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Punchline #1: I don’t think our summer internships will be taking place on time… lol

China has just achieved the milestone of zero new local infections on March 18, which is already more than 2 months since the city of Wuhan announced lockdown back in January. The next step for the city is to remain in lockdown for another 14 days, and if there’s still no new cases, the lockdown will be lifted. This implies that even with the most stringent and draconian measures, we would need at least 2.5 months for a city to come down from the peak and return to a relative normal state. 

The U.S. is around 10-14 days behind the development of Italy, which had gone into a national lockdown on March 9 and has still not yet reached its peak for the outbreak. It’s likely that the U.S. will go into a full national lockdown within the next week or two depending on the efficacy of the current measures, and given the current projections as to when the U.S. will hit peak, there is little possibility that the U.S. will “unlock” the country by early or mid June. The federal government plan we recently saw even warned policymakers that this pandemic “will last 18 months or longer” and could include “multiple waves,” resulting in widespread shortages that would strain consumers and the nation’s health care system.

So… I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that some summer internships will inevitably be delayed or even canceled.