How effective would a lockdown be, would it not just peak again later, please can someone explain.

[Zarara]

I’ve been reading a lot of the threads and I am really worried about the situation and how it’s unfolding. A lot of the threads on this board are suggesting we should close schools, go in to lockdown etc But I don’t understand how a lockdown would help in the long run. Say if everyone self isolates for 3 months wouldn’t it just come back when people start travelling again, go back to school etc and then the strain on the health system would be the same? I mean unless you closed all boarders to every country how do you get rid of the virus? or am I missing something. It seems to me that this won’t be over until there is a vaccine so lockdown would only help either temporarily or if it was enforced until a vaccine is ready which could still be more than a year away. I’m so worried about this but the information seems to be confusing.

I suspect it would. We’ll see when China re opens whether it actually killed it off. I actually think thr government conclusion that this is going to spread and the just need to flatten the rate of transmission rather than have it spike, it pretty sensible.

Then we need a vaccine ASAP. Which I assume the anti vaxxers will decline.

Here’s the U.K. swine flu graph from 2009. You can see the effect of the schools closing for summer, and then the second peak. In November there was a vaccine.

This is my feeling too - it doesn't take many cases of this thing to start an epidemic so you wouldn't need many still roaming around (or open borders) to see a second peak when you unlock

Interesting, I guess you could do phased returns but wonder if that would be sustainable long term.