The other side of the window — Life after quarantine
The faint smell of freshly brewed coffee wafts in from your open balcony from the neighbour’s kitchen, gently waking you up. It’s the 5th of January, a day before your birthday. You get up from your bed and look out from your balcony. The trees sway in the gentle breeze, your neighbour’s kid is practising on her keyboard. Taking a deep breath you go back inside; the music fades away as you close the door and go about your routine.
The morning workout starts promptly, as you load up the YouTube playlist and follow the woman in the video as she enthusiastically starts with a warm-up. 45 minutes later, you close the tab and open up Spotify. Time for a shower. As you scrub in tune to ‘Break Your Heart’, you reminisce about birthdays past; the excitement of organising a party, with a smorgasbord of food and a shelf stacked with the beverages of everyone’s choice. Voices, laughter and dances erupting from various corners of the house as the evening turns into night. You shake away the thought as you leave the shower.
You make yourself a cup of tea and a sandwich and go back into your room. It’s workday, you go to your laptop and login for the day, checking your agenda for today’s meetings. You’re already a few minutes late to a team meeting on MS Teams. Glancing at your phone, you see 20 unread messages and 10 missed calls from friends and family. Confused, you wonder what could be wrong. Did someone you know get a bad diagnosis? You open your messages and read them. And then you remember. How could you have forgotten?
The 2-year lockdown ended an hour ago.
As it stands, governments all over the world are scrambling to find the most effective way to curb the spread of COVID-19. And many of those governments have opted to issue a lockdown order, forcing civilians to stay at home. Others have chosen to strongly encourage self-quarantining. Regardless, a prolonged quarantine, as most of us are facing today is bound to have lasting consequences. Eventually, this too shall pass and we will be free once again. But how would the outside world be when we do cross that fence?
You, Me, and Us
How do you greet your friend(s) when you meet them outside at the corner cafe? Perhaps you’re a hugger (like I am) and greet each of them with a warm embrace. Perhaps you’re more used to fist bumps. Perhaps you’re European and you kiss across the cheeks 2-3 times. Or perhaps you just wave at them, and a head nod to acknowledge their presence. If you’re in that last category, you’re probably already ahead of the curve.
The post corona world will probably see a change in the way we regularly interact with the people we meet. After months of social distancing, it would not seem odd to hang back a bit when you greet someone. We would hesitate before we plunge our fingers into that free peanuts cup at the pub. And maybe we do not go to the cinema as often. How we perceive hangouts could fundamentally change when we see the efficacy of the alternatives we have been using during the quarantine. Virtual dinners, virtual happy hours, Netflix parties, multiplayer gaming, ‘Houseparty’, Twitch Sings. People have found ways to connect and do everything they used to, but from behind a screen.
‘Us’ and ‘Them’
Fear of the unknown and the unseen.
On a train ride from Utrecht to Rotterdam in early February (2020), we stopped at Gouda and an Asian family got in, sitting opposite to me and a woman beside me. She immediately draped her scarf around her face, averting her gaze away from the family opposite her.
‘Chinese Virus’, ‘Wuhan Virus’. If there’s one thing that we humans are good at doing, it’s discriminating others. As days become weeks and weeks become months, people start pointing fingers to find something or someone to blame. Mutual distrust has been on the rise worldwide but COVID-19 gave many people in the world a convenient way to show their distrust.
Outright racism aside, it has become difficult to remain comfortable outside for some. A simple sneeze or a cough, which is usually quite harmless, could lead to stares and looks of concern from those around you. I believe the majority of this behaviour is an automatic response to self-preservation and would taper out with time.
In an atmosphere of ignorance and distrust, some will look for personal gain as well. Politicising COVID-19 had led to targeted attacks that are not-so-subtly endorsed by the government on minorities in many countries, furthering their agendas at a time when the general populace is scared. While in lockdown, there is not much that citizens can do to voice their opinions out in the open, resorting to organising on social media to spread their opinions. Fake news is rampant, from claims of 5G being the cause of COVID-19 to the virus being a bioweapon unleashed by China. It has been an exercise in critical thinking to consume, digest and interpret the sewage of information and arrive at non-conspiratorial conclusions.
After the lockdown, this is expected to continue, unfortunately. The phenomenon was not new even before the quarantine and it would be naive to expect people to change after the quarantine. What the lockdown has done is shone a harsh light on the systemic problems in our basic education and by extension, our political systems. Will we get up from our couches and drive a sustainable future?
Us, post-corona
The way we behave would (and should) change on the other side of this crisis. Companies and their old, wizened chairs will realise that the 9–5 workday is pointless, at least for white-collar roles. Pretty much anything that could be done in an office, can be done at home. While there are legitimate concerns regarding the need to socialise in a work environment, we have found ways to do that digitally. If we halve the number of days we go to the office, that would constitute a heavy drop in traffic and vehicular air pollution. People can pace themselves the way they want to, without having to worry about planning (and paying) for commutes or check-in/check-out times. People feel stifled now because they are told to stay at home, rather than being afforded the choice to do the same, without repercussions.
The healthcare system, especially in countries like India and USA will have to reform. We have seen how woefully unprepared the world was to face a full-scale pandemic. Universal basic healthcare will be something which people will ask for now. Governments would also be more prepared for future pandemics, equipping their medical staff with more PPEs. Enterprising start-ups would develop low-cost variants of expensive medical devices, which would force the mega-corporations to follow suit.
Following this train of thought, companies would realise the need to be agile and rapidly digitalise, far more than they have been in the previous decade. Companies that had a strong IT infrastructure were able to transition to the home office environment faster than their jurassic counterparts. Some companies will begin diversifying their assets, to not completely collapse when the economy tanks (as it has and will for the foreseeable future).
The face of entertainment could change. The long-standing war between traditional cinema and streaming services may end soon, as people flock towards their Netflix’s, Hulu’s and Hotstar’s to get their dose of entertainment under lockdown. We have even found ways to have movie nights under quarantine, across borders! Similarly, gaming has also proved to be effective in serving both single-person entertainment as well as being a shared activity for groups.
There are innumerable aspects of life that have changed due to this pandemic. We can take a lot of positives from this, but also acknowledge the problems in our society that is more visible than ever before. Nevertheless, we will survive and we will move onwards to a new normal. It is inevitable.
Now I’ll go back to dreaming about barbeques out in the park. :)
