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Covid-19: the right way to leave lockdown
- Governments are expected to adopt a cautious, trial-and-error approach to loosening measures, requiring readiness to reinstate restrictions if new infections emerge, with no certainty regarding the correct formula for reopening.
- There is an argument for reopening schools soon to mitigate the broad negative impact on children and parents, despite the risk of disease resurgence from premature decisions.
- Future reliance on social distancing may decrease if countries implement essential contact tracing strategies, potentially accelerated by technology and a new Apple-Google protocol.
- Governments face immediate investment requirements for contact tracing; for example, the US would need to hire 100,000 additional tracers at an estimated cost of $3.6 billion to reduce the need for broad lockdowns.
- Without massive scale in testing, reagents, and materials, further lockdowns remain inevitable, as poorer testing and tracing capabilities directly correlate to more general and harmful lockdowns.
- To mitigate consequences if infection rates rise, governments must invest now in protecting medics, ventilators, and ICU beds.
- Research in Oxford aims to have one million vaccine doses available by September, while broader vaccine delivery timelines are estimated to exceed one year.
- Billions of dollars must be invested now in building manufacturing plants before an effective vaccine is identified to prevent future capacity shortages.
- Vaccine nationalism poses a significant risk where countries prioritize their own citizens, potentially leaving vulnerable populations and key workers without protection unless manufacturing is located globally.
- A return to everyday life is predicted to be "anything but business as usual," requiring governments to be nimble, versatile, and possess vast reserves of patience over the coming year or more.