Are we all in this together until 2022?

We’re all in this together, but are we all in this together for as long as it takes, even if that’s 2022?

Way back in March, a “leaked” federal government document said measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus would need to be in place until July, and that was a best-case scenario.

Up until then, many of us harboured the delusion that the great confinement would last for “days or weeks,” because that’s the phrase most of our trusted sources were using at the time.

After the well-placed and better-timed leak, headlines across the country screamed that it could be July before things would return to some semblance of normalcy, and the reality began to sink in. The restrictions, or at least some of them, would be with us for a while.

Our leaders’ language changed at about the same time. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, while refusing to speculate on the duration of the still-new disease-control protocols, on April 1 said that the restrictions, or many of them, “are going to be in place a number of more weeks, perhaps even months.”

Since then, slowly but surely, we’ve been led to the understanding that some of the limitations on life are likely to stretch into the foreseeable future

Even as provinces begin to ease some restrictions on what Canadians can do and where they can do it, we’re being gently nudged toward the realization that until the magic bullet — a vaccine — arrives we can expect to live with, at a minimum, standoffish public behaviour, masked strangers, travel restrictions and, for vulnerable citizens, at least as much confinement as freedom.

Our political leaders remain focused, as perhaps they should be, on the near-term. That is, flattening the famous curve and slowly, oh so carefully, easing restrictions but only so long as there’s no serious uptick in cases. Our public health officials are delivering much the same message.

Talk of reducing restrictions is invariably accompanied by the caveat that, if we begin to behave badly and revert to our old ways — and come in close contact with other living humans — we’ll find ourselves right back in a shutdown.

That’s also pretty close to the verdict delivered in a paper published recently by the journal Science and written by a gaggle of Harvard-employed experts in immunology, epidemiology and infectious diseases.

The paper leads to a couple of inescapable conclusions. The first is that, absent a vaccine or effective new therapeutics, we’ll be living with intermittent Covid-created interruptions to life, of varying durations and intensity, likely until 2022 and maybe longer. And second, stay away from scientific journals if you want to sleep at night.

The paper, with the catchy little title, Projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-COV-2 through the postpandemic period, concludes that a one-time lockdown — that’s the one we’re currently looking forward to escaping — won’t be sufficient to bring the pandemic under control, and that secondary peaks, possibly larger than the first, are likely without continued restrictions.

The Harvard-types allow that it may be possible to relax distancing and other measures periodically when case volumes are low, but the health risk to some people — as we’ve seen locally, those are mostly older, frail folks and people with other health problems — will remain pretty much as they are today until a vaccine or highly effective treatments are available.

“(I)n the absence of these, surveillance and intermittent distancing may need to be maintained into 2022,” the authors conclude, adding that predictions of an end to the pandemic in the summer of 2020 are “not consistent with what we know about the spread of infections.” That’s Harvard-professor-speak for it ain’t going to happen.

The vaccine seems to be about where it was back in April, that is, “at least a year away.” In the meantime, those who make them will be faced with some difficult decisions.

Even Harvard’s paperwriting docs wrapped up their demoralizing dissertation with a disclaimer. They wouldn’t take a position on the advisability of sustained measures to contain the virus, “given the economic burden that sustained distancing may impose.” By distancing, they’re talking about more than just keeping two-metres apart. It would preclude gathering for most normal human activity, like weddings, funerals, school and often work. Concerts and sports — at least with crowds — are completely out of the question.

The difficult decision that lies just beyond the flattened curve is, how much health risk are we are willing to take to restore economic and social activity to something closer to what people are used to, and many need?