Pandemic – What's gonna happen next?

Question

I'm curious on what's your outlook for the coronavirus pandemic.From the information I've been following recently a vaccine is likely coming out only next year, until then it seems to me that there are only two ways for controlling the spreading of the virus:1) Social isolation / quarantine, like many (most?) of us are going through right now2) Mass infection followed by mass recovery / immunization of a relevant part of the populationAs much as the first approach saves more lives, it's hard for me to see how it'd bring us back to business as usual any time sooner than when the covid-19 vaccine comes out.The second approach would only be viable, without putting too much pressure to the healthcare system, if it were possible to expose only low risk groups first, in a controlled manner, maintaining a degree of social isolation with high risk groups until the vaccine is available.I guess my question becomes: How are people expecting things to start looking normal by mid-year while the vaccine is still so far ahead? Do you believe the reduction of infected cases in conjunction with relaxed social isolation and hygiene measures are sustainable for "re-opening the economy"?

samizdis · Accepted Answer

Much as this may seem like sitting on the fence, I would suggest that even with the considerable data we have collated so far, we do not know enough to predict outcome or outlook. For instance, a BMJ article was posted earlier [1] which, if you overlook its many valid caveats, suggested that Covid-19 might well be far more widespread than generally imagined. Until we know the answer to just that one question, it seems that speculation about outcome is idle or fanciful.[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22770263

Hackbraten · Answer

The world needs to quickly reduce infection rates to a low enough level so that infected cases can be quarantined and traced individually again. Then slowly re-open things for the non-infected.