Any positives that might come out of this?

[Echobelly]

So, I think going through Covid 19 in the UK is going to suck a bit, but some positives might emerge.

• Individuals and governments might learn to better prepare for difficult situations and supply chain disruption (or not to panic as much about it, depending on what happens!)
• Employers who were resistant to home working and video conferencing (rather than travelling to meetings) might get more at home with it, saving lots of travel expense and carbon emissions
• Partners and kids might realise just how much mum does when she's shut up in a room for two weeks and can't do washing up, laundry, errands etc and will have to damn well step up, which also might relieve mums afterwards from 'Oh God, I'll just do it myself' syndrome.

Any other ideas - serious or silly!

Less business travel as companies realise that video meetings do actually work

Hopefully. I had one this afternoon, with two people in London and one in Seattle. Was absolutely fine.

the Second World War did wonders for female emancipation

I thought women were made use of during WW2 and then were told to go back to the kitchen afterwards so their menfolk could have the jobs.

Maybe cruises will become less popular, they are one of the most polluting ways to travel and also cause huge disruption to locals and tourists in places that are already suffering from over tourism

Lets hope. Ditto ski-ing.

Yes women were expected to give up their jobs to men, but it moved things forward, you could no longer say women couldn't do something, it made it clear that it was discrimination

My sil works in a nursery, and they've been shit hot at hand washing and hygiene.

As a result, even in the two weeks the new regime has been in place, much less incidents of illness in kids.

Better hand hygiene
People ringing in sick when ill rather than carrying on regardless. This one will take a bit more work - educating Boris for a start!

More flexible working and working from home especially as people realise that flexibility can be done and brings benefits

A realisation that zero hours contracts bring dangers because if sick people don't have sick pay, it impacts on everyone.

Ditto food hygiene standards and poverty. We all have to look out for each other more.

A fairer health system in the US. I really do think that things are going to be bad there. Huge numbers of homeless people + millions who can’t afford proper healthcare. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.

People will start realising that experts do actually know what we are talking about and start listening to us disgruntled scientist

Was talking to a colleague (I work in pharma) today and we were saying we are both split between worrying about relatives who are in at risk categories and thinking 'science is so cool, what we do is awesome'. I listen to the news reports and just think how incredible it is that we even know there is this new virus, we know the sequence, we have a test for it, we can treat the symptoms in most cases (death rate would be much higher without modern medicine), we know how it's spreading, we can model the impact of various interventions and we will develop an ELISA for the antibodies and will develop a vaccine. We've been expecting a pandemic for some time and thanks to biochemistry and computer modelling we know far more about this than we did back in 1918 when the world didn't know what was about to hit it and modern medicine was still in its infancy.

Covid 19 might become historically famous, like the Great Plague of London, so any blogs, diaries, Mumsnet posts etc. might be pored over by the students of the future with the same reverence as Samuel Pepys' diaries. We could be Making History with this thread!

I love this!

-Boris Johnson and his ilk are booted out for being incompetent. Trump being booted for similar reasons. Yes I am being hopeful...
-Low emissions for 2020.
-People realise for 5 minutes that they don’t need all this crap they keep on buying.
-The demise of the cruise ship industry.

• Respect for scientists and other experts reestablished.
• we all just slow down for a minute and think - do I need this thing? Do I need to go to this random place for a weekend jolly? Do I have to go to this work trip?

If the virus is as fatal as the Black Death then house prices will drop. It will also be great for global warming as less people and less economic output means less pollution.

That sometimes you do need disposable items and plastic sealed packaging for hygiene reasons. There needs to be a balance.

Care workers might become more appreciated and better paid when care homes and hospitals are rampant with the virus and a lot of the staff are off self isolating.

'
I thought women were made use of during WW2 and then were told to go back to the kitchen afterwards so their menfolk could have the jobs.'

Quite a lot of men died in WW2, they needed women to keep doing a lot of jobs in the aftermath.

@DressingGownofDoom

This x 1000 and the financialization of the economy parasites will be seen for the enablers of massive global instability.

If enough "economically inactive" people die this could end the housing crisis, the pension crisis, the NHS crisis, etc.

That and I might finally get round to eating all the meals in my freezer if I have to self isolate.

More people starting to realise that the americanisation of the UK is not a good thing and we need to invest in the nhs rather than sell it off and we need to maintain the abilty of the nhs to negotiate competative prices for medicines. We also need to retain workers rights.

I fear however it is too late and we need to just be thankful this did not occur this time next year when supply chains will be more disrupted and the nhs is further weakened.

If senior MPs get seriously ill and are saved by the NHS they might realise how important it is to fund the nhs better moving forward.

Hang on, so it's a good thing that the 'economically inactive' people (basically 'the vunerable and elderly') will die so it can free up the housing market, pensions won't be needed, NHS will be more accessible....

So it's a thumbs up to a mass cull of the weak?

Slightly ruthless....- shall we just stick them all on a cruise liner now for a final jolly and be done with it?

Some rather ironic positives:

The demographic time bomb will be much improved with fewer old people to support and many inheriting early.

Property prices will become more affordable with less demand.

And another outcome that some will regard as positive and some negative:

The EU will be tested and fail as nation states rally to protect their own economies and citizens. I have not heard a word from Germany about ramping up manufacturing test kits to send to Italy or guaranteeing Italian bonds.

Why is the failure of the EU a positive?

An end to social kissing and hugging.

Crazy,

Depends whether you regard the EU project as a good thing.

Good article in the Spectator this week about why Corona will be the end of globalisation and setting out the positives and negatives.

Suddenly the wonders of a car being made by crossing European borders 5 times doesn’t look quite so smart.

@crazydiamond222 doesn't effect us anyway- but I agree individual countries will (have already) started to close ranks-