Even an end to lockdown won’t mean a return to normal

As the coronavirus pandemic wears on, a growing number of countries, including the UK, are beginning to contemplate what an end to the lockdown might look like, and, above all, how to avoid or limit the damage of a second wave of infections. With a vaccine estimated to be at least a year away, and various treatments still in their testing phase, a great deal of hope is being pinned on the possibility of containing the spread post-lockdown via contact tracing and vigorous social distancing.

Various countries in East Asia – in particular Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea – are widely looked to as models in this regard, having effectively used these tactics to limit the spread of coronavirus. However, a closer look at these cases shows just how difficult such an endeavour will be.

Singapore did almost everything right from the get-go. Travellers from Wuhan were having their temperatures taken at the airport as early as 3 January, and travel restrictions slowly tightened with a complete ban on short-term visits starting 22 March.

Meanwhile, minutely detailed social distancing measures were enforced across the city-state, the police and epidemiological experts cooperated to trace the virus’s spread, and a coronavirus tracking app was developed which will likely serve as the model for the UK’s. On 1 April there were only 1,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country – many of which were imported, i.e. from overseas travellers.

However, this Monday Singapore reported 1,426 new cases in a single day bringing its total to 8,014. The virus, so successfully contained for months, has begun to spread like wildfire in the barracks that house almost 300,000 low-paid migrant workers. A lockdown has been in place since 7 April, although the government prefers to avoid the term.

South Korea and Taiwan still have things under control for the moment, but they remain on constant high alert. A Taiwanese navy visit to Palau saw 21 sailors return infected. The government has now quarantined 700 naval personnel and contacted 200,000 people in Taiwan that could have been exposed to the virus by the sailors.

In South Korea some days pass with no new infections reported. However, the efforts involved to achieve this are monumental, and involve pervasive surveillance. Not only is mass testing well underway, something the UK is still struggling with, but when a new case is discovered the cellphone of every person resident in their district flashes up an emergency alert. Details of the infected person’s recent movements are then posted online, sometimes detailed on a minute-by-minute basis, to allow people to check if they might have been exposed. Such measures would almost certainly raise serious privacy concerns if introduced in the UK.

Even with all these measures the country remains on edge, a shiver of disquiet passing through it following reports that 179 patients thought to have recovered from coronavirus had tested positive for a second time.

Experts do not think it is likely they were reinfected and a variety of other possibilities have been suggested including the virus having been dormant, faulty tests, and the remnants of the virus still being in the patients’ systems. However, even if the worst case scenario of rapid reinfection is unlikely the other explanations could still pose serious problems for post-lockdown efforts to control the virus via mass testing and tracing.

Nor can a rapid return to normal be expected. South Korea has still extended its social distancing measures to run until 5 May. While the government is contemplating easing the guidelines somewhat it has flatly stated this more due to the difficulty of keeping intensive social distancing going in the long term.

In the meantime, it is looking into “everyday distancing” long-term, or even permanent, adjustments to daily life to cut down on transmission. Suggestions include having students attending school in shifts – half working on coursework from home while the other half go to classes.

Indeed, without such long-term adjustments countries leaving lockdown may quickly find themselves back at square one again. Hokkaido Japan declared a state of emergency and locked down as early as February while making vigorous use of contact tracing. By 19 March the lockdown was over, and schools reopened early April. However, by 16 April a state of emergency was once again declared and a lockdown reinstated after the infection rate had begun to accelerate once more.

China has also faced a second waves infection in some areas after ending its lockdown, in particular in the Heilongjiang province in north-eastern China. A number of Chinese citizens working across the border in Russia have returned carrying the virus. The border city of Suifenhe is once again quarantined and locked down, and the Russian border has been closed since 6 April. However, despite these precautions outbreaks have occurred in the provincial capital of Harbin, the virus apparently carried by a university student returning from the US, and then apparently spread to the city of Suihua sparking further quarantines and partial lockdowns.

There are also reports of other outbreaks forcing counter-measures across the country including in the inner Mongolian town of Manzhouli (also on the Russian border), Jia county in Henan province which borders Hubei where the virus started, and in the southeastern megalopolis of Guangzhou where it has sparked a virulent racist backlash against the local African community.

Arguments about economic recovery once lockdown has ended will also have to take into account that the pandemic is a global crisis occurring unevenly across the world at different times. While factories may have reopened across large swathes of China one of their largest markets, the USA, is currently mid-pandemic and facing economic meltdown because of it. Similarly South Korea, despite having successfully remained open throughout the outbreak, is facing major disruptions to its export-driven economy.

An end to lockdown in the UK, while likely some way away, may seem a pleasant prospect. However, as East Asia shows even this milestone will by no means represent a return to normal. Instead we will simply have to once again adjust to a new normal of scrupulous hygiene, careful social interactions, and intermittent quarantines.