[alancalverd (OP)]

The Independent

Netherlands imposes strict five-week lockdown lasting through Christmas.

The Netherlands will go into a tough five-week Covid-19 lockdown following a spike in infections, with the closure of schools, non-essential shops, and museums and gyms, Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte announced on Monday.

[charles1948]

The Independent

Netherlands imposes strict five-week lockdown lasting through Christmas.

The Netherlands will go into a tough five-week Covid-19 lockdown following a spike in infections, with the closure of schools, non-essential shops, and museums and gyms, Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte announced on Monday.

How can "lockdowns" make the virus go away?  Won't the virus just hang around outside, until we come out, then resume infecting us again.

Can anyone explain the sense of these "lockdowns?

[alancalverd (OP)]

The virus does not "hang around outside" for long. Unless it finds a host, it is generally dead within a few hours or days depending on its environment. The only common hosts are bats and humans, and bats generally avoid human contact.

So if you segregate the humans into haves and have-nots, most of the haves will produce enough antibodies to kill the virus in a few weeks and thus not die, and the have-nots won't get infected at all.

Part of the stupidity is calling quarantine (a sensible preventive measure that everyone accepts) , "lockdown" (a mass punishment in prisons). The second part of the stupidity is not doing it. 

[Petrochemicals]

The Independent

Netherlands imposes strict five-week lockdown lasting through Christmas.

The Netherlands will go into a tough five-week Covid-19 lockdown following a spike in infections, with the closure of schools, non-essential shops, and museums and gyms, Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte announced on Monday.

How can "lockdowns" make the virus go away?  Won't the virus just hang around outside, until we come out, then resume infecting us again.

Can anyone explain the sense of these "lockdowns?

Unfortunately by this stage I have to agree with Alan being as we have made such a pigs ear of it. If we had made a concerted effort at the beginning to eradicate this virus for 3 months, as an island we could have managed it. It would have been cheaper, in lives as more people would have got essential treatment and in money, crippling the economy less. This would have ment no super markets or other shops, 3 months lockdown for everyone. Carehome people could not have left, doctors and nurses would have had to sleep at the hospital. Black death type lockdown.

Unfortunately this corona type pandemic will happen again in the next 20 years. This is not a 1918 Spanish flu, this is a 3 times in 20 years type virus. We have an aging population sustained with vaccines and health care who are vulnerable to this. It needs to be managed in a different manner as this cannot happen again going forward. We will be loosing more people to other illnesses such as cancer and heart attacks, suicides and quality of life is suffering greatly. I suppose its OK if your wealthy though!

[Bored chemist]

this is a 3 times in 20 years type virus.

So, what were the other 2 this millennium?

To count, they have to be pandemics with death tolls comparable with covid.
 For example, they would need roughly 100 times the death toll of SARS.