# Will people change behaviors permanently POST COVID19? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [March 31, 2020, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-people-change-behaviors-permanently-post-covid19/850743 "2020-03-31T15:58:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2020, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-people-change-behaviors-permanently-post-covid19/850743/21 "2020-03-31T23:07:44Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Probably not. People will wash their hands and use hand sanitizer a bit more for awhile but even that habit won’t last. I’m with you here. People are sloppy. socializing beasts. Once CV goes endemic, we’ll relax. Till the next big one - probably circa 2025, say my own insightful intestines. > [@](#): > > The movement towards telecommuting was happening anyway, but most jobs can’t be telecommuted, so that will always be an exception. Telecommuting will be boosted by personal holodecks to give an illusion of personal presence needed for much teamwork. Will many feel isolated and depressed, alone at home, staring at flat screens? Will factory work shift to robots or remote tele-operated devices? Will trucks and taxis go autonomous? (They’ll get lost in my twisty region.) Will teledildonics replace hookers? We’ve seen automation and AI remove many jobs from humans. Even radiologists are out-performed by robo-analysis. Thus do pros find themselves relegated to service-sector work, like my former software team leader managing a Burger Thing after the corporate layoffs. But those service jobs are being roboticized too. I see the question as: How will people behave who are FORCED to interact personally with others? I predict self-identifying cultists wearing smocks and masks in public. A few sharp encounters will teach all but the dumbest to widely avoid them. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2020, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-people-change-behaviors-permanently-post-covid19/850743/22 "2020-04-01T00:51:15Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > If hand washing is the takeaway from all of this, I don’t know what to say. > > You can attend a church service now, wash your hands before and after, not shake hands, and all of that does nothing, if you are still breathing in close proximity to an infected individual. That is how more than 99% of the transmissions are taking place. That is why we have shut everything down. > > Handwashing prevents a POSSIBLE secondary transmission of the virus, through an intermediate item. My belief is that few if any people get infected this way. Maybe only in a hospital, but there the virus is also in the air everywhere too. > > If the virus mutates into something less severe, goes away for some unknown reason, we get herd immunity, vaccine, some other treatment… the significant thing we have lost, the ability to gather together, will return. If it doesn’t, if THAT is permanent, that will dwarf anything else. I think you might be imagining a different future than most people. POST Covid-19 is the period of time after which the risk of contracting the disease is low, but it still looms large in our memory. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, that’s not the case, and our behavior changes are dramatic. But the question is what changes will persist later, when the risk is mostly gone. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2020, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-people-change-behaviors-permanently-post-covid19/850743/23 "2020-04-01T01:25:52Z")
Well, I guess we have the answer to this thead’s question, at least [so far as China is concerned](https://www.ccn.com/shockingly-chinas-wet-markets-are-reopening-will-we-ever-learn/): > [@](#): > > **Shockingly, China’s Wet Markets are Reopening; Will We Ever Learn?** > > Reports show China’s wet markets, which scientists believe triggered the coronavirus pandemic, have reopened after relaxed lockdown measures. _Much, much more at the link._ Morons. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2020, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-people-change-behaviors-permanently-post-covid19/850743/24 "2020-04-01T01:28:45Z")
Cruise ships will suffer. People will keep more toilet paper and wipes around. Hand washing will become slightly more popular. The school summer vacation this year will be short. More people will get hooked on baking bread. Gyms will see slightly increased business. Venice might finally ban cruise ships. But most of these things will revert to normal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-people-change-behaviors-permanently-post-covid19/850743.md?page=1)