What social change do you think COVID will trigger?

[jewel1968]

I have been pondering this for a while and as we spend more time in lockdown I wonder what the long term social impacts will be. Some are fairly obvious but I am wondering what else might occur. For me I think when we finally get to the other side of this pandemic I can see some changes, such as:

• lots more home working where infrastructure allows
• more people continuing to exercise at home or in the park and gyms not so attractive
• fashion changes with people more focused on comfort e.g. high heels go out of favour
• perhaps an impact on how we look after children
• if schools perfect online learning we might see it used in some circumstances e.g. When kids are too sick to travel to school but could work from home
• a change in how we test kids e.g. might we move away from exams

I know some social scientists think we might enter a decadent period similar to the roaring twenties.

Interested in your thoughts...

I think we'll bounce back as soon as it's feasible.

There is space for more flexibility on remote working/ meetings/ consultation, but it's a poor total replacement for real contact, its value is as a supplement.
Maybe more remote working for being borderline ill, rather than ill in bed.

What would be good, is a reform of building design for more space per person and ventilation in public buildings. I always did like changing the air in my classroom anyway Eugh de Teenager always was grim. School capacity decreased with modern buildings/ rebuilds.

Improving public health would be good... unfortunately anti-Covid policies are awful for general wellbeing.

Mass events will retùrn.

I dressed up for the dentist today

Education reform

History's not my thing, but didn't the roaring twenties lead to a global economic crash which led to the next world war?

I'm not interested in harking back to how things used to be.

We've moved on.

We've focused on the positives, and adapted well to how things are, and we'll continue to be flexible and adaptable, look on the bright side, be part of the solution not the problem, and look forward not back.

We had lockdown twice in NZ and have since returned to "normal". Life is much as before with the addition of masks in some places, hand sanitiser stations everywhere and every business displaying a tracking code.

Of course international travel is cancelled but grown ups go to work, kids go to school, people eat out, shop etc, friends meet up and so on. It is noticeably quieter in tourist spots but if you'd been in a coma during 2020 and had just awoken, I'm not sure you'd notice much change.

I think most things will go back to normal with a bang, as people are desperate to go out etc!

However, wfh I think is here to stay - meaning less focus on London, and more people moving to the countryside. High speed Internet will be a necessity.

I also think that some things that are currently remote will stay that way - eg. doctor's appointments, and courses (we did a virtual antenatal class which was great!

And wearing masks on public transport will become the "polite" thing to do. I think people already did this in places like Japan?

Also less tolerance for people coming in to work /school etc when sick, even with colds etc.

I think people will be dressing up more. Next time I’m allowed out I’ll definitely be in heels. I’m fed up of slobbing around in gym gear.

Quite a few folk have said they foresee children receiving the flexibility of online learning if they are ill or if conventional school doesn't suit them.
Sadly, I don't think this flexibility will last if most pupils are in the classroom. There simply isn't the staff power to offer both styles of learning properly and at the same time. I do wonder if home schooling numbers will rise students for do not thrive in a school setting but who knows?

@AnaisNun I agree with you. Humans have short memories. They also like “normality”. In 5 years time I don’t think life will be that different to pre-Covid (save for annual jabs and potentially testing in hospitals etc).

I also don’t think wfh will become the norm. I think there will be a gradual creep to back to the office for a lot of companies.

Good could be wfh. I think there will be at least a short increase in holidays and restaurants.

I think WFH will be more the norm. Unfortunately it may have a side effect of loneliness. Single people that live on their own or single parents WFH, particularly if people are wary of mixing households for socialising.

City/town centres will change unless there is more housing there. Shops are going. Cafes will go if there are few commuters. That involves a lot of jobs.

@changingmine

We had lockdown twice in NZ and have since returned to "normal". Life is much as before with the addition of masks in some places, hand sanitiser stations everywhere and every business displaying a tracking code.

Of course international travel is cancelled but grown ups go to work, kids go to school, people eat out, shop etc, friends meet up and so on. It is noticeably quieter in tourist spots but if you'd been in a coma during 2020 and had just awoken, I'm not sure you'd notice much change.

Londowns in NZ were short and very sharp but the majority of the past year you've been relatively normal. We've been in some kind of lockdown the whole year with varying levels. We've got far more accustomed to the changes than you have had to.

Really interesting thread.

Re New Zealand/Australia, I don't think we can compare how they are now to how we will be. We will always have covid circulating, we have not and are not planning to attempt to to down the same route as those countries so why would our outcome look the same as somewhere zero covid? They are (almost) still at February 2020, they hit the pause button.

I think remote working is here to stay (good thing)
I think the impact of social distancing is going to take awhile to wear off - we already find it weird to see people together on tv and I think that will translate into real life for a least a few months.
The impact on children and young people will be massive - educationally and socially.
I think there will be an intense period when people will realise the emotional impact of all that has gone on - almost ptsd - like when keep going and going and then stop and collapse.- I think this will be especially true for all those amazing healthcare workers but also thinking about people who have lost loved ones with no proper goodbyes.

I also think remote working will stay and that’s a good thing. It will be much harder for employers to say that people can’t do their job from home when they’ve been managing it for the last year. Same with in person meetings and work travel.

I really don’t think we’ll be moving away from exams. The last couple of years have been a disaster with trying to find other, fair ways to offer grades. If anything, I think it’s shown why exams are the fairest and most accurate way of doing things.

