The calendar has turned to May and most of us have been sheltering-at-home for more than a month now. Seemingly all of the Washington region is rising up as one to ask — when can we get out?

Soon, seems to be the answer, though everything won’t re-open at once. Not even close. And what does re-open will probably do so with precautions and social distancing.

Here’s where things stand.

Just how much longer are we going to be in a virtual lockdown?

No one can reliably give you a good answer quite yet, and that’s largely because confirmed cases continue to grow in the Washington region.

“Sadly our numbers are still on the rise,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said during a Wednesday appearance on “The Daily Show.”

“We caution against people saying we’re starting to see a reduction in numbers, because we’re not ready to make that definitive statement,” LaQuandra Nesbitt, D.C. Department of Health director, said the same day. On May 1, D.C. saw it’s biggest single-day increase in confirmed cases: 335.

Ultimately, any moves to reopen the local economy and start lifting restrictions will be based on how many new cases D.C., Maryland and Virginia are logging. That’s a key factor in determining when the virtual lockdown can be comfortably eased — 14-straight days of decreasing confirmed cases.

Local officials are creating a process for a phased re-opening, but it may be a while.

This week, D.C. officials offered a range of possibilities for a possible opening. On the earliest end, they said, we could be looking at late May or early June, but the more pessimistic scenario could put any reopening into late June or early July.

Are these stay-at-home orders actually working?

Yes. At least according to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the nation’s most prominent expert on the pandemic.

“My message to my fellow Washingtonians is we’re doing a really good job of preventing this from exploding by doing the mitigation of physical separation,” Fauci told the the Washington Nationals’ Ryan Zimmerman this week. “We need to keep it up a bit longer.”

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has echoed that point. “We have far fewer cases of COVID-19 than what initial projections predicted what we might have going into May. It’s not an exaggeration to say that staying home has indeed saved lives,” she said.

Who decides when to lift the stay-at-home orders?

President Trump initially declared himself the decider-in-chief. He’s since backed off that expansive view of his own power. The decision is ultimately being left to governors and mayors, at least in the Washington region. And they, in turn, are consulting with local and national health experts.

But others may influence the outcome, too. For instance, while gun ranges in Virginia generally remain closed under the state’s stay-at-home order, a circuit court judge this week ordered that one of them could reopen as long as it followed social distancing guidelines. But another Virginia judge ruled against two state senators who sued on behalf of Gold’s Gym franchises, seeking to allow them to reopen.

And in Maryland, some Republican delegates have been pressing Hogan — himself a Republican — to loosen restrictions on certain activities, like boating. Rep. Andy Harris, the state’s sole Republican in Congress, visited businesses on the Eastern Shore that he said were ready to open again.

But the most that will do is put pressure on Hogan; any decision to lift the stay-at-home order will ultimately come from him, unless a court steps in to say otherwise.

In D.C., lawmakers continue to stand behind Bowser, who will make the final call on when to start lifting restrictions. But there is always the Trump card: the president could well order federal workers back to their offices, and local officials would be limited in what they could do to stop that.

What will local leaders base their decisions on?

Bowser, Hogan and Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam say they’ll rely mainly on health considerations and strict metrics when deciding when and how to reopen their respective economies.

The three elected leaders are largely following White House guidelines that call for a 14-day decline in confirmed cases of the coronavirus, improved testing and contact tracing capabilities, enough hospital beds to handle expected cases, and enough personal protective equipment to cover expected demand.

Hogan’s “Roadmap to Recovery” — which you can read here — lays out the metrics clearly.

Is pretty much everything going to open at once?

No, not by a long shot. And all three elected leaders have used pretty much the same analogy to explain what reopening will — and will not — look like.

“We cannot and will not lift restrictions the way you turn on a light switch,” Northam said this week. “Don’t anticipate a light switch going on and everything going back to normal,” Bowser offered. “We’re not going to flip a light switch,” Hogan said in mid-April.

Still, local elected officials do seem to be making a concerted effort to coordinate their responses. That’s largely minimized the risk so far of having patchwork orders imposed on the Washington region.

Restrictions will ease gradually, with some businesses and possibly schools allowed to reopen — but with social distancing guidelines left in place. That means limits on the number of people in a closed space and requirements that they keep a six-foot distance from one another. Any gathering with big crowds — a sporting event or concert — is at best many months away, if not longer.

What sort of places are likely to be open first?

Northam permitted elective surgeries and dental procedures this week.

Expect hair stylists and barber shops to be among the first wave or reopenings, too, albeit with social distancing requirements in place. Hogan has allowed them to reopen in Maryland, though only for essential personnel at the outset. Expect that to be expanded to the general public once restrictions start being lifted.

I’ve heard we might need to do some social distancing even when businesses and restaurants reopen. How would that work?

It might require some forms of crowd control in retail shops. Expect limits on the number of customers at any one time and orders that you keep your distance from one another. But when it comes to bars, restaurants, clubs and even schools — places that naturally handle crowds — you can expect more dramatic changes.

In restaurants, tables may have to be spaced further apart. And don’t expect to be able to mosey up to the bar for a drink at your favorite watering hole. If you want a sense of the what the restaurant of the near-future could look like, just read what Georgetown’s Filomena is planning. Of course, while reopening might sound like a savior for bars and restaurants, many owners have already said that operating at half-capacity won’t be sustainable in the long-term.

As for schools, there’s talk of everything from sending kids in on alternating days to requiring that class sizes shrink significantly. Again, those decisions could dramatically change the nature of education, which some schools and students would be better equipped to handle than others.

Regarding the future of public transit after coronavirus, face coverings will likely remain the norm for a while, and rows of seats on buses and trains could be cordoned off to make sure people keep their distance from each other.