[IndyRed128i]

When does everyone think we will be at least somewhat back to normal from COVID. I will classify normal as:

*Regular Travel resuming
*Restaurants/Bars/Gyms/Barbershops, etc open again
*Lockdowns lifted
*People back at work(I suspect a lot of companies will keep a work at home model for many reasons, but thats another topic)

We will not go back fully to the old normal ever, but was curious others take on when we will be out of the nightmare.

[fullstack]

I think either we develop a vaccine (6 months) or we all catch it and develop herd immunity (3 months) or the virus mutates itself out of being harmful (? months).

[Turkish Pickle]

I don't think we will "never go fully back to the old normal", but I'm thinking at least 6 months until we can go back to the more than 5 people in Walmart and no contact delivery stuff

[BMW F22]

https://apple.news/Azt7ahth2SaiM48oQgrgOnA

That article seems to suggest that it will be a while before we get back to normal.

[IndyRed128i]

Originally Posted by BMW F22

https://apple.news/Azt7ahth2SaiM48oQgrgOnA

That article seems to suggest that it will be a while before we get back to normal.

To be honest it could take things a while.

I guess the question with that is, how long are we willing to keep the "plug pulled" on life. There are lots of both employees and employers who are suffering because of this. Despite people opinion, we can't keep life shutdown long term, not to mention, everyone is stir crazy after a few weeks, imagine how people will be after a few months.

At the end of the day, we need to balance economic effects with health effects.

[jgoens]

Summer 2021.

[Humdizzle]

i think we will have a soft opening for small businesses and restaurants etc after we peak and it dies back down to a few hundred deaths a day. We also have to wait until hospitals stop being over run. This will be tough as hospitals were already functioning at the brink before this started.

But hospitals will hopefully be better equipped and less overrun at that point. We will probably open up areas of the midwest and rockies first that have pretty much no cases, then move up to larger/denser cities while still limiting domestic travel.

cases go up, quarantine measures enforced in the hot spot
cases go down, quarantine measures loosened up

Maybe they can limit travel to 'regions' within the country? Like if you're in LA you can't go to NY.

I dont think we can wait until cases go to zero before opening the country up. There will be a compromise of X amount of deaths per day being acceptable for the economy to function.

If a vaccine comes around this all goes out the window and the economy will boom. Whatever company makes that will become HUGE. But i have my doubts about a vaccine coming around any time soon if ever.

[Gritty]

What a shame, it didn't need to get this bad if earlier proactive measures were put in place. China (government) needs to be held accountable for their lack of transparency that caused a pandemic. With that said most countries were vastly under prepared so lots of lessons to learn.

Global companies need to reevaluate their exposure to China in the future. It can't go back to business as usual without oversight and transparency.

[yco]

affects of paranoia etc. not this year for sure.. 2021, if virus wont evolve to something more smarter..

[Denis S]

First of all, I will have a grand party with my friends at home and get drunk hard! ))

[Jordan's World]

Originally Posted by Gritty

What a shame, it didn't need to get this bad if earlier proactive measures were put in place. China (government) needs to be held accountable for their lack of transparency that caused a pandemic. With that said most countries were vastly under prepared so lots of lessons to learn.

Global companies need to reevaluate their exposure to China in the future. It can't go back to business as usual without oversight and transparency.

Agreed! China absolutely needs to be held accountable for any deception throughout this pandemic. However, the delayed U.S response boggles my mind. The viral epidemiology from MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV showcasing the prevalence of corona viruses, in combination with the early reports of human to human transmission taking place in Wuhan, should have been more than enough to take proactive measure in the U.S mid-January.

The attempt to preserve the economy by the trump administration in the earlier stages has clearly backfired.

Epidemiologists knew how bad this could be, but no immediate action was taken.

I don’t think we will see things return to normal until August.

[EricVR4]

Read an article yesterday about the FDA approving a blood test to see if people have had the virus and developed an immunity to it. Assuming that's a timely thing that can happen, that can give people with the immunity the ability to go back to normal day life with "immunity wristbands" and get the economy going a little again.

That would help a lot I would think. I'm not a virologist or in any way knowledgeable of the medical field, but it also seems like that could potentially allow the virus to mutate and then start an infection all over again....maybe?

Either way, I think life as we used to know it is gone. I'm sure our new reality won't be wildly different from how it used to be but I imagine some changes will be made. I would guess a minimum of 6 months to a year before everything is "normal" again though.

[Chihuahua]

Originally Posted by gritty

what a shame, it didn't need to get this bad if earlier proactive measures were put in place. china (government) needs to be held accountable for their lack of transparency that caused a pandemic.

+10000000000000000000000000000000000000000

[Rmtt]

Originally Posted by EricVR4

Read an article yesterday about the FDA approving a blood test to see if people have had the virus and developed an immunity to it. Assuming that's a timely thing that can happen, that can give people with the immunity the ability to go back to normal day life with "immunity wristbands" and get the economy going a little again.

That would help a lot I would think. I'm not a virologist or in any way knowledgeable of the medical field, but it also seems like that could potentially allow the virus to mutate and then start an infection all over again....maybe?

