# Assuming America survives this: Name permanent changes to American life **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [May 4, 2020, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112 "2020-05-04T07:21:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/121 "2020-05-12T17:41:30Z")
> [@EmilyG](#): > > There should be free healthcare for all Americans after this. Well, even in Canada (and other countries with a sane health system) it ain’t “free”, as i know health care is a huge portion of the provincial budget (one site said “on average, 38%”; another said “11% of Canada’s GDP”)… By contrast, healthcare in the US uses about 17% of our GDP. Which of course supports the oft-cited argument “spend more, get less” about US healthcare. I doubt things will change due to COVID, sadly. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/122 "2020-05-12T18:03:56Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > Sure, but the post I responded to posited a reduction in the number of hunters. I just don’t see that happening. I’m sure that if I lost my job I couldn’t just buy a rifle and go bag myself a deer, but I know people who hunt. I’d ask them to teach me! Yeah. I don’t see the pandemic having a significant impact on the deer season in Arkansas this year let alone a few years down the road. Unless all those people I see at Kroger without masks die off. > [@](#): > > I did a quick search and found [this article](https://www.knkx.org/post/hunting-and-fishing-rise-bad-economy), which mentions that hunting and fishing permits increased during the Great Recession. Depending on your location, hunting and fishing are relatively inexpensive activities so I could see why they might increase in times of economic distress. Fishing is fun even when you’re not actually catching any fish. It’s something to do at anyway. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/123 "2020-05-12T18:07:06Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > People have been predicting the rise of delivery-only restaurants for a while, and I can see that actually happening now a lot more. > > Existing restaurants that survive probably will mostly keep their existing locations. But someone starting a new restaurant 6 months from now is going to think really hard about setting up a kitchen in cheap out-of-the way real estate with no on-site dining and being delivery/pickup only. > > If you’re not fine dining, renting a bunch of seating space that will be sparsely filled for a while and risks being shut down (or just abandoned by customers) whenever there’s a flareup is _really_ risky. That is logical, but people who open independent restaurants are NOT logical. The great majority of them have far more optimism than they do a well thought out business plan. Restauranteurs are a self-selecting group of people who are disproportionately unrealistic about their chances to the point of self-delusion. That’s why the great majority fail, and many of the ones that don’t fail don’t make much money anyway and are a thankless grind. If there is going to be a reduction in new starts, it’ll be big chain restaurants, who will run the cold equations and decide a location that would once have turned a 6 percent profit will now run at a 3 percent loss. Of course, that will actually give the independents a tiny boost, as they’ll have a little less competition from big corporations that could previously muscle them out. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/124 "2020-05-12T18:35:44Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > Agreed. I think people are way, way overestimating the effect this will have on society in general. (For comparison purposes, we’ve heard a lot about the Spanish flu of late, but there are two pandemics _within living memory_ that killed 1,000,000+ people worldwide, in [1957-58](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1957%E2%80%9358_influenza_pandemic) and [1968-69](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_flu). And … nobody remembers them. I asked my parents, who are old enough to remember, and they had no idea these events even occurred. There was, I have heard, a rather well-attended music festival in 1969, a matter of months after 100,000 people in the US died of flu.) I remember the 1968-69 school year quite well, but I don’t remember me or my family or my school having to make any adjustments to our daily lives at the time on account of the Hong Kong flu. I remember its being in the news, but that’s it. I remember participating in campaign events with lots of people in the fall of 1968 (I was a member of our local Youth For Nixon chapter, believe it or not! :D), and being in crowds at high school football and basketball games that year, and of course school itself on a daily basis. IOW, all the stuff we’re **not** doing now. I don’t think I was more than barely aware of the 2009-10 H1N1 pandemic that **Stranger** mentions. There are years in one’s adult life where one year fades into the next after a while, but there are exceptions, and 2009 is one of those years in my life: it’s the year we adopted the Firebug, so I can remember a metric ton of details about that specific year. But I only remember H1N1 as a name; even with a new child to protect, I don’t remember changing _anything_ in response to it. So AFAICT, every one of the zero changes our society had to make on account of H1N1 and the Hong Kong flu is still with us. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/125 "2020-05-12T18:47:45Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > Mask-wearing will never become “the norm” - hell, even right now people are freaking out about being required to wear a mask just to go shopping. Pity - as at least during a crisis, I see a lot of benefit in the social-shaming aspect “what do you mean, you aren’t wearing a mask??? Are you a MONSTER???” - peer pressure could go a long way in increasing mask usage / reducing transmission. In a future outbreak (of covid or flu or whatever), it would have to be a crisis situation for masks to become commonplace even in the short term. Is anyone suggesting that we wear masks after the pandemic has passed? I don’t imagine there is any need to wear masks in normal times. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/126 "2020-05-12T18:55:53Z")
