 2021. If everything goes fine it would take few more months to make it available globally.
The global economy was hit really hard that a total lockdown till then would be catastrophic. The only way out is to ease the lockdown in steps while introducing new measures like mandatory face masks (i.e. currently in China). And this would mean allowing only essential activities to keep the business running and keep people healthy either physically or mentally.
I believe social distancing will remain for long time. Countries are trying to build a high stock of masks now to be able to make wearing them mandatory. Traveling will not go back to normal before at least 1 year. A lot of countries will keep their borders closed for “non-essential” travel. Remember that traveling was one of the main factors that added complixty to the situation. And because right now every government is acting individually to contain the virus internally, it would be really hard for them to trust how other governments handled the crisis. They won’t allow compromising their own health system after months of hard work. And it won’t be realistic to ask everyone visiting from a foreign land to self-quarantine for 14 days!
Additionally, people would be asked to go easy on dangerous activities not to overload hospitals with cases. Big conferences or concerts might be put on hold for some time. Spectator-less matches, and many other measures might come in force.
I believe any government which would lift the lockdown entirely just like flipping a switch would be greedy enough to restore parts of the economy while throwing some people to death. Not to mention the herd immunity card which didn’t work out well for a lot of countries and they made a quick U-turn.
So bottom line, it might be hard to accept the fact that things would take longer to go back to normal but at the same time being positive in those unusual circumstances is very important. If you think you are not part of the risk group, someone belongs to you is. Someone belongs to a friend might be.
So be realistic, be responsible, be positive .. & be safe.