Post CV19 predictions

[Anselm]

The precautions we are taking will become mostly permanent.

Like staying in our homes and not socializing? That seems extremely unlikely.

No, those will end when the pandemic ends.  What will continue are things like sanitizing surfaces, protective shields for cashiers and perhaps the end of handshakes.   Maybe we will start bowing like the Japanese.  There will be plans in place for a quick response to any new outbreak. Social distancing measures will be declared and enforced within 24 hours and society will have to be ready or that.    There will be stricter travel bans to regions with epidemics, not just gentle travel warnings.

[clean]

The precautions we are taking will become mostly permanent.



Like staying in our homes and not socializing? That seems extremely unlikely.

No, those will end when the pandemic ends.  What will continue are things like sanitizing surfaces, protective shields for cashiers and perhaps the end of handshakes.   Maybe we will start bowing like the Japanese.  There will be plans in place for a quick response to any new outbreak. Social distancing measures will be declared and enforced within 24 hours and society will have to be ready or that.    There will be stricter travel bans to regions with epidemics, not just gentle travel warnings.

I think that much of what we are doing now, will fall by the wayside.  Much like the annual New Year's REsolutions, it wont take long for us to 'return to normal'. 
This is not the first time that the hand sanitizer boxes have gone up.  They go up anytime there is a flu outbreak in my area of the state. Then they go aw0ay. 
Some of the  changes are more permanent simply because it takes more action to undo them, like the plexiglass that has shown up at the grocery store.
Wash your hands for 20 seconds at a time?  No, once the hussle and bussle returns, those 20 seconds are going to be used for whatever is more important at the time.
Do you think that the stores will have 'greeters' to hand you a wipe or to wipe your cart yourself?  (And how stupid is it that they wipe it down AFTER you have already put your hands on it to get it into the door in the first place!?  Shouldnt they 'issue' you a cleaned one after you get inside?

Will we still be running to the store at the threat of a TP shortage (well, probably as some things WONT change!!)

Certainly restaurants wont be offering free delivery or drive through only after the shut down/ stay home orders happen. 

[marshwiggle]

Certainly restaurants wont be offering free delivery or drive through only after the shut down/ stay home orders happen.

But delivery service will probably be used significantly more than it was before for quite a while.

[mythbuster]

A few things I genuinely hope are outcomes:
1) Internet access will be regarded as a necessary utility like electricity, and the federal government will enact legislation to provide access to all.
2) There will be a resurgence in interest in classes like home economics and shop that have been all but forgotten to date.
3) There will be a general reconsideration of what we teach, especially at the high school level. Schooling may be more streamlined and practically oriented.
4) Increased respect for public health and things that are a community good.
5) Improvement of the voting system to at least all vote by mail.

That's my optimistic list. The pessimistic list starts with Trump being reelected and gets worse from there, so we won't dwell on that right now.

[hmaria1609]

It will take some time for the travel industry to recover and tourism to pick up stateside and abroad.

[mamselle]

In some ways (especially the lag in the economic capacity for discretionary expenses like travel), yes, but I wonder if that will be countered by people with pent-up urges to get away and/or "see the sights" who had to give up a cherished visit or much-anticipated dream trip?

Also, on whether travel agents, transportation purveyors, and guides offer transitional enticements to jump-start things once travel becomes possible again.

I'm trying to figure out whether to try to create socially-distanced summer tours using the kinds of transponders used in group museum tours, or mount videos or slides with voice-overs for my usual offerings in July and August.

I've been approached in the past about recording my tours for companies that distribute them, and pooh-poohed the idea at the time as hokey and a poor substitute for face-to-face encounters.

But I'm re-thinking those responses, and may see about alternatives going forward.

M.

[mahagonny]

A few things I genuinely hope are outcomes:

4) Increased respect for public health and things that are a community good.

I predict that respect comes with higher education kicking and screaming, being the last ones on board. Anti labor scheming such as 'part time' hiring being their specialty.

[writingprof]

It will be OK to say having public 'wet markets' where you bring livestock in, slaughter them on sight or sell them live, with unsanitary conditions and risks, is a bad idea, without being called racist.

That's a racist prediction.

[marshwiggle]

I've been approached in the past about recording my tours for companies that distribute them, and pooh-poohed the idea at the time as hokey and a poor substitute for face-to-face encounters.

But I'm re-thinking those responses, and may see about alternatives going forward.

M.

This is like the reality about online education: The traditional argument against has been that "It's not as good as face-to-face."  Covid has spiked that argument by effectively saying "What do you do when face-to-face is simply not an option?"

[fishbrains]

At the CC level, faculty who previously refused to employ technology in their classrooms and considered using the internet to be an inferior and unacceptable venue for teaching will no longer be viewed as curmudgeonly obstinate but will now be seen as plainly incompetent.

We will notice that most faculty were at least functional when moving to the internet, but college services were not. I see some serious training sessions for the student services and administrative sides, at least for my college.

For the second presidential election in a row, Democrats will refuse to acknowledge that somehow, against all possible odds, they figured out a way to nominate the only person in the country who couldn't beat Trump. This time they expect "on-the-fence" people to vote for Joe Biden? Really?

[mamselle]

See the current conversation on the elections thread re: this.

M.

[Stockmann]

-The rally-round-the-leader effect guarantees Trump will win re-election.
-Globally, the shift of power, relative wealth, prestige and leadership from the West to the Far East will accelerate dramatically. Esp. prestige and leadership, since overall the Western management of the pandemic has been an abject failure compared to the Far East.
-The EU, as such, will emerge as one the biggest losers. I don't think Italians and Spaniards will soon forget how little help they've had from Brussels and from their neighbors.

[Cheerful]

-The EU, as such, will emerge as one the biggest losers. I don't think Italians and Spaniards will soon forget how little help they've had from Brussels and from their neighbors.

I've also wondered about what this crisis has revealed about the "union" part of the term "EU."

I also wonder about "the whole China thing" and decades of outsourcing of jobs and manufacturing of vital goods because people want "cheap."

[mamselle]

Well, it's fair to point out that Brexit was a stupid distraction at a time when distractions might better have been put aside, if anyone with foresight had considered that possibility.

But the yellow-tufted gooney bird on the island across La Manche from Bruxelles is, like his orange-tufted cousin, mostly only concerned about what gets him attention, power, and headlines.

M.

[Stockmann]

-The EU, as such, will emerge as one the biggest losers. I don't think Italians and Spaniards will soon forget how little help they've had from Brussels and from their neighbors.

I've also wondered about what this crisis has revealed about the "union" part of the term "EU."

Their motto should be "Sauve qui peut!" I think the EU will, ironically enough, evolve towards a more Thatcherite version - a free trade area, but things like a common foreign policy or cross-border coordination in anything other than trade standards and so on is fast becoming laughable. Macron at least seems to understand this, but not many others seem to.

I also wonder about "the whole China thing" and decades of outsourcing of jobs and manufacturing of vital goods because people want "cheap."

But the thing is, China isn't racing the West to the bottom. It's racing it to the top, and in terms of pandemic response it's already won. This "black swan" has revealed not just that the West was unprepared for a pandemic (apparently, the lesson the West drew from SARS, MERS, ebola, zika, swine flu is that these are things that happen to other people) but an astonishing degree of disarray in responding to a crisis - from Trump flip-flopping to EU inability to agree on anything much to confrontation between local and national governments in Switzerland and in the US to Sweden mastering the art of burying one's head in the sand.
This is happening just over a decade after another global crisis was caused by a failure in Western financial governance - young Asians (and not just Asians) who are just coming of age have grown up seeing the West fail while their own societies have got their act together.