I see a big boost in non-enclosed sit-down dining. There’s a BBQ place in my town that only opens on weekends in a parking lot. Throw a few picnic tables around the lot with distancing and they will do just fine. Minimal overhead, minimal labor costs, minimal contact, maximal service and food. No reason that can’t be adapted to other cuisines. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/127 "2020-05-12T19:13:49Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > That is logical, but people who open independent restaurants are NOT logical. The great majority of them have far more optimism than they do a well thought out business plan. Restauranteurs are a self-selecting group of people who are disproportionately unrealistic about their chances to the point of self-delusion. That’s why the great majority fail, and many of the ones that don’t fail don’t make much money anyway and are a thankless grind. This is true; I’ve watched dozens of episodes of Hell’s Kitchen and Restaurant Impossible, in which a restaurant professional tries to save a failing restaurant. At the beginning, the host asks the hapless owner what their background is and why they opened a restaurant, and fairly often, they have no professional training and just opened the restaurant because it seemed a good idea. And the impression I get is that owning and running a restaurant is an unbelievable amount of work. ---
**Author:** ![Jane\_Elliot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jane_elliot/32/6166_2.png) [@Jane\_Elliot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jane_Elliot)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/128 "2020-05-12T19:41:12Z")
The coffee shop two doors down from me opened 2 years ago, got sold in October 2019, and reopened in January. The new owners let go of all the staff from the former shop to run it with just the owners and one parttime dishwasher. After they closed in March, they spent the time reconfiguring into a small grocer, with just 3 seating areas. They reopened today. They had to use a lot of imagination and be pretty nimble to keep things together. I’ll be interested to see how they do. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/129 "2020-05-12T19:50:32Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > This is true; I’ve watched dozens of episodes of Hell’s Kitchen and Restaurant Impossible, in which a restaurant professional tries to save a failing restaurant. At the beginning, the host asks the hapless owner what their background is and why they opened a restaurant, and fairly often, they have no professional training and just opened the restaurant because it seemed a good idea. And the impression I get is that owning and running a restaurant is an unbelievable amount of work. It is. I briefly ran a burger and breakfast joint with a friend. It was near the coast in a area with a lot of industry. The workers all came for breakfast and lunch, sometimes for a beer after work. We opened at 6AM, closed at 6PM, M-F. Short orders. She was friends of the owners, who had run the place for decades. Health problems occured and they couldnt do it anymore but they had a year left on the lease. So we took it over for them, she did the waitressing -wore a low cut blouse to get tips (she was proud of her bust and liked showing it off). I did the cooking . There was a busboy, a dishwasher guy and cleaners. Eggs, bacon, burger patties, ham and chorizo for breakfast. 6-10. 10-11 break. Surprising how many wanted beer for breakfast. Coffee. Bottled sodas in a cooler. Burgers for lunch. Lots of beer. That _cheeseburger, cheeseburger, no fries chips_ sketch really hits home. 11-1. 1-2 break. At 3 or 4 the workers got off, dropped by for a beer, sometimes a burger. Hard, hot work. But since the rent was peanuts, and they already had quite a bit of food bought, the profits were decent. The building owners wanted a five X rent increase for the next 5 years so the old couple sold it. I was glad. She made quite a bit of money in tips. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/130 "2020-05-12T20:47:00Z")
I’m enjoying watching United and Delta Airlines videos on YouTube showing how thoroughly they are now disinfectant-fogging, wiping, cleaning, HEPA-filtering everything now. About time considering that even before the pandemic, airplane cabins were typically already germ-ridden and dirty. Hope this remains as a permanent trend. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/131 "2020-05-12T21:13:00Z")
Temporary changes that will be reversed: [ul] [li]Anything that cuts into corporate bottom lines[/li][li]Anything that impedes employers from monitoring their employees in person if possible[/li][li]Packing people into the smallest possible space to save money (offices, airline seats, etc)[/li][/ul] Permanent changes: [ul] [li]Rampant digital surveillance[/li][li]Anywhere that telepresence saves business expenses by reducing the quality of consumer experience[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/132 "2020-05-12T21:20:04Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > We had a huge oversupply glut of restaurants to begin with. By what measure do you reckon there was a glut of restaurants? They’re difficult to run and prone to failure. An open restaurant is a market demand signal. Of course you do have a lot of failed restaurants and money-laundering operations, but the former is unlikely to stick around and the latter is fairly immune to market pressure. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/133 "2020-05-12T21:33:01Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I’m enjoying watching United and Delta Airlines videos on YouTube showing how thoroughly they are now disinfectant-fogging, wiping, cleaning, HEPA-filtering everything now. About time considering that even before the pandemic, airplane cabins were typically already germ-ridden and dirty. Hope this remains as a permanent trend. Wouldn’t hold my breath for that one. This is only happening because bookings are down 95%. They’ll scrap this as soon as bookings are back to normal and nobody is paying attention. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/134 "2020-05-13T00:10:52Z")