CodenameVillanelle
It'll be interesting to see. It's amazing what you can adapt to and equally amazing what you can ditch. Humans adapt very quickly.

I see removal of non-essential care streams from the NHS and a refocussing of its resources on essential work only. I see a culling of upper and middle management and accountability and transparency being introduced into the system. This will require government oversight and control.

I see greater control and means testing of benefits, and a redistribution of the benefits that are paid out from those who do not need them to those who do.

I see higher taxation across the board to pay for government spending - This will be used as a means of explaining to the nursing staff and those who lose their rights to certain benefits that the government is having to take money from all levels of society.

- What is actually happening is that the country is going to be eased into as controlled a decline as possible, so that we slide slowly and without mass hysteria into economic depression. This has been on the cards for a decade or more, and has been controlled by massive levels of government money printing.

Eventually we will have mass unemployment, a much simpler diet, lower calorie intake, and greater focus on people who can provide goods and services delivering to people who can create and organise from their homes.

Educationally, if you children cannot organise, educate and motivate themselves, online, with others without the need for face-to-face contact to get their portion of the work done, they will relegate themselves to the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder. The online world of work will begin to segregate into those who are capable and those who are not, and those who are not will serve those who are capable.

Already we operate teams of designers in Berlin, Lisbon and Johannesburg from an office with Zoom. In Berlin the design team is an independent self motivated cluster who gather around a lead designer, some in his office and others remotely as far away as Oslo. In Lisbon the manufacturer runs an onsite design team in the fabrication plant and deals with technical issues remotely with the glass supplier in Italy. The engineering company is in Johannesburg. The point being, the lead designers, and every one of the consultants are both capable of doing the job, and capable of working remotely and controlling the online environment to permit this to happen. They are independent contractors bringing expertise to the market. If they are incapable of delivering they are canned. There are less capable staff beneath them whom they rely upon, but everyone's position in the job market is based on their ability to perform online. That is just a small window into how engineering projects are delivered in our nation's cities.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/21/epidemiologist-1918-flu-pandemic-roaring-20s-post-covid
One scientist's view.

Eventually the UK will catch up with the more cosmopolitan countries in the world. If I need a water I will phone my local shop and it will be brought around to my house. If I need my car cleaned I will phone someone and they will come and do it. If I need clothes cleaned I'll pick up the phone. The most valuable thing I can do will be to stay at my desk, and the most value others will be able to do is bring things to me.

We will move further towards a tipping culture, as those who have access to money appreciate those who do not, but who are polite and provide service.

You might not like it, but this is how many cultures work where there is a large spread between the capable and the less capable in world that has little in need for what was traditionally labelled the lower middle class.

It is the middle classes that are destined to be decimated here. They will either rise and build and shape business, or they will drop and service those who do. That 30-40K mark is where I see the segregation happening.

But that is a decade or more away. Won't affect anyone here. Plenty of time to decide where your children will sit.

Or, plenty of time to bury our heads in the sand and pretend we haven't seen the moves beginning already.

I'm seeing a change in management structures in my industry.

Capable staff are refusing monitoring of their remote working from senior management. If you can do the job and can deliver, you do not need to be accountable for your time. If you are capable of being able to deliver on program, you do not need your progress monitored.

The staff that are capable are becoming freer, and the staff that cannot demonstrate a proven track record are being monitored, made to keep time sheets, subject to check in calls, etc.

So maybe with staff who work remotely, we end up with a hard sludgy drudgery lump of capable but unproven remote leaders who spend a decade pushing through oversight and are freed when they find the confidence to take the next step.

I don't think much will change at all. Likely for a while more people will WFH, exercise at home, go for walks more, etc., but over time we'll go back to how we used to live. I also expect people going a little crazy with holidays and parties once restrictions are properly lifted. So instead of flying less for example many will fly more and over longer distances because they feel they deserve it after they hard time they've had.

Ongoing greater awareness of mental health. I hope so anyway. More exercising at home. I now do yoga at home instead of paying for a monthly deep tissue massage for example.

I think, as lots of large organisations are talking about a hybrid of working at home / in the office, the biggest societal change will be the requirement for people to live in the big cities to get the good jobs. This will flow through to people shopping / eating / living outside cities. In the longer term I think this will be a leveller across the country and impact things like pay (no London weighting) and house prices.

More mask wearing and awareness, especially during flu seasons, perhaps.

Maybe people being more aware when they've got a cold or flu or indeed any other air borne virus where someone may be well enough to be out but still able to pass it on. Not necessarily not working with them, but washing hands more, wearing a mask to reduce transmission, etc.

WFH flexibility becoming more normal. Before covid a lot of businesses didn't like it as they couldn't monitor work being down, the need for presentism, old fashioned views mainly. These have been shown to be unnecessary in the whole, so maybe more enlightened views on working from home will continue.

I'd like to think that unnecessary business travel and expensive business meetings involving travel, expensive meals, lots of drinking, etc could be reduced. It's mainly a white, middle class man type activity and often can reduce the chances of women and other minorities from progressing if they can't or don't want to be giving up time to such events. But I can't see it stopping tbh.

Oh and I'd like the doctor telephone triage thing to continue, but with a more defined time slot. Ours just has morning/afternoon which is difficult. But if I could schedule a telephone call to a given time slot I'd much prefer this, and only go in if necessary.