How long are you expecting this to go on for?

[DennisReynoldsDuster]

Just curious. Friends seem to think it will all be fine again by May, I kind of feel like we will be lucky if we are “back to normal” by Christmas.

And by “this” I mean businesses shut and social distancing etc

We had army helicopters hovering over our city a few weeks before news of this broke as well.

It's hard not to conclude from reading this that there are people who enjoy dragging others down. I am going to repeat what I said earlier. We already have a mental health crisis in the world. People are looking at weeks (and according to the gleeful, look at me and How tough I am facing up to hard truth merchants) months maybe years without doing anything socially enjoyable. When did it become illegal to be sad at not being able to go out except for basic needs? When was being down at the whole situation outlawed? When did expressing these feelings become equated with a slight on "frontline workers" or morally equivalent to being poppyless on TV in November or being an MP making a speech and not inserting the coda "the best in the world" after any speech beginning with "our armed forces".
It seems this crisis is turning everyone in little James O'Brien's, walking around sizing up, judging and patronising others in order to inflate their own self-perception.

nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/low-coronavirus-mutations-mean-hope-for-a-single-vaccine.html

THis is widely reported that it looks like we could get a vaccine that works sometime in the next 12-18 months so we just have to manage the outbreak until then

@Sostenueto
each animal on Earth has natural immunity to certain viruses that are in their natural food chain

blinks

Do you have any sources to back this up, because it sounds like bollocks?

I don't believe we will develop a herd immunity to it. It is a foreign virus that has crossed over to an alien species.

Do you have any idea how the immune system works? The human race would have died out a long time ago if your beliefs were correct.

Surely bird flu goes against that given that chickens carry it and have been in our food chain for ages. And swine flu?

ordree totally agree. And for people who've already experienced a lot of trauma in their lives, its awful.

I think for those of us with considerable pre-existing conditions (in my case asthma) this will last around 3 years.

Two years for a vaccine, then a year for the vaccine to be administered widely enough.

For young people in perfect health, the situation will be more flexible: they will be able to return to a slightly more normal life sooner.

My family are being really, really sensible and thoughtful about this, but once schools start back it will change. I think society will move on and not truly consider those with relevant pre-existing conditions.

This has already been instigated by the way deaths are announced in this country: "with pre-exisiting conditions". I do feel they are framing it so people think, oh well, they were half dead anyway, or their lives were somehow less valuable.

We are all in it together at the moment, but this will gradually change.

Please don't criticise me for being pessimistic; I am being realistic, trying to live day by day despite being a future orientated person by nature.

Please don't criticise me for being pessimistic; I am being realistic

I’m afraid you can’t be both, pessimistic and realistic. Yes you’re being pessimistic, it is highly unlikely you’re being realistic, for all our sakes I hope you are not.

I've been wondering if they might perhaps start to phase children back into school during the summer holidays. 6 months without an education just seems unreal!

Interesting thread to revisit nine months down the line. Some fairly accurate predictions in hindsight!

We might be getting a degree of normality back by this time next year. I think we just have to dig deep for every last shred of fortitude we can muster and make the best if it. Life will not be like this forever.

Oops, didn't notice the date.

It worried me at the start the 12-18 months til I saw the date.

I said 12-18 months back then I have noticed (with a vaccine needed) and I still think that.

12 months to get through the worst worst of it (so end March) and another 6 months to work through the rest

Yes looking back it seems absurd now how many thought it would all be over by Easter. Bit like when WW2 was expected to be over by Christmas in 1939.

I think another year and will start to get back to living.

Turns out you can be pessimistic and realistic.

Yes looking back it seems absurd now how many thought it would all be over by Easter.

Those were the days of: "the virus doesn't like heat/sun/Vitamin-D/will mutate into a very mild"...

Interesting thread to look back isn't it...or may interesting in'nt the right word.

I think it’s interesting. Far fewer have died than I expected so we’re well ahead of my pessimistic mental preparations.

According to the vaccine calculator my vaccine will be in June and still another 22 million more people to be done after me.

Interesting thread to revisit. I’d say April/May 2022 for full normality.