Post-Pandemic Times
Post-pandemic times will feel like a new era, once we can rub shoulders again. Relief, yes — but our world will also work differently after such a sudden shock to our ways of life. If we are to successfully stave off climate disasters from mega heatwaves and other extreme weather, it will require large-scale government coordination and prodding, similar to preparing for pandemics.
The world of work will have seen what large-scale telecommuting can do — and cannot do. Businesses that succeeded with work-from-home will discover that they don’t need as much office space and will sublet the excess. Finding a parking space might be easier. We might have less cross-town traffic congestion because so many people became accustomed to on-line grocery shopping with delivery. Many pharmacies forced into delivery will continue the service, having worked out the kinks. On the other hand, a reluctance to ride crowded public transit may carry over into post-pandemic times; bookstore browsing might fall off.
My home office near downtown Seattle is surrounded by tower cranes for four additional apartment buildings. Will their project financing (much of which is said to come from China) disappear, causing the apartment buildings to be topped out at half height? Stunted skyscrapers? To the extent that the elderly die or move to assisted living, a lot of existing apartments may open up.
When the lockdown ends, we will take stock. At one level, there will be Congressional investigations about the screwups at the top, concerning such essentials as ventilators, test kits, and personal precaution single-use items. And more seriously, allowing needless disease spread. Ten weeks was frittered away in wishful thinking, compared to Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea, who listened to the epidemiologists and acted promptly.
But at a more meta level, we will be taking stock of what we should expect government to do for us as we lose backup from family support, with our grown children living farther away (and fewer of them), and as our economy and supply lines become more complex. Will America finally adopt a Canadian or European model of medical care for all? A guaranteed annual income that can end most homelessness? Will we abolish student loans and tuition with higher education grants? We will have seen government actions in each of those areas during the pandemic crisis; will they be carried over into post-pandemic times?
Then there is the economy and taxation. Each time that I have met an economist in the last fifteen years, I have asked if there is a subspecialty for emergency economics: “You know, like the price stabilization program during World War Two that John Kenneth Galbraith ran.” I’ve yet to hear of anyone seriously studying the subject. In post-pandemic times, we will be debating how much to keep of the emergency economic innovations that were tried out for the first time during the pandemic.
What if a second wave of Covid-19 comes around later this year? There might be less economic shutdown because there will be people with acquired immunity to the coronavirus, both the formerly ill and those who never knew they were carriers. Once we have a blood test for the antibodies, we could have a way of certifying people who are safe to work closer than six feet to others, just as we now have tests for food service workers administered by the local public health agencies.
In what ways will the political scene change? Many communities will permanently adopt vote-by-mail, what Washington State has been doing for many years — just mailing out, unasked, an absentee ballot to every registered voter, with free postage for the return.
Colorado found that the cost of an election dropped an average of 40 percent [1]. Because the ballot can be mailed back over several weeks’ time, it reduces the power of last-minute slanders (where the victim has no time to answer before election day) to influence most voting.
In the runup to election day, the budget-cutting, small-government-is-better types will have their past statements thrown back at them, in light of the staggering consequences. Their opponents will run ads on the “penny wise, pound foolish” theme. Or maybe “Asleep at the wheel.”
I think that we will see many more Members of Congress announcing their retirement before summer. Their replacements will likely favor a more activist government that spends more on prevention — and on staying prepared for sudden hits of all sorts.
Especially climate change. While some aspects of the new climate arrive slowly, those mega heat waves can appear as suddenly as a new virus and overload hospitals (and morgues) just as badly. They need not be hotter than the average heat wave; their threat comes from lasting so long.
The mega in Europe killed 70,000 people in 2003; seven years later in 2010, the Russian mega killed 56,000 people. That heatwave also ruined nearly a third of the Russian grain crop, often exported. When winter arrived, the grain shortage synchronized bread riots all around the Mediterranean in the “Arab Spring Uprisings.” Political instability comes with climate change [2] as well as pandemics.
Are we preparing for an “American Mega”? Not obviously, and our sluggish response to the pandemic suggests that we could suffer 50,000 needless deaths when our mega hits. What would soften the blow is more vigorous governmental leadership — beforehand.
William H. Calvin, Ph.D., is the president of CO2Foundation.org and a professor emeritus at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. Forthcoming is his 17th book, “Extreme Weather and What to Do About It.”
