COVID-19
COVID-19
Let me just start by saying I am not a doctor and I am not a scientist. I am not an expert in infectious diseases and I am not an expert on pandemics and how they spread. I cannot be any clearer regrading my lack of expertise and how important it is to pay attention to people who are experts from the Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization. Pay attention to your doctors, and other medical professionals and listen to them accordingly. Once again, listen to experts and anything read in this essay is written with the intent to start a conversation and make you start thinking about what a post Coronavirus world might look like. Every single time a pandemic has struck this planet the world has invariably changed. Most of life will return to normal eventually, whether it’s two months, six months, or even a year. However if history is a judge, there are many aspects of our daily lives that will never be the same again. Living in New York City, trapped inside it’s difficult to think about the things you can’t do right now. Visiting friends, using mass transport, even walking to the bodega to get coffee and a newspaper seems like a perilous endeavor. My quarantine musings have allowed me to consider how life might possibly be different, some for the better and some not necessarily for the worse, but just very different.
Toilet Paper
At this point it is more than a tired talking point to discuss how ridiculous the panic buying of toilet paper has become during this crisis. Suffice to say we all know the toilet paper situation right now is insane. Will the outbreak of Coronavirus change the we clean up after number two? I think it could be very possible. The rush on toilet paper is fairly isolated to the United States. This is because almost 80% of the world uses bidets. Before this pandemic bidets were becoming increasingly popular in the United States. I think that it’s likely that as the Coronavirus begins to slow down, people will begin to see the utility and usefulness of the bidet. Let me be clear, it’s very likely Americans will probably return to using wads of rolled up dry paper to clean themselves after they defecate. However it’s certainly something that we as Americans should consider. Besides the fact that in a future crisis we won’t have to risk our health and safety trying to find a roll of toilet paper, but the environmental benefits could be significant. According to Scientific American, over 15 million trees could be saved if Americans switched to bidets. Americans use 36.5 BILLION rolls of toilet paper a year. So why not? Let’s make the switch to bidets.
Shaking Hands
A long time ago, in the introductory essay of Pantology Weekly I discussed the origin of shaking hands. The hand shake is a sign of trust. If you are shaking someones hand you can’t draw your sword on someone. It symbolizes that you’re not going to harm me. In the age of Corona it symbolizes quite the opposite. A hand shake albeit unintentionally can now harm some one. So for the foreseeable future I think shaking hands might be something we won’t see return. Now the handshake has survived scores of epidemics, outbreaks, wars, and pandemics so I do think it might return, but knowing what we know now about the transmissions of diseases and that WAY too many people need to be told that hand washing is a good idea, there is a distinct possibility we will figure out new ways of introducing ourselves that establish trust. Whether its dinking elbows, some sort of hand gesture, or some sort of verbal cue, only time will tell.
Working From Home
People around the globe are suffering right now. Not just from the disease, but due to school closures, sheltering in place, shutdowns, quarantines, etc. The ability to earn income has been drastically reduced or completely severed for a large portion of the global population. For some, jobs are being lost entirely. When the pandemic begins to subside it is my opinion that the social and economic collateral will far outweigh the medical. This is not to mitigate the deadliness or contagiousness of COVID-19, however based on what we have seen so far, we can at the very least be thankful that its not as deadly or dangerous as other infectious diseases and viruses. What we are seeing is that many companies and people are thriving. Many companies have successfully transitioned to a completely mobile workforce and are functioning almost or just a well as they were before the crisis. Companies that weren’t ready for this crisis will now have to reevaluate their work from home capabilities to ensure not only their company’s viability but the ability of their employees to continue working to support themselves and their families. Obviously there a many jobs that cannot simply transition to be work from home but going forward I think that it’s possible many companies will adapt a complete work from home force. The reason for this is that not only will companies save immense resources on expensive office space, but it allows companies to select employees from a larger pool of workers. You can live in California and find a job in the United Kingdom, New York, or Texas. It essentially makes the job market a global prospect not just isolated to cities, states, or countries. Also, childcare particularly in the United States is not cheap and often difficult to find. A mobile workforce will allow parents to more easily care and be with their children. Realistically, I think most businesses will return to normal once this crisis is over. However I do think that this crisis is a good test of what the efficiency of a mobile workforce could be like, and the data gathered from this “experiment” could be used to implement a new way of thinking in how we earn money and how we look for work.
