Let's face it. This is not going to be 4 weeks.

[Dustballs]

How can it be?

4 weeks won't make a tiny small dent in this second wave. And even if it does - what happens when the 4 weeks is up?

We were locked down for months last time and Covid still came back with a vengeance. How is 4 weeks going to make any difference at all?

I know it worked, I am just answering the OP's post, 4 weeks won't be enough, and Victoria which went way harder on it, still needed 112 days.
Victoria's second wave lockdown was far more harsh than what BJ announced. The extras were schools closed, curfew, a 5km limit, 1 hour exercise top once a day

The point of lockdown isn’t to instantly eradicate covid!!!
It’s to slow down the rate of infections so that in a months time and the several weeks following the numbers will have dropped again, they will of course then start to rise again and another lockdown will probably be necessary at some point but hopefully numbers will drop enough so that people will be allowed to mix at Christmas.

@LeGrandBleu

I know it worked, I am just answering the OP's post, 4 weeks won't be enough, and Victoria which went way harder on it, still needed 112 days. Victoria's second wave lockdown was far more harsh than what BJ announced. The extras were schools closed, curfew, a 5km limit, 1 hour exercise top once a day

Worth it though.

This won't be over in four months from now. Even if we manage to start rolling out a vaccine soon, it will take a long time to get it to enough people.

We either continue to limp along like we've been doing for the last 9 months, or we take firm but effective action to contain.

Failure to contain means we just keep on dragging it out for months and months and months. Restrictions on and off, on and off, on and off.

This is our future...accept it

Professor Devi Sridhar, scientific expert. One of the advisers to the Scottish government explains it:

Two approaches: either keeping borders largely open like the UK, but adopting harsh domestic restrictions to try to combat community transmission; or having very tight border controls, like Taiwan and New Zealand, but few restrictions on everyday life.

And

Oh - to be an island in 2020.

And (my bold)

Control your virus, solve your public health problem and then you get your economic recovery. If you try and do both, we will just see cycles of lockdown and release.

I'd say effective containment measures are less harsh than the ongoing consequences of failure to contain.

It won't be.

So far I've been right on timing. Including saying i think we were likely to be in trouble by half term way back in the middle of August.

I don't put it past government doing a respite week for Christmas - and watching that turn into abject chaos.

I think they'll close schools in December, with the idea that they're normally doing lots of fun Christmassy things then anyway, so it'll be less disruptive on their education, and hope that if everyone's forced to stay at home they can get the spread down and reopen gradually in the new year.