COVID-19 — The Potential Aftermath
Being driven mad with the lack of social interaction, more than one-quarter of the world’s 7.8 billion people are now largely confined to their homes. Even the Olympic Games have been postponed for the first time ever. The real world has lately come to resemble a not-so-entertaining game of Plague Inc., and nobody is liking it.
Having effectively come to a standstill, the world is slowing down from a great pace. We might not be handling this sudden change as well as we ought to, but perhaps this slowing of society is something we all have been craving, for a long time.
So far we have been hopeful that the kind of change this pandemic has brought to society and daily life will just have been a blip in time. But with each passing day for which the world holds its breath, human fragility is being further exposed, along with the downside of a massively interconnected world.
We now know that we are living with an economic system that will threaten to collapse at the very next sign of a pandemic, assuming that we can get through this one. We know, just how unprepared we have been to respond to a pandemic at this scale, and we don’t need anyone to tell us that there will be tough times ahead. We cannot lose hope but it is indeed difficult to remain optimistic when everything going on is so negative.
Speaking of negative, is it crude to make oil jokes now?
What is our current situation?
As of April 22, there are more than 2.5 million confirmed cases of infection of the COVID-19 coronavirus worldwide with more than 177,000 confirmed deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. And if this isn’t bad enough, some health experts have suggested that the rate of false-negative tests could be up to 30 per cent.
As the coronavirus brings the global economy to a halt, we are all faced with moral dilemmas on top of the other obvious problems. Some leaders have been suggesting that a few should die so the many can live. Medical personnel are having to decide which person lives and which person dies, as not choosing will likely result in both dying.
And yet, as the saying goes, ‘the cure is worse than the disease’. Many believe that it will be the total economic shutdown that will kill people, way faster than the virus itself.
The strategy of the Prime Minister of UK, who himself has been tested positive for the coronavirus, was to allow the virus to run unchecked in hopes of gaining ‘herd immunity’ in the UK. He was forced to change course, however, when a model showed that some 260,000 people would have to die so that the rest of the UK could live.
And then, of course, there’s the US President Donald Trump and his supporters who have been advocating a considerably darker version of the same, saying the American economy could not be allowed to slip even if that meant sacrificing lives. He claimed that ‘America will again and soon be open for business’, and now there are people gathering on the streets demanding the lockdowns to be lifted immediately. Talk about being counter-productive.
Not nearly as destructive are the protests that the activists of Hong Kong are having even during the lockdown, through a game called Animal Crossing. Creative huh?
What problems are we facing now?
A Fragile Economy.
By 28 February 2020, stock markets worldwide saw their largest single-week declines since the 2008 financial crisis, followed by the global stock markets experiencing their worst crash since 1987. The new Department of Labor filings brings the number of jobless claims over the last four weeks to more than 20 million, telling us loud and clear that people’s dependence on a wage to be able to live has got to reduce.
While the monetary impact on the travel and trade industry is yet to be estimated, it is likely to be in the billions and increasing. Lockdown is clearly placing a lot of pressure on the global economy. We’re facing a serious recession and this pressure has led some world leaders to call for an easing of lockdown measures, which could potentially make the situation much, much worse.
Having to rethink globalization.
During this pandemic, the risks posed by the worldwide interconnectedness have fully entered the public consciousness. Some liberal countries not only closed their borders to travellers but began barring exports as well, looking out for themselves first. The fragility of supply chains has prompted national responses rather than cooperative international ones and now that every country has suddenly begun to fight for itself, the idea of international interdependence appears worth rethinking, to say the least.
Globalization was already in decline well before the outbreak, having reached its peak before the 2008 global financial crisis and never having recovered since then. But the closed borders, travel bans, paralyzed supply chains, and export restrictions will likely lead to an acceleration of changes that have long been in motion toward a different and more limited form of globalization.
What should we be worried about?
The effect on people’s lives.
As governments step up curbs on movement and social contact in a bid to contain the virus, these unprecedented measures are tearing at the social fabric of some societies and disrupting many economies, resulting in mass job losses and raising the spectre of widespread hunger. Homeless people, migrants, prisoners, asylum seekers enduring hostile environments, victims of imperialism in slums and refugee camps are most vulnerable to the pandemic. Especially because for them, social isolation isn’t usually an option.
