What will life be like in, say, six months' time?

As the first tentative steps are taken here in the UK and in the US and Europe to ease coronavirus pandemic lockdown restrictions, can we start to imagine what life might be like by the end of 2020? The realists are adamant that until we get a 100 per cent-proof vaccine our lives will continue to be largely governed by the way the virus spreads or doesn't spread. I think that has to be right but no one and no economy can wait that long. It might be six months away or 18 months. So it is inevitable that between now and Christmas most countries are going to take the risk: build up the economy and pray there is no resurgence of the pandemic while observing sensible social distancing guidelines. I don't know how that is going to work. How can millions of people go back to work and yet still stay two metres apart in the workplace? The strict social distancing rules are bound to be broken. Even today in London, the first day of Boris Johnson's please-go-back-to-work edict, there have been scenes of overcrowding on public transport. Boris's plea about going to work but not using public transport is, first of all, a contradiction, second, a kick in the teeth for the public transport industry and third, a catch-22 dilemma for any worker living 20 miles from his factory construction site whose car has packed up, his bicycle tyres are rubbish and he can't face the three-hour walk. Well, that is of course a worst-case scenario. But the Boris appeal will pose transport problems for a lot of people, let alone the concerns they will have about how close they will need to work with colleagues once they have made the journey to work. The virus has I think created two sorts of people: those who are petrified about getting the virus and experiencing the terrors of ventilator survival as portrayed on our TV screens every night and others who believe they will never catch it and even if they do they will get through it quickly with no lasting damage. Those in the latter category in the UK at least might tend to add, "Well look at the statistics, it's still a very small percentage of the total population who have got the virus, 31,000 deaths out of 65 million." I expect a lot of people will be in both camps. Of course they don't want the virus, they don't want to even think of the possibility of actually dying from it but surely it will soon be over. On the ecomomy front there are divergent views. Certainly there is a recession going on, economies are falling rapidly, by as much as 20 per cent. But the optimists point out that this is not like the 2008 financial crash which had long-term damaging consequences. Economies are failing today, not through some irresponsible banking gambles but because governments have literally closed down for business. So the huge damage will continue for as long as the ecoomies are shut down but as soon as the virus is beaten or contained, the doors will open and economies will rapidly bounce back. Hopefully by the middle of next year. The Bank of England seems to have this view. So does Steven Mnuchin, US Treasury Secretary. And so does Donald Trump. Let's hope they are right. But a lot could go wrong in the meantime, not least the risk that vast numbers of companies will go bankrupt and never reopen, airlines will wither, the tourist industry will never recover, hotels will stay shut for ever and every other restaurant will vanish. Today on the first day of the Boris lockdown changes I am determined to stick with the feeling that everything or nearly everything WILL bounce back and we will return to a normal life. In six months' time, life will be much much better!