I think it is probably premature to accurately gauge what if any permanent changes Covid-19 makes to American life. It really depends how this plays out. The big question to me is whether this becomes an annual thing where we have new strains of Corona re-appearing ala the Flu in the winter severe enough to necessitate shutdowns. If we ended up having regular shutdowns over the next few years the economic impact will be horrific. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/135 "2020-05-13T00:35:32Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > The big question to me is whether this becomes an annual thing where we have new strains of Corona re-appearing ala the Flu in the winter severe enough to necessitate shutdowns. If we ended up having regular shutdowns over the next few years the economic impact will be horrific. I wouldn’t worry about that. No matter how many people are dying, there isn’t a populace in the world that would accept regular, repeated shutdowns, nor a government that would survive trying. ---
**Author:** ![sunstone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunstone/32/3372_2.png) [@sunstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunstone)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/136 "2020-05-13T00:58:28Z")
“All you can eat” restaurants where the customer carries a plate to the food tables and loads up using shared serving utensils seem to be a real problem for virus transmission, and I predict that either there will be a large change in how they are run, or they will become extinct. I think extinction is the most likely outcome. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/137 "2020-05-13T01:17:25Z")
> [@sunstone](#): > > “All you can eat” restaurants where the customer carries a plate to the food tables and loads up using shared serving utensils seem to be a real problem for virus transmission, and I predict that either there will be a large change in how they are run, or they will become extinct. I think extinction is the most likely outcome. I had a seafood buffet on Ash Wednesday and that’ll probably be the last buffet I’ll ever see. I can see maybe a cafeteria style service but that can get labor intensive and will cost more. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/138 "2020-05-13T03:44:30Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > This is true; I’ve watched dozens of episodes of Hell’s Kitchen and Restaurant Impossible, in which a restaurant professional tries to save a failing restaurant. At the beginning, the host asks the hapless owner what their background is and why they opened a restaurant, and fairly often, they have no professional training and just opened the restaurant because it seemed a good idea. And the impression I get is that owning and running a restaurant is an unbelievable amount of work. I’ve read a few stories about people who opened restaurants in Toronto - I posted a thread about one a few years ago. Absolutely without exception: 1. The entrepreneur loved food and enjoyed cooking food but had no business experience, 2. They never bothered to hire a experienced restaurant manager BEFORE getting into business, 3. Their estimates of setup costs were comically ignorant, and 4. They had no cash reserves in case there were any unexpected expenses, and ended up putting their families at risk of losing their homes. It was truly mesmerizing. One of the reasons chain restaurants push independents out of business is that they aren’t started by morons. If Boston Pizza or Kelsey’s opens a new restaurant they know exactly, to the dollar, what it will cost to do so, how much revenue the restaurant must make to be worth it, and whether or not the surrounding area will support that much revenue. They can open the restaurant in 4 months because they know precisely what to buy, what permits to get, how to build it and what order to do those things in. If those things add up to profit, they open. If they don’t, they don’t. But hope springs eternal in the breast of the guy who just thinks he cooks a great chicken marsala, so he mortgages his house and runs headlong into it not knowing what the hell he’s doing. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/139 "2020-05-13T04:52:38Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > I think it is probably premature to accurately gauge what if any permanent changes Covid-19 makes to American life. It really depends how this plays out. > > The big question to me is whether this becomes an annual thing where we have new strains of Corona re-appearing ala the Flu in the winter severe enough to necessitate shutdowns. If we ended up having regular shutdowns over the next few years the economic impact will be horrific. This pandemic will hopefully sound the death knell for the anti-vaxxer movement. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112/140 "2020-05-13T09:00:06Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > This pandemic will hopefully sound the death knell for the anti-vaxxer movement. Hah! It is to laugh! You drastically underestimate the human ability to be flim-flammed. Also, AFAIK, that lunatic McCarthy is still around to spread her nonsense. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-america-survives-this-name-permanent-changes-to-american-life/853112.md?page=8)