COVID-19 has been around for more than three months now, and people are already exhausted from being at home. The world’s best researchers and experts are tearing at their hair to figure out a vaccine due to the severity of the pandemic. However, at this rate, it doesn’t look like that will happen any time soon.
COVID-19 did bring out some positives though; A lot of changes were made to ensure that people stay home and stay safe while certain things keep moving. These include moving government and private offices to home, online schooling, etc.
Aside from these, the current pandemic situation can even change the way we will think or operate. According to what we saw after the SARS virus infections in Japan, experts predict that there will be some significant impact of COVID-19 visible in our daily lives long after its eradication.
For now, experts are observing the situation closely and they predict that the virus won’t go away any time soon.
Table of contents
- Why COVID – 19 Won’t be Diminished Soon?
- Three Possible Scenarios That Could Line up in Near Future
- The Far, the Better!
- Not All War is About Firepower.
- There are Other Ways to Show Patriotism.
- Expertise Matters
- Consumer Behaviors will Change.
- Learning to Live Together(literally)
- Lowering online communication barriers
- Telemedicine and telecare
- Stronger Family Bondings
- Institutions will go virtual.
- Rediscovering smaller countries
What Impact Can You Expect due to COVID-19?
Currently, it’s hard to predict just how much COVID-19 will impact the world. Aside from forcing people back home due to its extremely contagious nature, it has changed our lifestyle, business, politics, technology, and so on. If statistics speak the truth, then those changes will probably end up evolving the entire humankind. Before we proceed further let’s find out how long the coronavirus might stay with us.
Afterward, we will also discuss the changes due to the coronavirus and the lessons we learned during this period.
Why COVID – 19 Won’t be Diminished Soon?
On April 30th, 2020, Pandemic experts from CIDRAP compiled a report on COVID-19. According to their observation, the virus will probably keep spreading for about two years, infecting around 60-70% of the world’s population.
Although people will keep getting infected even after two years, by this time they will develop an immune system that can fight against the coronavirus. They mentioned that the nations should prepare for the worst possible scenarios in which the cases will come in higher waves than it is currently occurring.
Mike Osterholm, one of the directors at CIDRAP, has warned several presidents about the situation and suggested various precautions. According to him, the COVID-19 pandemic won’t end soon because of its incubation period and asymptomatic spread. All in all, it looks unlikely that the current COVID-19 situation will improve any time soon.
Three Possible Scenarios That Could Line up in Near Future
We all expect to hear something positive. But the COVID-19 situation isn’t getting any better and it will impact our lives. It looks like everything is falling apart now, and it’s only a matter of time before the heavy waves of corona strike us hard.
The COVID-19 situation won’t end soon. Therefore, experts have advised government officials to take the necessary precautions for three possible scenarios. They have also urged the governments to prepare for the worst rather than preparing for the least.
Scenario 1
According to CIDRAP, the first possible scenario of COVID-19 could be a few small waves in spring 2020 that will continue to happen during summer and may end sometime during 2021.
Scenario 2
The second scenario could be an extreme transmission rate in the fall or winter, which will be followed by small waves even in 2021.
Scenario 3
The final possible scenario could include a slow rate of transmission during the whole of 2020. By far, it’s the best possible situation even though deaths will keep occurring, and people will still be suffering. Governments may not need to reinstitute the mitigation measures in this type of scenario.
However, a lot of governments are lifting restrictions, and more are on the verge of doing so, thereupon experts have advised them to prepare for the second scenario.
Although a vaccine might relieve some of the tension, nobody knows how much time it will take to develop one. Experts have also predicted the vaccination to come in 2021, but it might take an enormous time to make the treatment available for the whole world. So experts recommended governments to prepare their plans ahead of time and brace for what is coming.
The Far, the Better!
Before the pandemic, touches and physical presence mattered a lot. Communication in person was regarded way better than online communication. However, now any kind of physical interaction, contact, or presence presents a great danger to our health.
As time goes, more and more people are becoming aware of the risks, and they are trying to avoid any physical gestures like shaking hands. The longer these gestures stay, the more likely it is for these to turn into permanent habits of people. Since COVID-19 is likely to linger for two years and more, it will impact our communications negatively, making communications more distance focused.
