‘Normal life won’t resume until 2021’ says expert who insists lockdowns remain until we have a coronavirus vaccine
LIFE as we used to know it won't be returning until a vaccine is available — and that could be a year away, a scientist claims.
The expert in pandemic preparedness and response warned until people are immunized, Covid-19 would keep on spreading and a lockdown would remain in place.
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Ali Nouri, President of the Federation of American Scientists, told the that no-one was "going back to our daily lives" anytime soon and to forget about the lockdown being lifted soon.
He said: "We will certainly have to continue these stay at home orders for I suspect at least through the end of May, or perhaps some time in June.
"There's not going to be a time when there is a magic date and then everybody goes back to their lives as normal.
"Once June comes around, once July comes around, it's not going to be the kind of situation where people are going to be going to crowded restaurants and movie theaters."
More than a million have been infected around the world and the virus has killed over 12,000 in the US and 81,000 globally.
Dr Nouri said the United States was far from "flattening the curve" and pointed out that Wuhan in China, where the outbreak emerged from, was still enforcing some measures nearly four months after lockdown was introduced.
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It comes as New York City's death toll from the coronavirus rose past 3,200 today, eclipsing the number killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11.
New York state recorded 731 new coronavirus deaths, its biggest one-day jump yet, for a statewide toll of nearly 5,500, Governor Andrew Cuomo said.
"A lot of pain again today for many New Yorkers," he said.
Meanwhile, in Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson lay in intensive care, believed to be the first major world leader hospitalized with the virus.
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