A consequence of Covid-19 that I would like to see become permanent is a world-wide decrease in carbon emission and a sustained decreased deleterious human impact on the environment.
Carbon emissions dropped ~17% at the height of the lock-down. Wouldn’t it be great if we could sustain that drop and still recover the economy and still live happy lives? I believe it’s possible, though improbable due to mankind’s reluctance to commit to perceived long term painful lifestyle changes after a threat of relatively short duration (~a year or less) subsides.
I believe to affect and sustain a paradigm shift in the worlds attitude toward infection control (and consequently healing the biosphere) necessitates a longer term threat (e.g. >1 year). Enough time is needed to see that economies can adapt and thrive with a largely work-from-home workforce. Enough time is needed to show people they can adapt and be happy sustaining a lower carbon footprint (less congested roadways is one of many benefits people can appreciate right away). And enough time is needed to actually see the positive effects of a lowered world-wide carbon footprint on our biosphere (e.g. slowing/stopping global warming, recovery of national park wildlife, rebounding of coral reefs, etc. etc.).
It’s one thing to predict and discuss positive effects of lower carbon emissions, but a far better thing to actually experience the positive effects. Show people a better world to live in with manageable lifestyle changes and they are more likely to comply. Maybe that’s an overly optimistic hope for humankind in general, but even if a significant percent of people are willing to change, that may be enough to tip the scales toward a cascade of societal changes that lead to healing the environment).
I’m not wearing rose-colored glasses believing mankind will undergo a paradigm shift solely for altruistic reasons (“meh, screw the honeybees and frogs, I’m gonna burn fossil fuel in my V8 to my heart’s content”). But, if they do it for selfish reasons (i.e. “I don’t want to die from Covid-19”), but the secondary consequence is healing our environment, that’s good enough.
So, maybe the best scenario is for Covid-19 to hang around for a couple years and be particularly harsh on maskholes and Covidiots.
If we took a poll for “what species should be booted off the planet” and the voters were all species except humans, I’m confident 99.9+% would vote us off (pampered cats and poodles may be the only ones who vote for us to stay). We should be ashamed. Maybe this is an opportunity to curry favor with our Earth-mates.
You’re like far outer ring DFW, right? Panic/safety rooms have been a thing in Fancy Dallas for a long time. They often are 4 fold in purpose: crime, weather, future elevator shaft for when you get old, storage. They are really quite cheap to build into new construction and builders found out that people really liked them. I honestly think it’s more a fashion trend, like wet bars, than an actual indication of public anxiety. People are a lot more wary of tornados than hooligans, and that’s in Dallas neighborhoods that are a lot closer to genuinely dodgy areas, especially because we’ve had some bad storms in recent years.
I believe enough people can successfully transition to WFH to significantly improve the downward health-spiral of our planet. Some businesses can function wholly WFH and other businesses can function partially WFH. I believe businesses that need to remain wholly non-WFH are the minority.
And, with technology available today (and more so in the near future), the need to travel and intermingle our bodies for recreation can also be significantly reduced (not 100%…we still need hoochie-coochie time ).
Let’s take stadium sports and concerts as an example. We can have tens of thousands of people burn fossil fuel getting to and from stadiums for events, then pack in like sardines for a couple hours spewing phlegm to and fro, or we can stay home and watch the event on TV. Sure, the way we watch games/concerts on TV today does not give the full experience of attending a live event, but it can certainly come close, and soon, home-viewing may become a vastly superior experience.
Imagine watching your favorite game on a screen the size of your living room wall, or with a VR helmet and a premium sound system. Instead of sitting next to a bunch of anonymous nimrods in a stadium, you get to pick and choose the people you watch the game with. With Zoom-like video sub-screens you can virtually sit next to and hoot and holler with friends and family from anywhere in the world. What’s missing? Fresh air? Open your living room window!
Event money makers can provide the specialized apps to show the games/concerts and sell tickets to watch them in fully-immersive mode. Instead of selling seats in the stadium, they’d sell seats in your living room. Stadiums can be built smaller and cheaper with just a playing field or stage. Players and show-runners can be protected from infection much easier in a stadium devoid of fans.
This kind of tech can extend to many venues. F’instance, I’d pay good money to take a virtual tour of the Louvre, rather than fly to France (and have to deal with French people ).
But, how much different is interacting with someone in a shared VR environment from interacting with them in the flesh? Sure, you can’t touch them, or smell them, but that’s not altogether a bad thing. If your uncle Fred has BO, wouldn’t you rather socialize with him virtually?
Another way to achieve your desired emissions reductions via COVID is simply to let it kill a couple billion people. That’d probably be easier to implement than your laundry list of changes.
Gosh knows the USA is, as usual, leading the charge into this Brave New Future! By golly, we’re gonna be great at something!
Covid-19 is gonna need a bigger boat to reach those numbers. The Pandemic of 1918 is regarded as the deadliest pandemic in history. It infected ~1/3 of the worlds population and killed a devastating 50-100-million people. But, still, that was only ~2.5% of the worlds population. I don’t believe a pandemic will stop global warming, it’s going to take a monumental shift in how we energize society either through attitude adjustment or game-changing energy technology (e.g. cold fusion, room temp superconductivity or something similar).
I can look at a picture of the Mona Lisa on my computer. In the future (potentially even today), that would be an enhanced version of seeing it live. You could zoom in on each brush stroke, see annotations about different areas, compare/contrast areas before and after restoration, etc. That still wouldn’t replace seeing it in person and sharing space with something that historic.
There may be plenty of other immigrants with a few bucks who will try though. That’s just it- even if the current restaurants fail, there’s plenty to suggest that others will fill that void, because there’s money to be made, and low barriers to entry.
Permanent cultural changes will be few. But if the virus or its next-year mutation or successor pandemic become permanent features of the human experience, then permanent changes to public health codes, building codes, etc. may enter into it.
Specifically as to restaurants …
Assume by next year it’s become obvious and a permanent legislated legal requirement that you can’t allow dining groups above 6 people anywhere any time and you must have 10 empty feet between each table and you must have aggressive air ventilation that has no air recirculation.
Those changes would greatly alter the economics of restaurants that depend on a few hours of maximum density sales to pay their overhead and salaries. The intimate $100/plate steak houses would survive albeit with even higher prices. The shoulder-to-shoulder urban lunch counters and corporate TGIF-equivalents would not. And more importantly could not be replaced. Cheap food service might still exist, but only in a takeout/delivery form. Which has an inherently much lower demand than does dine-in.
TLDR on my above post: A permanent reduction in number & size of the restaurant industry is not out of the question. In fact it seems rather likely.
Demand in the absolute might be eternal; people like to eat out. But demand slopes down as price goes up. And if disease enacts what’s effectively a high tax on restaurant ops, the increased costs will drive decreased demand as surely as sunrise.
I suspect food trucks will become even more numerous in this scenario. Low barrier to entry, easy separation, easy to relocate (or park during flareups) and able to sell prices low enough to attract customers.
I think it’s important to view the current situation in a historical perspective when discussing permanent changes. COVID-19 is nowhere near as deadly or devastating as the 1918 flu. What permanent changes resulted after 1918?
Yes, if we’re in permanent Pandemic Mode, a lot will change. But assuming the pandemic ends sometime in the next 12 months or so, I don’t see life 3 years from now that different than life last year. Less business travel, a modest increase in number of people working from home, and (maybe) more people getting an annual flu shot.
This article from the BBC goes into some of the changes and impact of the Spanish flu, like a greater emphasis on public health and universal healthcare.
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