Numerous aspects of our lives, which used to be enjoyable have turned into stress because of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, as the entire world has changed entirely in the last two months, attitudes, beliefs, fears and frustrations shape our new lifestyle. There is a consistent fear that this changes are going to last, and I think that that fear is completely justifiable.

Life in many countries around the world - is changing drastically. We're physically distanced from our favorite people, we're avoiding our favorite public places, and many are financially strained or out of work. The response to the Covid-19 pandemic is infiltrating every aspect of life, and we're already longing for it to end. But this fight may not end for months or a year or even more.

We are in this because public health experts believe social distancing is the best way to prevent a truly horrific crisis: perhaps hundreds of thousands or more if our health care system is overwhelmed with severe Covid-19 cases, people who require ventilators and ICU beds that are now growing limited in supply.

"Some may look at [the guidelines] ... and say, well, maybe we've gone a little bit too far," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, at a Monday White House press conference. "They were well thought out. And the thing that I want to reemphasize ... when you're dealing with an emerging infectious diseases outbreak, you are always behind where you think you are if you think that today reflects where you really are." 

"I think this idea ... that if you close schools and shut restaurants for a couple of weeks, you solve the problem and get back to normal life - that's not what's going to happen," says Adam Kucharski, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and author of The Rules of Contagion, a book on how outbreaks spread. "The main message that isn't getting across to a lot of people is just how long we might be in this for."

As Kucharski, a top expert on this situation, sees it, "this virus is going to be circulating, potentially for a year or two, so we need to be thinking on those time scales. There are no good options here. Every scenario you can think of playing out has some really hefty downsides. ... At the moment, it seems the only way to sustainably reduce transmission are really severe unsustainable measures." 

The reason we may be in for an extended period of disruption, Kucharski says, is that the main thing that seems to be working right now to fight this pandemic is severe social distancing policies.

"Drop those measures - allow people to congregate in big groups again - while the virus is still out there, and it can start new outbreaks that gravely threaten public health, particularly the older and chronically ill people, those most vulnerable to severe illness. "There's no way [the virus] is going to go away in the next few weeks," he says.

The way things are looking now, we'll need something to stop the virus to truly end the threat. That's either a vaccine (there are some now entering clinical trials but it could be a year before they are approved) or herd immunity. This is when enough people have contracted the virus, and have become immune to it, to slow its spread.

Herd immunity is not guaranteed. Currently it's unclear if, after a period of months or years, a person can lose their immunity and become reinfected with the virus (which would make achieving herd immunity more difficult). Also, herd immunity will come at the cost of millions of people becoming infected, and possibly millions of people dying.

Thus, in order to bring everything back to normal, we have to respect all the preventive measures and to take care of ourselves, but most importantly, WE HAVE TO STAY HOME, as this is the most efficient way in which the spreading of the virus will be stopped.

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