Either way, I think life as we used to know it is gone. I'm sure our new reality won't be wildly different from how it used to be but I imagine some changes will be made. I would guess a minimum of 6 months to a year before everything is "normal" again though.

Yeah...I seen something about that a few days ago being considered in Germany and possibly the UK. They were stating that they wish the US would adopt something similar.

Hopefully something comes out of it.

[CTinline-six]

I'm guessing things won't be "normal" for quite a while. In a few months if cases decline I could see some agencies and places of business opening up even if they have partial hours. I could see my company having me go back to meeting with school administrators/boards of Ed but probably in large rooms and I doubt schools will open back up. Some food franchises that are currently closed might have drive-thru services only with minimal employees.

The economic impact will be quite large unfortunately. Even if everyone sick today healed instantly and there were no more cases, the damage has been done.

My hope is after all of this we can invest more money into healthcare and science. I can't imagine being someone on the front lines right now. The issue with a scenario like this is that it's not a short event like a hurricane, where the damage is done and you just have to clean up the mess. Even after the number of cases are said to have peaked, we can't let people back out in large groups, because the risk of infection still exists and could cause the numbers to continue to rise.

[Murf993]

I think that until a vaccine is developed which experts say takes 12-18 months generally. Hopefully that clock started ticking in December 2019 when this thing was first discovered in China. Until that time, the challenge is an overburdening of the healthcare system and that's what's going to keep the social distancing in the forefront. If the "curve gets flattened" there is still the risk of secondary outbreaks so I suspect this is going to be the new normal for quite some time.

What the world looks like on the other side is tough to tell, it will eventually go back to what it was. It always has, after WWI & WWII things eventually returned to normal, after the great depression and the Spainsh Flu as well.

[cotmfk]

Originally Posted by Gritty

What a shame, it didn't need to get this bad if earlier proactive measures were put in place. China (government) needs to be held accountable for their lack of transparency that caused a pandemic. With that said most countries were vastly under prepared so lots of lessons to learn.

Global companies need to reevaluate their exposure to China in the future. It can't go back to business as usual without oversight and transparency.

Totally agree! Take all the stimulus bills and send China the bill.

[VisualEcho]

This is literally a bad question with an answer that can't be known.

It just depends, and it'll probably be area specific (a mistake, but it'll happen).

[Run Silent]

I am going with 6/1/2020.

Why?

Because much longer than that and the economic devastation will outweigh the loss of life. There is a line, and several indicators show that date to be about where the line resides.

At that point - far more people will die or have their lives destroyed, such as permanent homelessness, drug addiction, suicide, malnourishment, starvation, and such from the economic destruction than the virus itself.

I believe some indicators show a loss of life from the shutdown of the economy to exceed 1MM if we keep it shutdown longer than that.

[DETRoadster]

Originally Posted by Gritty

What a shame, it didn't need to get this bad if earlier proactive measures were put in place. China (government) needs to be held accountable for their lack of transparency that caused a pandemic. With that said most countries were vastly under prepared so lots of lessons to learn.

Global companies need to reevaluate their exposure to China in the future. It can't go back to business as usual without oversight and transparency.

Global companies are about to get snapped up at fire-sale prices by China.

[Maynard]

All the 'lets balance ecomomic vs. health effects' or 'the shutdown will cause more problems than the virus' is really quite naïve. You are drinking the same Orange Julius denial kool aid that got us this far behind the curve.

Most of this thinking is probably coming from those who live in states that have not yet really heard the opening shots of this, so of course it looks tiresome and a bit unnecessary. In about a week NYC is going to start shipping the extra cases upstate. Another week or two and upstate will be swamped, and they start outsourcing to other states. By then, it will be harder to find open beds. Probably around that time, larger cities across the US will be nearing their own capacity limits; healthcare workers will also be showing infections and dying in larger numbers, so available care is shrinking. Once hospital capacity is reached, every case that would go on a vent becomes a fatality, bodies pile up, more providers go down. Most importantly, nobody has any functioning health care. All those preventable deaths from heart attacks, strokes, traffic accidents, etc. become casualties.

Now in a lot of states (like Texas) I hear they got real good at "streamlining" health care by consolidating high cost care like vent beds into just a few central hospitals and closing those unprofitable small town hospitals. So you want to consider that the current crisis is occurring in the area of the US with the best and largest health care systems. Your buffer in the home town is probably quite a bit thinner. To me this looks like a lot bigger hit on the economy than the shutdown.

And that "balance economic effects with health effects" bit is kind of misleading. It really means "balance MY economic effects against YOUR health effects" - the current cost of life saving medical care shows that when it is the life of us or our loved ones, the sky is the limit for what it is worth. We have to face it - we let the house catch fire, now we need to put it out, not worry about whether the firemen break the windows or stain the carpets.

[MPOWER5266]

I'm just worried the over use of hand sanitizers, sterilizing every hard surface, and people avoiding germs and contact is going to have a negative impact on immune systems. I never use hand sanitizer, I just wash my hands when they are dirty and I haven't had a flu in 20 years. I'm not a doctor(obviously) but I just feel like this could have a negative effect in the long run.