Sure, but even then, accelerating changes compared to those changes happening organically over time will likely lead to different ways those changes are felt in society.
Increasing teleworking may have been going on, but it was happening slowly (the vast majority of employees still go to an office) and infrastructure changes were also moving slowly to accommodate that.
I actually don’t know if teleworking was going to be something that the majority of workers would be doing in the future (more of a significant minority, but most would still go into the office - in fact a few months ago, my office which had a policy that you could telework 4 days a week if your manager was ok with it, put it a 2x a week limit - because it was deemed important to have people in the office, rather than calling in, for meetings). Now, I think it may be something that is far more adopted. And that does have impact for how our society looks I think.
Now, what those changes will be, I have no idea. But I do think it’s a different course than prior to pandemic.
I almost forgot. One of the more interesting things I’ve participated in (workwise) during lockdown has been a virtual deposition. We’ve always been told that in person depositions are essential to do our jobs - with us and the court reporter in the room. Well the virtual deposition worked just fine. We were told this is a ‘only because of pandemic’ sort of thing, but I can easily see that as an option moving forward.
So some of the changes may be due to people forced to doing things virtually and realizing hey, that wasn’t so bad.
We’ve been doing video conference depositions for years, but the thought was always the “important” ones should be done in person. I hope I never have to fly across country for a two hour deposition again. It’s working fine this way.
Also, I’ve had three zoom meditations in the past few weeks. It’s as good as in person.
The vast majority of employees will still go to work, because they don’t have an “office.” Teleconferencing isn’t going to send more than a very small portion of employees home.
It seems to be repeatedly forgotten by people who are lucky enough to have office jobs than most people don’t, and many who have them don’t have the sort you can do from home.
“Canadians and Americans” don’t belong in a single group in this respect. Americans are glommy and can’t stop touching one another and, when I’m in range, me. Canadians only touch each other to mate.
Sorry for your bad experience when you were last in the U.S. But, I don’t believe it is representative of Americans in general. You should travel more.
I think it’s pessimistic to think that going back to normal indicates that we learned nothing. I think it mostly indicates that the measures we’re taking right now aren’t generally necessary.
Given how difficult it has been to get them to wear masks during a pandemic this seems like a pretty safe assumption.
I am moderately hopeful that the people who are wearing masks now will do so the next time there’s the threat of a pandemic. Of course, it’ll be easier to get that to happen if WHO and the CDC don’t spend the critical early months telling people not to wear masks.
I also think you might see a change of norms in public transit in dense urban areas and people will continue wearing masks there. They’re a lot more generally useful there, and there’s a lot less “COUGHING ON PEOPLE IS A CIVIL RIGHT” sentiment in those cities. I don’t think this is likely, but it’s not crazy if it happens.
I think this will probably happen, too. We’re pretty good at preparing for the last disaster. Of course, it’s not clear that ventilators will be what’s needed for the next pandemic, but PPE stockpiles and the ability to ramp production and hospital capacity up will be generally useful.
One of the biggest needs aside from PPE are various therapeutic and anesthetic drugs, and hospitals current try to manage these in a ‘just-in-time’ inventory with a small reserve because they take a lot of space, have fairly rigorous controls, and many have a limited shelf life, but having a ‘strategic pharmaceutical stockpile’ that can be rapidly shipped to wherever it is needed is crucial to an effective response regardless of what the next epidemic pathogen is.
I think a lot of people are underestimating the impact of this event. It happened in the context of our national already being on incredibly shaky ground. Or government has been dismantled and our institutions are in collapse. There’s not going to be some kind of return to normal, the past few years are The new normal, America will lurch from crisis to crisis, being diminished every time; pandemic season will bleed into hurricane season, which will bleed in to some other horror. Our lack of resilience and inability to respond are the only thing we can count on.
Did most of the developed world’s economies shut down in either of those years? Did unemployment reach levels unseen since the Great Depression? Do you really think those are good analogies to 2020? Interesting.
I dunno about North or South America but in the States - the permanent changes will be:
OnLine Learning - school lessons
Homeschooling - that’s where the guardians decide the lessons (probably why the devos family planted all those anti-quarantine facebook pages)
Less school shootings
Less business flight travel
Working from home
Have methods in place for prisons since the occupants aren’t able to social distance
Gen Y and Z won’t buy cars or houses. They’ll accumulate less stuff and be part of the Van Movement.
Less car travel
Maybe the cost of concerts will come down and Ticketmaster can go away. Ditto, sports. Nonetheless, handshakes will resume, folks will still think antibacterial sanitizers kill a virus and there won’t be universal health care.
Nope, my job shipped my office cases of hand sanitizer last month. It very clearly said “alcohol free” ( which no one noticed until I was opening boxes) - had Benzalkonium chloride instead. Probably works for 99.9% of bacteria- but not viruses.
And reputable brands make non-alcohol sanitizer
I hope a lot changes politically / socioeconomically, but as far as day-to-day behavior, I don’t think much will racially change. I think the plastic dividers at stores, businesses and post offices will stay. Possibly more public events (lectures, etc.) will be available virtually. But I think there will still be crowds and handshaking.