Cardiff123
Established Member
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- 10 Mar 2013
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Social and physical distancing (e.g. being at least 2 metres away from the next person at all times) could be here to stay for the next 2+ years, or until a vaccine / effective drug treatment for Covid-19 is developed. I think it's becoming increasingly clear that even once the current 'lockdown' is lifted, it will be a very long time, we're talking years, before life fully returns to normal as we knew it.
So how will long term physical & social distancing be implemented on public transport? I'm guessing that on trains and buses, it would have to be no more than 1 person in two airline seats, people only allowed to sit in every other row, only one person allowed around a table of four. In other words, capacity will be at least halved.
Will implementing long term distancing measures like this on public transport even be feasible?
Here's two articles that are suggesting that long term social distancing could be here to stay (The Times article is about Ireland):
So how will long term physical & social distancing be implemented on public transport? I'm guessing that on trains and buses, it would have to be no more than 1 person in two airline seats, people only allowed to sit in every other row, only one person allowed around a table of four. In other words, capacity will be at least halved.
Will implementing long term distancing measures like this on public transport even be feasible?
Here's two articles that are suggesting that long term social distancing could be here to stay (The Times article is about Ireland):
Coronavirus distancing may need to continue until 2022, say experts
Scientists say one-time lockdown will not bring pandemic under control
www.theguardian.com
Physical distancing measures may need to be in place intermittently until 2022, scientists have warned in an analysis that suggests there could be resurgences of Covid-19 for years to come.
The paper, published in the journal Science, concludes that a one-time lockdown will not be sufficient to bring the pandemic under control and that secondary peaks could be larger than the current one without continued restrictions.
One scenario predicted a resurgence could occur as far in the future as 2025 in the absence of a vaccine or effective treatment.
“Predicting the end of the pandemic in the summer [of 2020] is not consistent with what we know about the spread of infections.”
Papers released by the government’s scientific advisory group for emergencies (Sage) in March suggested that the UK would need to alternate between periods of more and less strict physical distancing measures for a year to have a plausible chance of keeping the number of critical care cases within capacity.
Social distancing ‘will be part of life’ until vaccine is developed
Social distancing measures will be “part of life” until a treatment or vaccine for Covid-19 is developed, the minister for health said yesterday as the number of cases passed 10,000.Simon Harris said that the country will not get to “a point in three and a half weeks where things are going to return
www.thetimes.co.uk
Social distancing measures will be “part of life” until a treatment or vaccine for Covid-19 is developed, the minister for health said yesterday as the number of cases passed 10,000.
Simon Harris said that the country will not get to “a point in three and a half weeks where things are going to return to normal”.
Government restrictions to slow the spread of the virus are in place until May 5, but both Mr Harris and Dr Colm Henry, the chief clinical officer of the HSE, indicated yesterday that some measures to curtail the virus may be necessary for months, and possibly even longer.
Virologists have said previously that a vaccine is unlikely to be developed in less than a year.
Dr Henry said modelling shows the virus is “extremely sensitive” to any “tightening or loosening of those social measures”.
He said we have “beaten down” the curve and the aim is to “crush” it in the coming weeks. Yet if people then “decided to congregate on beaches or in football stadiums” the curve “would go rapidly up again,” Dr Henry said.
He said that in Ireland or internationally experts are not “looking at a peak, a fall, then back to normal. That’s not a plausible narrative any more.”
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