There are myriad articles sprouting across the internet predicting what a post COVID-19 world will look like. Most of them are full of shit. The predictions vary from, we’re all going to work from home, to, the global economy is going to fundamentally change. This is our chance to make it more fair, more equitable for all.
Here are the only three predictions concerning the world post COVID-19 I’m prepared to make:
- We will never agree on what happened during COVID-19. We will debate how much of a threat COVID-19 posed to humans, if our response to the virus was proportionate to the threat and even what the Coronavirus’s mortality rate really was. Instead, the effects of COVID-19 will be understood in economic terms. And the consensus will be that the impact was dire.
- We won’t know when we arrived in a post COVID-19 world. As with most things, we’ll adapt and over time our fear of the virus will fade and life will adjust to a new normal that won’t seem all that different from the old normal.
- Most of us who didn’t fall ill or know someone who was affected by the virus will think that global response to the pandemic ill considered and the consequences unacceptable.
OK, I lied. I have a fourth prediction which, in my defense, is predicated on the above points.
4. COVID and the way the world responded to this pandemic will further entrench the divisions in our society, and ultimately we will be no better prepared for the next pandemic that will inevitably find us.