I was thinking about this, too. When my oldest son (now 16) was potty-training, we were going through a serious drought, so we were only flushing as necessary. Because he was 2, we just took care of the flushing for him so he didn’t have to make the judgement call, lol. He still VERY OFTEN forgets the whole flushing part.
Meanwhile, I put a little sign up at our front door that says “wash your hands.” My kids have been very conscientious about thoroughly washing their hands every single time they walk in. I really think that once the habit has been instilled, this will probably be something they do the rest of their lives.
Another unanticipated result may be serious upheaval in the US government. The average age for Congress is around 60 years old. All three of our presidential candidates are in their 70s. It’s possible we could have a bunch of seats that need filling.
I think it’s possible to see a major shift in the global logistics and supply system. With the trade war, you were already seeing some companies leaving China. Depending on when or if China gets it shit back together, you might see more companies wanting to at least partially decouple their supply chains from China and maybe from the region, though that’s going to be a lot harder. A lot of countries have become dependent on China’s manufacturing for all manner of things (including medical supplies and critical chemicals), so you might see an effort to change that, at least to become less dependent. And unanticipated aspect might be a lot of social change in China wrt things like their wet market and attitudes hygiene (this might be in a lot more than China as well).
Other unanticipated aspects might be more emphasis on organizations like the CDC, especially with respect to funding but also with respect to just listening to them. I think another unanticipated aspect might be the cleaning up of the WHO from the massive corruption in the organization and the fact that the critical parts of it are underfunded as well (though a lot of that ‘under funding’ has to do with the corruption and how monies are spent).
Another one is this might be the straw that breaks the camels back wrt the Trump administration, if this turns nasty in the US. We have had a critical mismanagement of this outbreak in the US from the perspective of our leadership, but with emphasis on Trump and his mixed messages and the chaos he brings to anything. In this case, however, if the outbreak is as bad as many seem to think, it might be what takes him down. This could be true of several governments…the most unanticipated, if it happens, is that this might be the first step in the CCP going down. Several other governments could fall from this as well, especially due to their own mismanagement.
I live in Iowa, and so far, I’m personally not seeing any difference in traffic or stocked stores (we have a Costco and a Sam’s Club but I’m not a member of either) and school is still in session.
“Unanticipated aspects of a pandemic” are Black Swan events that, by definition, aren’t obvious, and have serious impact. Thus whatever seem logical and isn’t gobsmackingly significant doesn’t fit.
What’s left? Wild cards. New religions, geopolitical superpowers, dance crazes, humanoid mutations and hybrids, telepathic devices, and candlesticks.
But lots of people aren’t going to get paid, and that’s a big deal. Not just the people losing 3 weeks pay, but the “collateral damage”-- I work with a woman whose husband is a roadie–he is a master electrician who does power for shows and music festivals. He’s the main earner–they are seriously fucked. He’s going to lose half a year’s income. If they close the schools, I will be fine, but all the hourly workers won’t get paid. Same for people who work in all kinds of industries that are closing down or slowing way down. Mandatory sick leave pay won’t help them.
This will all lead to a huge drop in spending over the next year, and then it’s just a classic recessionary spiral: low demand leads to low profits, leads to more people being laid off, leads to even lower demand.
If it becomes endemic and they can’t get a vaccine, I guess we will go back to “chicken pox parties”, making sure everyone get it when they are 5-6 years old. Also, at some point we need to be able to test to show someone has had CORVID-19. Because the symptoms can be so mild, I imagine some people are already immune and don’t know it. It would be useful to know.
Just regarding the pharmaceutical supply chain: I wouldn’t worry too much. Just a little. There is still a fairly robust pharma supply chain in the US, and additional capacity in the EU (are we and the EU likely to cooperate or compete in a crisis? I don’t know). There has been a significant move towards China and India, but I’d expect we could gather up the resources to maintain the supply of critical stuff.
That said, converting a facility from making one thing to another (say, from one kind of tablet to another) takes significant time. And changing from one class to another (say, from tablets to parenteral biologics) is effectively impossible without rebuilding the facility
FWIW, I’ve been in pharma development and manufacturing for 25 years, though like most of us as my career has progressed it’s been into a specialized area, so I wouldn’t call myself an expert outside that area, but there is overlap so I’m not ignorant either.
A few of us were talking about that the other day- I remember chicken pox parties when I was a kid. The office millennials thought it was barbaric and insane. That prompted us to start inventing other “common practices” from when we were kids. Some were real (I was routinely sent to buy my dad’s smokes at 11 years old) and some were not. THey were aghast. Good fun.
