How long is this coronavirus pandemic going to last?

At what point are all the experts in every country on this planet going to agree that the coronavirus crisis is over? If you're in China and South Korea, then the answer is a little more encouraging. Having had the virus since November, the signs are that the worst is over in China and very slowly people are getting back to a degree of normality. In South Korea, the number of deaths is also coming down. Even in Italy the fatality rate is slowing. So let's say the minimum period for the virus to be at its worst is four months. For the United States and for Europe, it is therefore possible that by July, the spiralling death statistics will have dropped significantly and the lockdowns can be lifted. That's still a long time and potentially disastrous for businesses but we all need to have a date, a rough date, when this nightmare could be over. I note that General Mark Milley, the very serious-looking chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, when asked how long it was going to go on for, plucked July from the top of his head. What he was really saying was that it was likely to last for several more months rather than a few weeks. This kind of clashes with Donald Trump who has been far more optimistic about when the virus nightmare will be over and doesn't want to order a total shutdown of the country. If he's lucky he might get away with it. But places like New York City where the virus is raging, a lockdown is unavoidable. If you're running the US military, like General Milley and his political boss, Mark Esper, then virus casualties and timescales are absolutely crucial. If tens of thousands of US servicemen and women go down with the virus, and much worse, if even five per cent die as a result, then the consequences could be alarming. But the statistics so far are not overwhelming. As of today there have been 300 coronavirus cases among American service personnel, civilians and service families and one defence contractor has died. The Pentagon employs around three million people, uniformed and non-uniformed. So the percentage is very small. In the US as a whole more than 46,000 Americans are known to have caught the virus, and nearly 600 have died out of a population of about 330 million. So, again, not a big percentage. It's the same in the UK although much attention has been focused on rising cases in London, partly because of the packed Underground trains. The UK death toll so far is 422. In Italy it's more than 6,000. In China it is nearly 3,300. India is in lockdown, but how can you lock down a country like India with 1.3 billion people? But however bad the statistics look, the virus will go away eventually, and at some point there will be an antidote. So let's be optimistic and look forward to that putative end date of July. General Milley seems to believe that timescale. Let's hope he's right.