Food and Entertainment
One of the industries most harshly affected by this pandemic is the entertainment industry. Many movies have already been delayed due to the Coronavirus outbreak. Most if not all movie theaters are closed. One consideration that is being tossed around the internet is the possibility of the resurgence of the drive in movie theater. It certainly would be a practical response in at least restoring some semblance of normalcy.
Another industry heavily affected by this pandemic is the food industry. Traditionally restaurants have always operated on the margins. Their daily profits alway went towards the next dinner service and weekly profits went to payroll. Restaurants all over the country are closing by the week putting hundreds of thousands if not millions of food service workers on unemployment. What will the future be for the restaurant owners and businesses? Any food service business that opens in the near and foreseeable future will have to design their businesses around delivery rather than in house dining. According to the CDC and experts not only could this current wave last for upwards of six months but a second or third wave should be expected. This means that it could be a long time before we go out to dinner again. Will restaurants that focus more on delivery than table service become a somewhat permanent change? I think it’s a distinct possibility. I don’t think going out to a restaurant will never be a possibility again, however I think most if not all restaurants will have to make home delivery an important part of their business models.
Tangential to food and entertainment, but an equally important part of both industries is the concept of cash only. The appeal of having an all cash business was already being phased out due to the uptick of digital transaction services becoming fairly ubiquitous in the last few years. However many businesses still enjoyed the luxury having liquid cash flowing through their registers. The problem is that cash is disgusting! Thinking about things now with hindsight, people handling cash and food just seems like a disaster waiting to happen. I feel that many if not most businesses will feel the pressure to make digital transactions more available. There has even been ideas floated at high levels of government to create, a federal digital currency for the United States.
Actual Social Interaction
It is my sincere hope that one of the good changes to come out of this whole pandemic is an appreciation for real human contact and conversation. Maybe, it will be the 100% social media diet that people will be on for the forseeable future that will drive people outside, reconnect, and just appreciate the real world as opposed to the digital. Maybe the thought of being on social media all day everyday will remind them of coronavirus and disgust them. I think (hope) that people will learn to enjoy each others company and not document every second of it for posterity on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Already people are embracing phone calls and video conferencing, over text messages and DMs. Some mobile and internet providers have increased data plans and bandwidth to handle the capacity of all the phone and video calls happening right now. I think that we as society thought that social media and technology was going to become a replacement for human interaction. Sheltering in place has proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt that human beings need social interaction and no matter how funny your Zoom background, or funny the face filters applied on Facetime, they just aren’t a substitute for face to face in person conversations and physical human contact.
Conclusion
I am not going to pretend that any of these changes will really happen. It’s all pure speculation and curiosity. I don’t think anyone can really predict what a post coronavirus world will be like. All I know is that every pandemic since the beginning of time has changed the world in some way shape or form. Every novel virus or disease has changed the way we do certain things. Many turning points in global history have happened as a direct result of large portions of the world population being wiped out or becoming ill. Let me be clear again that I am not an expert, and I am not saying COVID-19 will be nearly as deadly as past pandemics. Thankfully all signs so far are pointing to the fact, that although it is a highly contagious virus, it’s not as deadly others. This is all to say that I don’t think a diametric shift will occur as a result due to massive loss of life. I think the largest things affected by this virus will be economic, and the resulting changes will be societal and financial. There can be no doubt that life will change and things will certainly never be the quite the same again. The question is what will be affected and how we will adapt to a new paradigm.
Follow Pantology Weekly on Instagram @pantolgyweekly and in the comments of the COVID-19 picture, post how you think Coronavirus will change the world and how we do things.
