The UK government has imposed yet another three-week lockdown lasting until at least May 8 in a bid to tackle the coronavirus outbreak. However, it is certain that even if the lockdown is lifted then, which in all likely it will not be, life will not go back to normal straight away.
In the UK, there are more than 120,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus, resulting in more than 16,000 deaths.
Although there is initial evidence which suggests the UK has passed the peak, the country, and the entire world, is still a long way off full recovery.
And with the Government offering little in the way of an exit strategy, one of the UK’s experts has shared an insight into how the end of the lockdown may turn out.
Beatrice Heuser, professor of international relations, University of Glasgow, said it is almost certain that the current lockdown will be the only lockdown, as the virus will come back to haunt us once restrictions have been lifted.
She also said that even when the lockdown has ended, it is likely that bars, pubs, restaurants and anywhere where mass gatherings are common will remain out of the question for the foreseeable future.
The ideal way to end lockdown, according to Prof Heuser, is to allow for regional breaks in such strict measures.
She told The Conversation: “As they are announcing the end of lockdown, and its substitution by extensive restrictive measures, governments are remaining silent about the highly likely need for one or more further lockdowns if these measures are not enough to prevent a renewed surge of infections.
“The measures that most European countries will continue to impose include the continued closure of restaurants, cafes and bars, no mass gatherings, no tourism, instead mass testing and wearing of masks, intrusions on civil liberties by tracking and isolating infected individuals.
“Governments have discarded the ideal option, from a health point of view, of continuing lockdown until a vaccine or other effective treatment is found.
“But they could still go for a stop-and-go option with scheduled future lockdowns alternating with ‘open’ periods in which the above restrictions nonetheless apply.
“The prospect of additional periodic lockdowns may seem very disagreeable.
“In reality, however, a planned, regionally and internationally coordinated scheduling of future lockdowns might be preferable to announcements of emergency lockdowns at a week’s notice or less – as happened when the British government implemented the lockdown.”
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