Sometimes these can also mean people will ask for online communication rather than in-person meetings. Several online applications and social mediums have proven to be an excellent communication module. Therefore, experts suggest that people may choose to stay safe in the distance rather than coming closer.
Not All War is About Firepower
The pandemic is proof that you cannot win every global war with firepower. Sometimes the frontline warriors are doctors, nurses, and researchers who will cure, support, and research infected patients. A government has to provide them with all the logistic and economic support they need; exactly what they would do for the armed forces.
Before the pandemic, several governments focused their economy on improving its firepower; for instance, investing in buying weapons, strengthening the armed forces, etc. However, the COVID-19 scenario can impact the government’s focus significantly.
In some countries, these coronavirus frontline warriors are so overlooked that they had to stop working to make the government realize the issue.
For example, despite having all the resources and the time, the Bangladesh government didn’t manage the necessary protection for the doctors. As a result, their doctors had to stop working. However, the issue is resolved, and now they are fighting back hard.
The medical experts in Bangladesh said that it would be extremely unfair to send them into the war(Against the COVID situation) without protection(PPE Kits, N95 Marks). So now it’s time for governments to feel the necessity of investing in health and nutrition. After all, health is among the fundamental sectors of any country.
There are Other Ways to Show Patriotism
Earlier, when we were getting by with our normal lives, everybody tended to think that patriotism can only be shown in wars and sports events. But again, patriotism is a much bigger ideology. Patriotism is best exhibited through working for the country at the time of crisis.
The COVID-19 situation has made an impact on the rich people’s mindset around the world. People are ready to come up with help every now and then. Now they are not thinking about living for themselves. Instead, they are thinking about others and helping everyone to live with them.
Now people realize that there are not many benefits to living alone; they still need people around them. As a result, the whole population has come together and are supporting each other. Besides, people have also shown their patriotism by living a well-disciplined home-quarantine period.
Although this doesn’t change the fact that they were scared about the virus, this does mean that the governments can count on people when an urgent situation arises. COVID-19 won’t be its worst only if we do our best.
Expertise Matters
Now we understand that it is equally important to focus on expertise in related fields. Previously that went overlooked due to the luxurious lives we were enjoying. Besides, many governments have proven to be incapable of handling these kinds of pandemics. That does put a question mark on their overall capability in handling the pressure of managing an entire government.
As a result, people will become more careful in choosing governments in democratic countries. After all, ruling a nation is no child’s play. It takes a lot of experience, focus, seriousness, and proper management to keep a country flourishing. You can’t put it into the hands of a reality show star and expect efficiency.
It is never too late to correct your mistakes. Coronavirus has affected everyone, but it has united people for positive reasons also. So when this ends, we can expect this unity to speak for itself.
Consumer Behaviors will Change
COVID-19 is going to impact people’s finances terribly. A lot of business organizations and people will go bankrupt, and millions will lose their jobs. Experts predict that over 3 million people will become unemployed by the end of the pandemic, and as a consequence, a lot more will have to suffer.
Aside from that, others will suffer the consequences too. Global business leaders predicted that this would bring notable changes in consumer behaviors around the world. Besides, the governments will likely try to recover the fallen economic state by employing additional charges on the expensive stuff.
Since people won’t have much to spend, they will only spend money on the necessary stuff. However, global economic leaders also predicted that essential consumption materials might become more affordable. So if you are thinking of regaining your financial state before the pandemic, they have suggested considering these factors.
Learning to Live Together(literally)
From the beginning of life, we know that humans can’t live alone. But this sounds like a myth sometimes. Especially when wealthy people were getting rich and poor were getting poor due to the elites hoarding assets and money.
However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen a beautiful impact on human’s togetherness! We have seen that the rich people are digging their bank accounts for charity; making sure that no one leaves their house. They were spending it on people they have never known in person.
Top earners such as businessmen, global leaders were going through their bank accounts to help people live during these difficult times. No one was worried about spending despite the risks of substantial economic failures in the upcoming times. It clearly shows that we care for the people and that we know how to stand by the side of the people.
One example can be the founder of Alibaba Group, the great Jack Ma. He donated millions of PPE kits, masks, and other essentials to countries around the globe mentioning inspiring words such as “one world, one fight!” and “together we can do this”. It indeed shows how strong together we humans can be.