The political challenges.
On the international level, there will be less cooperation. Most states will be challenged in their resilience economically, socially and in terms of public health. There is a realistic chance that some fragile states may see mass dissidence towards the end of mass mortality, bringing hundreds of thousands on to the street to overthrow regimes whose legitimacy will be undermined by their inability to manage the crisis.
Economic sectors being overwhelmed.
The physical analog world is being wrecked, with traditional businesses including hotels, restaurants and aeroplanes in crisis. The overflow of hospitals could very likely lead to a breakdown in the social order. Moreover, several businesses may die due to the short term cash crisis in a scenario where the government doesn’t provide ample support.
All progress is on hold.
The spread of the coronavirus caused several of the most important tech conferences to be cancelled, likely resulting in numerous missed partnership opportunities. Online alternatives helped limit the fallout from cancelled conferences, but tech industries will likely still suffer a period of stifled innovation due to lost in-person business opportunities.
Trying to predict the future sure is a fool’s game, but there’s no harm in trying is there? Let’s start with the bleakest of possibilities.
Chaos and anarchy.
Dark scenarios of riots or food shortages have not yet occurred, and political squabbles have been put aside and the necessary measures are being taken across society. But over time, the pressure is bound to increase and the reactions of the people to become more emotional. For example, when goods like medicine have to be distributed and some are not considered first, people will begin to get the feeling of being neglected.
Governments take the reins.
The democratic principles that we have laid down over decades, may also very well be endangered by the crisis management. If the governments fail to contain the crisis and the restriction of fundamental freedoms last long enough, the trust of the citizens in the system is bound to erode. If things start to get way out of hand, the governments and even the elites may attempt to rule with almost authoritarian means, either for public welfare or for their own selfish interests to expand their power.
The latter might be the case in Hungary, where the Prime Minister proposed legislation that would allow him to rule by decree, which would mean he could single-handedly suspend existing laws and extend the state of emergency indefinitely. While giving into such ways certainly isn’t desirable, this might end up being our only option in the worst-case scenario.
What are the long term fears?
Capitalism.
Capitalism, an economic system based on selfishness and greed, now faces the deepest crisis in its several centuries of existence. The consequences for workers and poor people will be extreme, both with respect to lives lost to coronavirus and to the existential threats to the billions of people already living in extreme poverty. The pandemic makes a socialist revolution a necessity if human civilization is to survive and if the capitalist destruction of nature, of which the coronavirus epidemic is only the latest symptom, is to end.
Reduced Human Interaction.
Fear of infection is limiting in-person interactions, forcing us deeper into an increasingly chilling use of online platforms for communication. What will we do when the technology we’ve worked so hard to advance, itself dominates us?
Widespread Unemployment.
It is very likely, that in a post-pandemic world, corporations may make less use of human labour, replacing human workers with automation and AI. It will then become imperative to ask how we can protect people financially, should widespread technological unemployment happen even sooner than we anticipated.
Data Privacy.
The pandemic has hit us in the age of digitization. By promising security, especially authoritarians will use the situation to further contract the public space and consume more powers to intervene into private lives, and it seems very likely that individuals may offer up their privacy in return for security.
But then again, isn’t privacy just a cultural construct? Wouldn’t we all share our data willingly, if our health depended on it? This may make us reform our very concepts of data privacy and security by the end of this crisis.
"Look at the development of acoustic biomarkers where, from voice snippets, you can detect a predisposition for Parkinson’s or depression. Data security is something for healthy people. If you are at risk, the odds change rapidly, you become in favor of sharing or donating data." — Tobias Gantner
What changes can we expect in the near future?
In Science and Technology:
Thriving tech companies.
In the post-pandemic world, technology will be as ubiquitous as it is now, if not more, and tech companies will become even more powerful and dominant. That includes smaller firms like Zoom. Prior to this, we saw a period in which people were increasingly more cynical and critical of technology. But, as the pandemic increases our dependence on technology, people will forget their hostility towards technology.
Implementing VR solutions.
Companies have already identified VR as a tool to improve employee training, but the coronavirus could prove to be the impetus for some workplaces to finally implement the technology.
Smart city solutions.
