I have been asked many times for my opinion on how and when the UK lockdown will end.
The honest answer is "I don't know" but here are some thoughts.
The word "unprecedented" has been used a lot to describe this pandemic but for good reason. There simply has not been a disease outbreak on this scale in most peoples' lifetimes. We have nothing to look back on which we can extrapolate to the present. People are calling COVID-19 the Spanish Flu of this generation but we cannot really compare it to the Spanish flu of 1918-1919 which killed in the region of 50 million people. The two diseases are caused by different viruses which behave differently. In particular Spanish flu killed huge numbers of healthy young people, COVID-19 is more threatening to the medically vulnerable and elderly. 100 years ago there were no vaccines and anti-viral drugs and no intensive care units capable of supporting the critically ill.
The scale of the current lockdown is having serious psychological, sociological and economical effects. Whole countries are living a different life to their norm and clearly this is not sustainable in the long run. However some level of lockdown will have to continue to avoid hospitals becoming overwhelmed with cases.
Testing at the moment must be prioritised for frontline healthcare workers and hospital patients but ideally we need to achieve much higher levels of testing. Knowing how much of the population has been infected would help plan the response to the pandemic. With a population of over 60 million people in the UK it is impossible to quickly manufacture the quantity of tests needed to check every person. However, we could test proportions of the population in different areas of the UK and extrapolate those findings. Germany are currently doing just this.
The more data that becomes available, and is shared between countries, the quicker patterns emerge allowing planning decisions to be made. It is vital that each country is honest in their releasing of data and there is ongoing debate as to how reliable some countries' figures are.
Countries are watching and learning from each other. China has now lifted the lockdown in Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak (although still has lockdowns in other cities with ongoing cases). The Wuhan lockdown ran from 24 January to 8 April, 11 weeks in total. Italy went into lockdown on 12 March and Spain on 16 March and both countries have announced today (9 April) they are planning at least another 2 weeks of lockdown. It is too soon to know when either country will start to lift their them. This takes both countries to 6 and 5 weeks of full lockdown respectively. The UK went into full lockdown on March 23rd and may not have reached the peak number of infections yet. Italy and Spain appear to have reached their peaks on current figures and there are hopeful signs that their number of new cases each day are finally declining. Lockdown cannot be lifted at the peak of an outbreak, this is the start of the most critical time when health resources will be the most stretched. Only when the figures clearly show that the peak is over and cases numbers declining can governments look to lifting lockdown measures. There needs to be enough reserve in healthcare services to cope if cases surge again. In the meantime if either a vaccine or cure is found for COVID-19 then we may be able to return to normal sooner rather than later. Realistically a vaccine is probably 12 to 18 months away although new preparation methods could offer a shorter timeframe. (More on that in my post "The Search for a Vaccine").
When the UK lockdown is lifted I suspect it will be a gradual process, not an overnight return to "business as usual". As more data is emerging that shows school closures may have a minimal effect on transmission rates, and that most children and teenagers have a mild illness with COVID-19, it could be that the reopening of schools will be the first item on the agenda. Work places and businesses could then follow with venues such as cinemas and clubs last to reopen.
We may see a scenario where lockdown is eased but reimposed as and when a surge in new cases occurs. Social distancing may have to continue for much longer in public places although it is hard to know quite what that means in practice. Supermarkets keeping a tight control of numbers of customers shopping at any one time? Perhaps tables more widely spaced in restaurants? Public gatherings of more than 10 not allowed? Only time will tell.
In conclusion I can not say when the UK lockdown will be lifted and can only offer an opinion based on what is currently known about COVID-19 and the experience of other countries.
1) Based on the similarities between the disease trajectories in Italy and Spain with the UK it is highly likely our lockdown periods will be similar, a minimum of 5 to 6 weeks in full lockdown, possibly longer. That takes the UK to early May. 2) When lockdown is lifted it will be a gradual process and not an overnight reopening of the country, possibly with schools reopening first. 3) If and when there is a surge in new cases of COVID-19 lockdown may have to be re-implemented in order to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed. 4) The development of widespread population testing, a vaccine and/or a cure will play a major role in forward planning and alter the timescale considerably.
https://ourworldindatahttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-09/spain-italy-to-extend-lockdowns-amid-persistent-rise-in-cases.org/covid-testing https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(20)30095-X/fulltext
