To ask for your thoughts on what the next 2 years will look like.

[YeahWhatevver]

Bank of England predicting a 14% contraction in the economy this year. For comparison 2007/08 was ~4%, the great depression of early 1900s was ~9%

What's people's thoughts on what 2021/22 will look like?

Short sharp contraction before a return to "normal" or years and years of social and economic fallout?

Any thoughts on positives too? - I was thinking changes in attitude towards travel/transport/environment

DD has a school task to write about the impact of this on the country and I've realised that I just don't know.

What's the AIBU? No idea how to vote on this?

Ignore the voting, forgot to switch it off.

On a negative we will be paying this back for generations. Austerity will exist worldwide for the rest of our lifetimes. Industries will change in ways we cannot imagine particularly retail/hospitality/travel which will have a massive impact as people employed in those sectors are already amongst some of the lowest paid.

Mental health will become one of the biggest killers and the impact of that will not be known for a while. Just watching the nhs documentary last night on channel 4 was particularly eye opening on the mental impact this is having on our front line staff.

However on a positive, people will reprioritise what is important to them. Making more time for the friends and family who mean something to them. Coming off the treadmill of constantly running around to different commitments will show people a different way of living which is again a benefit for mental health

For those fortunate enough to still have a secure job role will be re-examine how they feel about it. Is this what I want to do for the rest of my life, do I want to work from home more, do I never want to work from home ever again etc.

As cheesy as it sounds life as we knew it will never be seen again

My job is not the type whereby I will ever be able to work from home but I realise that the commute, stress and demands of it make me absolutely miserable. I will be looking for a change of career and hopefully WFH as soon as I can find something.

I’m worried about interest rates and whether this virus will ever go away. Will we end up with different strains coming back year after year?

It's really impossible to say. There are a huge number of terrifying factors but also a very strong urge to get back to 'normal'. How it will all interplay is anyone's guess.

For how long will we remember? For example, I wonder whether there will be a desire to learn DIY, food preserving and other skills alongside a desire for more outside space? Or will people just gradually drift back to their old lives, forgetting that the next pandemic might be just around the corner?

Some industries will never be the same again but others will no doubt spring up, ones that we don't even envisage right now. I'd like to see a focus on buying British (or Irish or French or wherever they live) but I don't know that people will have the money to pay higher prices for British made goods. Equally I'd like to see people continuing to support the small local businesses that have for many been a life line, but again I don't know if they'll have the money.

For us personally it has only increased the conversations we were having about whether our future is here (we are fortunate to have options with citizenships) but equally the vague feeling of unease I always had when living overseas previously has been shown to be justified - I always kind of wondered if there might be a time in the future when we couldn't get back. Given that our parents are older than they were when we were worrying about it previously, it's a real concern. We could move to the EU but have a language issue.

We are both key workers so I doubt we would look to change industries any time soon and we were already very keen to move out of this house. I wanted to reduce our housing costs but a detached house has become much more important than previously so that may not happen.

Basically, who knows.