Coronavirus will return, experts say. Does that mean social distancing will, too?

Infectious disease experts and government leaders in the U.S. are focused on the immediate task of lessening the severity of the coronavirus by promoting measures like social distancing, closing schools and issuing stay-at-home orders.

But with COVID-19 still raging and a projected death toll of 100,000 to 240,000 in the U.S., what will life look like after the first wave of the coronavirus passes?

Earlier this week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said he expects a resurgence of coronavirus in the fall, McClatchy News reported.

He said it’ll be a “totally different ballgame,” saying the country will be battle-tested and better equipped to isolate cases. Fauci said it’s possible new treatments could be available, though a vaccine will likely be months away.

Beyond the lessons learned and medical advancements, what about the other measures? People can’t stay six feet apart forever, can they?

In China, where the disease originated, the number of cases have plummeted, and the situation appears to be in hand -- though the risk of resurgence is high, according to CNN.

As China attempts to ease off on restrictions and return to a new relative normal, cases quickly crop up and authorities are forced to tighten measures once more, CNN reported.

This strategy of tightening and loosening restrictions as necessary has been effective there, and could work in the U.S. as well, some experts suggest.

“Instead of playing defense, we could play more offense,” Aaron Carroll, Professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, and Ashish Jha, Professor of Global Health at Harvard University, wrote in The Atlantic.

“We can keep schools and businesses open as much as possible, closing them quickly when suppression fails, then opening them back up again once the infected are identified and isolated,” they wrote.

This story was originally published April 2, 2020 at 6:56 PM.