The exit criteria have been defined by the WHO.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/15/8340211...

Individual governments such as the UK have established less restrictive conditions.

The key point is building massive capabilities to test and contact trace so any further outbreak can be contained.

Otherwise we will be lurching from lockdown to lockdown.

Just because the US Federal government is unable to define criteria, because they don’t want to increase the manufacturing of test kits for political reasons doesn’t mean every other government has no clue.

>Just because the US Federal government is unable to define criteria, because they don’t want to increase the manufacturing of test kits for political reasons doesn’t mean every other government has no clue.

Cite please?

> because they don’t want to increase the manufacturing of test kits for political reasons

This is the first time I've heard this. Could you expand on what you think these political reasons are?

No country that went on lockdown has an exit plan either. Italy is still on lockdown for example.

No, the first sign of "leadership issues" was the US and other states not having a plan and the US in particular not having a mechanism for coordinating action between various parts and levels of government.

The lockdowns have come as desperate measures in response to the general confusion and the progression of a deadly epidemic. California is vaguely looking to testing as mechanism for lifting the lockdown. Hopefully, they'll come up with good ideas. The epidemic is still running hot so do have time to think.

Having local authorities improvising isn't the best approach by any means. It's still a better approach than a mob of anti-vaxers, Proud Boys and other right wing types improvising or a president who doesn't know biology improvising, to illustrate the mess we're in.

This mess, however, is one of those situations where it's incumbent on the critic to come up with something actually better that can be implemented rather than whining that a given solution is far from perfect.

The exit cretiera is pretty clear to me, which is no new infections for 14 days.

Switzerland is progressively opening up with 200 new daily cases; from this Monday, and larger opening is scheduled for 11th of May.

Note that this "opening up" on Monday includes very limited things - stores (that have been open all along since they sell food etc as well) may sell more products, hardware stores (that afaik did not close down in the US) reopen, garden centers, and some services like barbers and that's it ... not much a difference IMO, more like a test drive. The one on May 11 is more open and not entirely uncontroversial (the parts of Switzerland that have been hit harder are not exactly happy that schools are supposed to open - and I have to say "kids aren't likely to transmit covid-19 so opening schools is fine" at the same time as "grandparents shouldn't watch kids because they are at risk" doesn't seem logical to me).

Nurseries are partially opening as well, they have limited capacity (something around 50% at the one our kids are going to). In reality it's not bad because a lot of parents don't want to send kids, so parents who want to, likely can (we can).

That day will never come. I think lockdown will end when projected cases will be at a level that the health system can handle.

I think then it depends on your definition of "lockdown ending" since clearly going back to usual will just result in another outbreak as long as it's still circulating. We started with what, 13 cases in the country? It's highly contagious...

I'm not sure that we can build a health system capable of handling this a second time... I have the feeling that this will just result in the way people work changing.

Essential workers taking more power because we are all forced to acknowledge that they're essential. People able to work remotely doing that much much more. Wearing masks at the grocery. These are things I expect to be long-term, except for the first which has some obvious structural barriers.

What if that doesn't happen for 6 months because there are a few cases every other week?

I really hope that's not the sitution the US is heading to. But I get your point. Opening up the public gathering business will be gradual process, and the governers of each state could make that decision based on the new cases count.

I think people would go crazy if they knew how long this was really going to go on for. 6 months seems optimistic. Consider 2020 a gap year for most of humanity.