Investment in smart city solutions will continue to grow as the tech has proven to be a valuable tool in crisis management. Take, for instance, the police in China who are using drones with thermal sensors to identify people in public running a fever.
Going remote.
Videoconferencing and remote work have exploded as the virus has spread. Business leaders may come to see that central offices and face-to-face meetings are less vital than they thought. And this might speed up the development of the infrastructure needed to support our online work on a large scale.
In Economies:
The Big Decoupling.
After the travel industry, the companies that have suffered most from COVID-19 are those with just-in-time supply chains highly dependent on China. As a result, the coronavirus has already prompted a re-examination of the world’s central reliance on China as a hub for manufacturing. If the outbreak worsens, we’ll definitely see accelerated decoupling of manufacturing out of China.
Diversifying supply.
When the pandemic spread in the US, Americans learned that 72 per cent of the facilities producing pharmaceutical ingredients for U.S. consumption are located abroad. The share is reported to be as high as 97 per cent for antibiotics. Countries have now realized the risks of globalization and so economies may become less dependent on single sources of supply, and begin diversifying the supply of key inputs by shifting to domestic or regional production.
Global Trade Wars.
Despite the enormous strain on the global economy and warnings from industry, we are bound to be seeing a lot more of the global trade wars, which means more of US and China’s bitter battles for total dominance over… well, anything that they can dominate over.
In Healthcare:
Calls for action.
We haven’t faced a public health emergency of this scale in a century. It is exacting a massive psychological toll on the world’s population, and there are bound to call for action so as to elevate health security to the same priority level as other threats such as nuclear disarmament and terrorism.
Digital technologies.
We are also in for a revolution in the delivery of primary healthcare. Digital technologies will become even more prominent, and we are likely to see a rise in the use of and reliance on telemedicine as well as home testing. In this sense, pandemics are equalizers, allowing us to pinpoint what’s not working and also serving as a starting point to scale and innovate.
In Politics:
Overcoming the damage.
Political debates are likely to stay focused on globalization’s losers. We may see desperate attempts to protect workers from economic damage without undermining globalization’s economic benefits, among attempts to create and maintain a higher standard of living.
Nastier politics.
The ideal reaction to a global outbreak would be a globally unified response. Yeah, don’t bet on it. From closing borders, deporting immigrants, barring exports to never-ending trade wars — governments are going to be looking out for themselves first.
Rethinking policies.
At the national level, this pandemic is forcing many countries to reconsider their social policies, especially social protection and healthcare. In addition, there is an effort to help workers in the informal sector. If these policies, or some variant of them, persist after the outbreak, this will help reduce inequality.
Extended welfare.
We are also seeing governments providing assistance to banks and companies to cushion the effects of both the virus and the lockdowns, in an attempt to keep the economy from collapsing even further. There might be a shift in the policies towards these companies after the pandemic.
In the event, humanity doesn’t perish.
Our best hope, of course, would be a society that practices mutual aid, with individuals and small groups organizing support and care within their communities, aided by the support from the state in the form of extended welfare. On the flip side, the failure of the economy and society would trigger political and social unrest, leading to a failed state and the collapse of both state and community welfare systems.
“The emergency has turned citizens into subjects. Once it’s over, they need to become citizens again.” — Wolfgang Merkel
This pandemic is sure to lead to permanent shifts in political and economic power, but in ways that will become apparent only later. We are at crossroads that will probably be one of the defining moments of our lives and will have lasting effects on people’s values. As society is pulled together, and the potential of collective action becomes more apparent than ever, people may be engraved with a greater sense of community than ever before.
Change, for the better.
A lot of our lives are habitual. But when the system goes through a shock, some of these habits may change. People begin to do daily activities differently and naturally form new habits. Changing our shopping habits alone feels like a big ask. Changing the very way we communicate and behave sure isn’t going to be easy.
An effective response to a pandemic of this magnitude is likely to require radical social change along with, of course, change in the way our economic system works. The upside of this is the possibility that we may build a more humane system that leaves us more resilient in the face of future pandemics and other impending crises like climate change.
How a post-pandemic world will pan out and who we are when this is all over, depends on the choices that we make today. And to the idealists among us, this is just the opportunity to fix flaws that we as a society should have fixed a long, long time ago.
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