Social Distancing till 2021

These postponements and "Closed for X months" assume a temporary halt in normal activity till, as President Trump stated today. "it blows through in 8 weeks". I believe that this is a false hope.

*IF* we are very lucky, social distancing combined with warmer weather will lead to a drop off in new Covid-19 cases in the USA. But the virus is now firmly embedded into our society. If we let up on social distancing, then cases will exponentially explode again. We will be stuck with social distancing until a vaccine is developed AND about half the US population is vaccinated. Late 2021 is an optimistic hope for when that could happen.

Alternatively, the Covid-19 pandemic continues exponential growth but at a slower rate due to warmer weather and social distancing. It will take time for 40% to 70% of the US population to become infected. As the % infected and recovered increases, growing herd immunity will slow the further expansion of the epidemic. When we have enough herd immunity - the virus will have burned through our population - then we can relax social distancing. But not before.

This seems unlikely to happen in the next 41 weeks. So, again, social distancing will need to continue through 2020.

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