Article suggesting lockdowns until vaccine found

[Playmistyforme66]

It was in the guardian

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/lockdowns-cant-end-until-covid-19-vaccine-found-study-says

Article seems to suggest lockdown type conditions and social distancing to be ongoing until a vaccine is found.

I don't think I can bear it, was hoping things would be normal by this weekend or next.

They're recruiting for September 2020
Of course they are. If they didn't, they would be looking at a year of no intake. It doesn't mean they expect to have masses of freshers turning up in September regardless. They're recruiting/hoping for the best/expecting the worst/trying to find creative ways of managing this/looking at potential delays to semesters etc. In fact, they are working in the dark. Pretty much like many other sectors I imagine.

I really can’t see the overseas students coming to uk universities in sept so don’t think that’s an issue. I think we will end up going down the herd immunity route as lockdown is not sustainable. Hopefully with a better prepared nhs, more resources, etc by then. And quite possibly in a staggered way of coming out of lockdown to help slow the resulting surge.

@BaileysforBreakfast I agree with you about what are right steps to take, and why - but I've seen the communications sent over the past two days to e.g. Reading University's students from its V-C's office. Bums-on-seat exams planned for August / September.

A lot of lecturers feel like they've been kept in the dark.

I do think a general announcement would be helpful about the Government's intentions re universities, or individual V-Cs will keep behaving like this.

You can't lift the lockdown in the next few weeks well just see another peak in cases. I see us being in lockdown another month or two, then easising restrictions but still with social distancing and no social gatherings. This will have to continue until we have either all had it or a vaccine is developed.

With the 1918 flu, it carried on for 2 years until immunity was reached and possibly the virus also mutated. 50million deaths latter though and our world population is a lot bigger now.

I think the clues are lockdowns. Not living like this till a vaccine is found

The only stable way to manage this is through suppression,

to try and control it at a level to get herd immunity without crashing the NHS is incredibly unstable and would take a lot longer than getting a vaccine so why waste time and lives and money following a path that will be rendered pointless in the medium term ?

You want people to go about normal life as much as possible yet you need to be prepared to squash it wherever it rears

If , once we are back in control , you follow a quarentine, testing and tracing approach with mini lockdowns where you might have a problem then you stand a chance

It not about this lockdown continuing for ever. And the more you can do the testing and tracing and fast response the shorter and more geographically confined the subsequent lockdowns can be. Wuhan needed the longest lockdown in China because it had the biggest number of cases before lockdown

This is interesting too, also in today's Guardian

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/the-cluster-effect-how-social-gatherings-were-rocket-fuel-for-coronavirus