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).

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.

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.