So even after the end of the current situation, people will know what it means to live together. As a consequence, the world will be a better place for living.
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Lowering online communication barriers
Well, online communications have been there for a while now, and there’s no denying of its efficiency. However, we have seen the maximum potential of online communications during COVID-19 situations. From helping the news spread to instructing people on how to keep themselves safe, online communication played a notable role during these circumstances.
A lot of services and operations went online, such as offices, shops, etc. and various charity funds are raising entirely with the help of online communication mediums. Most importantly, legal firms and organizations are moving online during COVID-19. These legal firms and organizations were the ones who kept questioning online communication apps and platforms and put various barriers into how they were operating.
For example, US officials denied Zoom as the communication medium but went back to it after recent updates.
Now that they have been using these apps and platforms for operating their programs, they will understand the impact of those technologies during COVID-19. As a result, they can judge these platforms efficiently, and hopefully; some online communication barriers will be removed from various government and official communications upon revising how they work.
Telemedicine and telecare
It’s not like that the lives are halt; there were other medical emergencies during COVID-19, and that needed proper care. Besides, medical professionals also needed to stay in constant communication with other professionals.
As human nature is to evolve, a new kind of telemedicine and telecare took place during COVID-19. Doctors instructed people to stay home instead of inviting them into hospitals, and they also arranged online medical appointments for their patients.
The above method has proven to be efficient for treating most patients. Although in-person appointments remain essential, we can expect some telecare in the future. For people who live far and don’t need any spot-tests to determine their physical issues, medicare specialists may arrange telecare.
On the other hand, many people opted for online medical consultancy to prevent coronavirus. So these services gained extreme popularity and will probably become more prevalent in the future.
Stronger Family Bondings
Family bondings have been loosened up since the beginning of the 21st century. As modern technologies and communication methods caused the issue so did the extremely competitive world.
Millions of children in our world were being raised without support from both mother and father. As a result, more broken families were increasing in numbers. Besides, work has gotten to us so much that nobody cared about how the other family members were doing.
However, during the coronavirus pandemic, people got to spend more time with their families. There were no offices, parties, or any other things to distract them from their family. Although a lot of people kept working from home, they were still spending quality time with their families. So with so many other positives, COVID-19 also helped families to create stronger bondings.
Institutions will go virtual.
Why is this a possibility? Well, virtual institutions may not mean anything for those who live near their institutions. However, people who live far may see virtual institutions as an excellent opportunity.
Think about it; who would want to spend bucks and travel for hours to reach an institution when they can have the comfort of working or learning things right from their home? Exactly! All it will take is installing a few apps and permission from the respective authority to start a virtual institution. Besides, many organizations are already hiring remote workers from around the globe. So the present scenario has widened career opportunities for thousands already.
From the institution’s viewpoint, why would someone hire a $100000 apartment while he can run an organization from a small office?
Note that every organization will face substantial economic losses during the pandemic. So it will be necessary to cut down those unnecessary expenses from their checklist. As a result, institutions are likely to remain virtual even after the pandemic is stopped.
Rediscovering smaller countries
Countries such as Vietnam, Taiwan were once a myth for the rest of the world. They were often ignored. However, these small countries’ response to the COVID-19 was unbelievable! They handled the situation extremely well and were appreciated for their approach.
Most governments of the world didn’t even recognize a smaller country like Taiwan. They were considered as one of the states of the Republic of China. However, their approach to COVID-19 was talked about a lot. Not only that but as a small country, their contribution to the whole world meant a lot.
It’s extraordinary that these smaller countries managed to pull off beautiful outcomes during the pandemic and were even coming up with help. Perhaps after the end of the chaos, these countries will be re-recognized by some of the powerful countries and international organizations, and the credit goes to COVID-19!
Concluding Remarks
Whether we want to accept it or not, coronavirus will remain for around at least two years. According to medicare experts, the effects can stay with us for some time to come, and in some cases, these might remain with us forever. So it’s time we accept these facts and act accordingly and adapt to the changes.
Although the COVID-19 has put everyone’s lives in danger, it did bring out the good in people and perhaps helped restore faith in humanity in some ways. So let us take all the positive impacts of COVID-19 and evolve as our ancestors have done in the past.
