Look at Asian cities, they generally set criteria, and open and close activities in stages based on the criteria. I live in Tokyo and without much of a lockdown (I’d argue for a bit more action myself), things are OK. Right now bars are supposed to close at 10pm and people are going out less. But they’re still going to work (with masks).

Obviously the political situation and what’s feasible is different, but I hope restrictions on group sizes and a small number of activities is not infeasible. They are not “lockdown”, they are the way to avoid lockdown.

That's a low effort comment which doesn't address the issue. Which specific criteria do you think we ought to follow? Why are bars considered safe but gyms aren't? Are Tokyo residents wearing masks in bars?

Again there is no political possibility of a future strict lockdown in the US. So for better or worse it has already been avoided.

> And how long are you expecting people to avoid the more risky activities? What are the exit criteria?

There are some obvious ones, like: no new cases in the city/county reported in 14 days.

For some reason, it seems people thought this would take a month or two, and then everything will be back to normal. But it wouldn't. Two months is a ramp-up period, a default if you do nothing. "Flattening the curve" measures were always going to extend the partial lockdowns until late this year. We knew that in March.

That is a ridiculous standard, totally unachievable in any populous region. It's simple numbers. There are 10M people in Los Angeles county alone and we will never see zero new cases there per 14 days in our lifetimes no matter what we do. So what are exit criteria that would actually be possible in the real world?