When will coronavirus end?

Swift action by new leaders will curb the pandemic

Question: When will coronavirus end?
Position‹2 of 4›: The coronavirus pandemic will end in July 2021 (1 Year)
Argument‹2 of 3›: Swift action by new leaders will curb the pandemic

In the U.S., Former Vice President Biden has laid out ambitious plans to close economy's and combat the virus. He's likely to be elected in November.

The argument

Elections held in the United States, Europe, Africa and South America could usher in new leadership by the new year—leadership that could shift the tide of the pandemic. In the United States, there is a strong likelihood that the Democrats will take back the Senate and win the Presidency, giving them an overwhelming majority in government. One of the leading polling aggregates, FiveThirtyEight run by esteemed pollster Nate Silver, ran simulation models for the U.S. election over 40,000 times and found that Biden wins in 83% of them. Further, Biden's likelihood to win has crept up 5 percentage points since the Presidential Debate last week. If elected, Biden has stated he will listen to all major health officials and work closely with state and local governments to keep Americans safe. In Africa and South America—two continents that have been ravaged by coronavirus—a change in high office could also lead to swift action to contain the virus. If new leaders enact lockdown measures or prohibit gatherings and mandate mask-wearing, as the UK has done, it could lead to a drastic drop in new coronavirus cases by the middle of next year.

Premises

[P1]Elections across the US, Europe, Africa and South America could install new leadership by the new year able to shift the tide of the pandemic. [P2] In the US a likely Biden win—favoured in 83% of FiveThirtyEight's simulations—would bring an administration pledging to follow health officials, while new leaders elsewhere could impose lockdowns, gathering bans and mask mandates that sharply cut cases by mid-2021. [C] Because swift action by incoming leaders will curb the virus, the pandemic will end around July 2021.

Counter-arguments

Biden is not guaranteed to be elected. There's still a month between now and November, and that's plenty of time for the President to swing things in his favor. Also, despite the UK's best efforts, they're in the midst of another steep spike in coronavirus cases. Not only is the U.S. election still uncertain, but the change in leadership and all the measures that come with it might not even lead to a dip in infections.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Elections change who governs, not what is epidemiologically possible, and the premise supplies no mechanism connecting a change of leadership to an end of transmission — the measures it names were available to incumbents and adopted unevenly regardless of who was in office. [Rejecting P2] A forecast that one candidate is favoured is a probability rather than a fact, and the argument then compounds it with a second unsupported step from the outcome of one election to a global end date; the counterexample it cites works against it, since the country said to have imposed the right measures was at that moment in a renewed wave.