Really soon. We are a free people. It's in our DNA.

This won't last for "a couple months"

Most projections that you're seeing through major sources (ie. The Washington Post) are saying that we as a society need to stay hunkered down for 18 months. Through every lens (economic, human, social, etc.), that is INCREDIBLY unsustainable.

Every projection and warning and prediction that you're seeing is on the basis that we won't have a vaccine for this in a year and a half. Almost all of them don't account for the fact that we're rapidly figuring out treatments with each passing day.

Will things be normal again soon? Doubtful. But will we start to see things get better soon? It looks like it.

We all need to go back to work and our kids need to go back to school WAY before 18 months or 2 years. I don't see how we sustain the current state for more than a month and even that is going to be extremely painful.

Just read an article that said over 1/3 of the US population (NY, Illinois, California, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Nevada) has some kind of order to shelter in place currently in effect. Over ONE THIRD OF AMERICA has these kinds of restrictions. There's two ways to look at this:

1.) This cannot be sustained. Period.

2.) How do you evaluate these measures? The New York Times is grouping potential outcomes into "No Control Measures," "Some Control Measures," and "Severe Control Measures." What constitutes each one? Is a third of America being put on hold "severe" enough? Or is this just barely more than "some"?

The worst part of these projections and predictions is their inherently vague nature. Just leads to more panic instead of actually putting a point across.

If these treatment protocols prove successful and get people out of the hospital faster, I would push for much sooner than that. The whole point of this was to ease the load on the emergency system and hospitals. Going to need to get test out faster and get results faster. Starting people on the medications the same day they get tested will keep them out of the hospital and we can all go about our daily lives.

A key measure that things are working would be a sustained reduction in new confirmed cases each day.

6-8 weeks

It's going to be different for everyone for a prolonged period of time. Normal will be redefined. Absolute return to normal is going to vary for you based on where you live, what you do as an occupation, and what you and your fellow community members suffered as a result of not living normally.

As a dentist, I'm being told to expect not practicing normally until at least July or August. However, by that time it won't be normal at all because of how long our business was at an absolute standstill. There may be mass bankruptcy filings by people in my profession. And that's just the primary worker in this profession.

There many other related fields. One of my best friends works for a dental specific company. This lockdown will reverberate throughout the supply chain of each industry / field.

This used to be a funny statement for me but perhaps it's more poignant under the circumstances "Normal is overrated"

Smoke 'em if you got 'em folks.

Inca said:

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We all need to go back to work and our kids need to go back to school WAY before 18 months or 2 years. I don't see how we sustain the current state for more than a month and even that is going to be extremely painful.

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With the kids I feel like I'll be lucky to survive 18 days of this.

There is the shorter term, and then longer term I have wondered what 'new normal' changes will occur that 10-20 years from now we will look back and say this is the way it is because of COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Similar to how Sept. 11 forever changed some things in how we were processed through airports and flew.

For example, maybe all restaurants by law required to have a hand sanitizer dispenser at every table, certain 'social distancing' behaviors like companies even more common relying on virtual meetings and work at home, drive-in-cinemas more popular than normal cinemas, changes in healthcare system and insurance, and so forth.

I am pretty convinced things will never get back to the exact same old 'normal'.

Just a reminder that the "we are free people, we'll just go about our business while the rest of you sit indoors" is EXACTLY the stupid mentality that will drag this out longer and contribute to virus spreading.

We all need 2-3 weeks isolation AT THE SAME TIME. The problem is different communities are shutting down at different times, and will no doubt reopen at different, staggered times. This would be fine for individual communities that were isolated from the rest of the world, but people travel. A "fire" could be extinguished within a community, but only then be started again once somebody new travels into the community once it is reopened or someone travels to an infected place and returns. Then we are back to the beginning of this process.

That is why I wish the whole country would have been shut down last weekend of even earlier. We would already been a week into this flattening the curve, with only a week or two to go before we could begin to return to our normal lives. Instead because of the prolonged, disjointed response that allowed spreading to continue, we are only in the beginning of our needed isolation.

I'm really concerned about the travel issue once we begin to come out of this. Can you restrict people from traveling? You don't want a community that was once all clear to go back to once again fighting the virus. Would you be okay to returning to life but only within your city limits? Say for two weeks before limits can be opened again? I feel like that is the answer in how we shorten this but there is no way we can control that I'm afraid. Also a gradual recovery were larger groups are permitted slowly: first 50, then a few days later 100, then a week later 1000 and so on before we can fill large stadiums or events again. Another thing that should happen but probably won't. I'm not sure how big cities like New York, which is currently the epicenter and will be on a different timeline than everyone else, how you can prohibit traveling there or prevent their residents from traveling to you. That will be something we will have to consider.

In the meantime, please just do your part by respecting the orders and staying inside aside from buying essentials because that is how this ends faster. Short term pain for a quicker recovery. If you don't respect that, YOU will be the reason this continues into the summer.

Long term is not sustainable. Sorry. Too many businesses will go bankrupt and people will riot. Government better get this figured out quickly. The virus will be a blip compared to a desperate population.

My thoughts on when we should normalize

The minute after we:

• have treatment that reduces hospitalizations and the need for critical care, even just some
  
  
• increase our critical capacity, which I think we have already done with repurposing
  
  
• Catch up on PPE for clinics and hospitals
  
  

Once we achieve that, which should be very soon, only restrict high risk individuals.

EwingBarnes said:

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Government better get this figured out quickly.

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No, it's time for the community to figure "it" out. And "it" is to stay home as much as possible, good hygiene, avoid groups, and limit time in enclosed public spaces. It will help to slow the spread and the loss of life.

If we can do that then the medical professionals and government can focus on the next tasks which are to evaluate medical therapies to get ahead of the virus.

If we don't do that then the medical community will have to focus on only stopping death and the government will have to focus on more extreme lockdown measures.

Just seems odd that we're doing all this to our economy, businesses, and livelihood over 204 deaths nationally. I understand the 2-3 week lockdown but to even discuss months, much less 18 months, is absolutely insane. I'll get roasted but this is a discussion forum and those are my thoughts. Please don't respond with "you don't know the numbers" or "hospital beds" or "ventilators".

Many more deaths will actually occur because of the economic collapse than would have actually happened due to the virus is my prediction.

This is simply not sustainable for more than a month.

I'm headed out this morning to get the last of what I need to take care of my horses for a month.

I'm on mandatory WFH for 2 weeks starting Monday. Anticipating that might get extended.

What a mess with no great solution.

If people would follow the stay in and stay at home rules in three weeks new cases should drastically decline. But people are not following those rules.

1/2 Man 1/2 Amazing said:

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Just seems odd that we're doing all this to our economy, businesses, and livelihood over 204 deaths nationally. I understand the 2-3 week lockdown but to even discuss months, much less 18 months, is absolutely insane. I'll get roasted but this is a discussion forum and those are my thoughts. Please don't respond with "you don't know the numbers" or "hospital beds" or "ventilators".

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it's to save the lives of potentially millions if we did nothing, which I know you don't accept is a real risk, but the people we elected into power and their advisors think is a real risk.

I think we can just erase April as being "normal".

If isolation helps, the therapeutics work, and the theory warm weather / humidity proves to be true May 1 would be a good barometer.