No one has dared ask the most important question: What do we need to do to open the country?

Disregarding any statistics, death tolls, requirements etc., I will posit a theory I've cobbled up from various bits of stolen ideas: Lockdowns will end only if politicians will come out good afterward.

Here is the basis of this piece, but I have a bit of an addition to this in the form of the cure gambit, a heavy insistence on only resuming matters when a cure or vaccine has been found.

Let us begin with the information of a new virus, and cases have appeared in the country. You don't want to be blamed for letting people get infected and perish, so you take the only sensible measure you know to ensure little to no spread happens; you lock everything down.

The early pretext for doing so is that less spread means less cases, less beds to fill and less strain on the system. That's pretty fine, yes, we'll stay in.

But then new worries come, what if you open up and a second wave occurs (because you didn't let people get the antibodies enough, but that's a different matter, this virus is very special don't you know)?

You're very certain cases will rise if you open up, where the people will immediately start coughing at each other and lick every surface they come across as soon as they leave their homes. It's not like you've drilled it enough in their heads that this thing is really deadly and that you can stave it off with these things you recommend they do, and everyone's looking at the number of people who have had it instead of seeing those who have died or recovered; no one's the wiser.

Even if you accept the second wave, you can't exactly accept being blamed for any additional deaths caused by whatever fallout happens during the follow-up, if at all. You don't fear the spike as much as being seen as the cause. 

The alternative is stagnation and depression caused by forcing the country to stop, but even if you say all that is better than virus deaths, the resources needed to sustain handing out stuff to those staying in is not exactly unlimited. Your means of getting revenue are heavily limted, and the well is bound to dry up. Even if you do manage to find some money-making magic, not everyone is going to be happy to let their hard work go to waste, especially if your check is measly compared to what they used to earn.

Either way, you have to come out of this as a hero.

Maybe this is why no one has answered this question, because it will mean making a decision that doesn't only affect the nation, but with the person in charge. Is he willing to take the risk and let the people decide, or would he try to avoid the blame by insisting his way is the only way?

As a last card, you assure everyone that this has to continue, that you cannot fully relinquish your hold onto them, not until a cure is found. This disease is so deadly that the only way out is by eliminating it. Really, you've masked your fear of being blamed by trying to be a savior and hoping no one notices the shift in goalposts.

But when will this cure come? In the Philippines, a mass inoculation of a dengue vaccine caused a large controversy when negative effects came. The irony of the president being fully secure of reopening only on the availability of a vaccine is great. Then again that past vaccine is the last administration's fault, this one is going to work, promise.

Maybe as a compromise, you'll let people go back to their stuff, with additional rules to make it seem like something is being done to keep the inevitable climb from being steep. If things go bad you can just shut everything down and prevent any blood on your hands.

And thus begins the new normal, but by then the people ought to know better.