Lifting lockdown is not an event it’s a process

Lockdown will take long to lift.

Unlike the imposition of lockdown, lifting lockdown is not an event, it’s a process. The process will take months and will need to be phased based on industry, activity or region. It’s a calculation of riskiness of mass infection , density of population , criticality of activity etc. Sports and theatres are likely to be closed for a while together with elderly Centre’s. Surface Mining, exports and manufacturing are easier to lift. Remote service work is easier to control than face to face work. Hence retail being on hold for longer other than essential services. Expect a job rotation system with half staff in office and half at home. This lowers risk for travel and in office infections. Elevators will be a big no no too. Just use the stairs. On balance we are likely to see stop start efforts and localized quarantines for a very long time. At least until we have a proven and widely available vaccine. Remember there are a limited number of vaccine production sites globally. (South Africa has one of the few in the world in a PPP). And they mainly produce vaccines for children or the elderly annually. That’s about 3 -5 percent of the population. Now you will need to give it to everyone simultaneously. Scaling up of capacity twenty fold will take a year or two!

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