Taking a crazy tack, would there be societal benefits if 2% or so of the world’s population died? Perhaps greater among the elderly?
The world’s population affects agricultural pollution and energy use. A reduction of the demand would give us breathing space to adjust. (Who am I kidding? We’d use the opportunity to INCREASE our consumption! :smack:)
More elder deaths would speed a transfer of wealth to the next generation - not sure why that would necessarily be a benefit.
I live in China and it’s just been week after week after week of waiting for things to get back to normal.
Work from home, plus no gyms, no movie theaters, no restaurants, no shopping, no events of any kind, even the parks were locked up. And of course no travel. And you were not allowed to have guests come to your housing complex. So there’s just nothing to do. For months.
I know this is small fry compared to being in full quarantine, or being in Hubei itself, let alone getting sick or dying, but it still sucks and it’s the topic of this thread.
Now that the virus seems to be coming under control in China, these restrictions are gradually being lifted. Every day I’m sending friends messages like “OMG Tim Horton’s was open and had, like, 8 people inside!”
However, if the virus risk entirely recedes, there’s no doubt that the Chinese government will turn on the taps. Meaning: even in a normal year, the government has the power to add or remove working days at will (G20 conference this Friday? All non-essential workers must take Friday off and work Sunday instead).
So after this crisis I’m sure there will be a period of enforced overtime for everyone, including weekend working. Schools will likely dramatically shorten, or even completely nix, the summer holiday, as well as having extended hours.
So there’s going to be a long tail to this crisis even under the best case.
(Obviously the US response is necessarily going to be very different to China’s but it’s just worth keeping this in mind as a reference)
Oh, I didn’t mean that it wouldn’t have economic and social consequences, just that it’s unlikely to lead to *“Potentially infrastructure collapse, no police, no medical personnel.” *, as susan had said, and is more likely to be a short-ish period of unusual disruption that we’ll see as really out of the ordinary, assuming that recessions are a normal thing that we see periodically.
I don’t think we are seeing infrastructure collapse, but I think we could be looking at ten years of severely delayed maintenance, on top of what is in many places already too many years of delayed maintenance. I remember 2008, when the cranes* disappeared. They are all over Dallas again–will they go away? It could take a decade for the economy to recover.
You didn’t specify “in the long term.” I live in an area where many communities’ services will fold if 3-5 people in that service fall ill, including, for example, rural police and fire departments.
That’s an extreme example. The same effects could happen if someone brings tainted potato salad to the annual cookout at the county courthouse- the issue isn’t with the virus, it’s with the absolute lack of capacity if 3 people being out sick would cause issues.
It remains to be seen just what level of economic disruption this will cause. The good thing is that this isn’t caused by any kind of systemic issue with the financial system like in 2008, which as I understand it, means that the economy will be poised for quicker recovery when this is over with. Not that it really helps anyone who loses their job or savings, but in an overall sense, it’s a positive thing.
And by “short-ish disruption”, I meant more immediate stuff like self-quarantines, lack of public gatherings, shortages in stores, school closings, etc… not necessarily downstream economic effects for years. The immediate disruption isn’t expected to be too long term- probably by May that’ll be mostly done with.
That’s not anywhere close to the worst case scenario. Only a few thousand elderly is a super optimistic scenario, and probably very unlikely. Even at a 1 % mortality rate and 70 % of the population becoming ill, that means we’re likely to have a few million elderly die. If the mortality rate is closer to 3-4 %, then we’re talking tens of millions.
If hospitalization rates shoot up like some are expecting, I wonder what will happen when the bill comes due for all those families? Waves of medical bankruptcies? The federal government stepping in for relief? Either way, might it make health care reform a little easier?
Yeah, it’s like a doctor I read about a few weeks ago. He’s the only doctor in something like 10,000 square miles and if he’s out of commission, that whole area is without a doctor. But that’s true whether he’s sick with COVID-19 , or ordinary flu, has a heart attack or is badly injured in a car accident. The problem isn’t the reason he can’t work- that could be anything, The problem is that there is only one doctor for such a large area. And it’s the same thing with a police or fire department that’s so small it can’t function if 3-5 people are unable to work - why don’t they have mutual aid agreements with other jurisdictions or have arrangements to call in the county or state police when 3 of the five police officers are sick*
I recently read about how a police chief of a one man police department quit- I can’t even figure out the reason for these tiny police departments. After all, it takes 21 8 hour shifts to have a single officer on duty 24/7 - if there are only one or two officers, it’s seems like the police department is already not functioning for much of the time