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...

@ichundich

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.

So where does all the money that has been spent come from? No matter where you think it comes from, how does that impact on your life? What happens to all the people who have lost their jobs, all the shops that have closed, and all the businesses that have gone bust? All of those people in the job market change the employment dynamic. Wherever they go they increase competition which affects what you pay, or affects whether your business has to drop prices in otherer to keep up with competition.

But maybe you're right. Maybe the world wide pandemic won't change a thing. After all, nothing changed after WW1 or WW2. Nothing changed after 911 or the 2008 crash. So maybe you're right.

@Abraxan

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.

That would require that doctors see less patients. Maybe if we paid for medical cover we could get them to prioritise us over other people.

However I am a fat person who is amazing at my job, I’ve never been discriminated against so far and never off sick but who knows how I will be seen in future.
Get a jab and I don't imagine an employer will discriminate. I think the separation will be between those who refuse jabs and those who get them.

Fine tuning home-working.
Online education being correctly formatted for children as a valuable addition to learning.
Health, particularly a focus on our food and exercise. Covid deniers are annoying, but the lack of direct action and personal responsibility has cost hundreds of billions. Time to stop the namby pamby waffling nonsense, it's too expensive. People are NOT healthy.
Sick of hearing it.

We need a public discussion on the ethics of modern medicine, an unintended consequence is the the mess we've been living with these past 12 months.

@Gobbeldegook

Education reform

Definitely. But not good. I think we will have to separate the capable from the incapable. We cannot continue to teach children to the standard of the lowest common denominator. There is already a yawning gap between what children can do when they leave education, and what they need to be able to do in the world of work. That gap existed when I graduated in the 90's. If the education system cannot close that gap, then the capable children will find easy success, and the incapable ones will end up servicing those who can.

Glad to do away with social cheek kisses, drives me a bit potty

I agree. Also hope that coughing in theatres and concerts becomes social death. Especially people who think it's okay to cough extravagantly just before the end.

Otherwise,as some have said,people have short memories and will revert to what they were doing before mostly. But let's hope that it's a better version.

There is already a marked exodus from cities, and a corresponding increase in house prices. People experiencing the first lockdown saw change and relocated to be in better neighbourhoods.

This is a physical manifestation of the separation between the haves and have nots. The have nots living in estates on the outskirts of towns and cities where they can get access to manual jobs and be collected and taken to warehouses for sorting, picking and processing orders.

Those who have the ability are moving the bulk of their retail online where those who have not can pick, package and deliver their purchases to their door for them.

This is a societal move, and now that is has happened, it won't be undone.

Gosh some of these predictions are (understandably) very bleak.

To the NZ mumsnetters - are there still imports of goods? And if so, how is it done safely? Also, how do people feel about the ban on travel? I hear a lot here from people who think traveling abroad is almost a human right or need. And some here are predicting an increase in international travel in response to the lockdown.

@jewel1968

Gosh some of these predictions are (understandably) very bleak.

To the NZ mumsnetters - are there still imports of goods? And if so, how is it done safely? Also, how do people feel about the ban on travel? I hear a lot here from people who think traveling abroad is almost a human right or need. And some here are predicting an increase in international travel in response to the lockdown.

Freight can be "safely" transported by use of shipping containers. Lots of ships work by having small tractor units which just collect the containers from articulated units to put on/take off the ship at each end, meaning the artic driver doesn't go with the load.

Trouble with the UK, especially in SE ports and the tunnel is that drivers usually accompany their loads and there are huge numbers of smaller vans (transits, lutons, panel vans etc) which obviously are moved by their drivers at both ends.

If the infrastructure allows for the "load" to be transported across the border without the driver, you've immediately made the transportation of goods a lot safer.

I think it will be the opposite of causal wear ie everyone will be very glamorous and wearing high heels. The roaring twenties happened after the Spanish influenza pandemic.

I do think a lot of companies will keep people working from home where possible or split time between home and the office.

I hope some form of social distancing stays in effect 😂 I hate it when strangers come to close to me

I also think there’s going to be a great pressure on the mental health sector of the NHS, more so than now. I genuinely know people who have hardly left their houses in over a year, it’s terrifying. Plus the people who have been ever so lonely in lockdown and have developed or have had current mental health issues made worse by the lockdowns.

@jewel1968

Gosh some of these predictions are (understandably) very bleak.

To the NZ mumsnetters - are there still imports of goods? And if so, how is it done safely? Also, how do people feel about the ban on travel? I hear a lot here from people who think traveling abroad is almost a human right or need. And some here are predicting an increase in international travel in response to the lockdown.

Not a NZer, but if you think predictions are bleak in the UK, NZ and OZ are concerned about a hot war in place of the trade war in the Pacific.

I think it will be the opposite of causal wear ie everyone will be very glamorous and wearing high heels. The roaring twenties happened after the Spanish influenza pandemic.
And we all know what happened then, don't we? The largest recorded depression in history that lasted between 3 and 10 years depending which country you were in.

But you're right. Only the level of debt in the system is substantially higher, and the level of savings in the population is so much lower,. The coming depression with be the worse that most are willing to imagine. I for one am going to hide under the duvet and pretend it's not going to happen. Might as well move with the herd.

@ChronicallyCurious

I also think there’s going to be a great pressure on the mental health sector of the NHS, more so than now. I genuinely know people who have hardly left their houses in over a year, it’s terrifying. Plus the people who have been ever so lonely in lockdown and have developed or have had current mental health issues made worse by the lockdowns.

Yep. But they will need to remove money from MH and allocate it elsewhere because this virus will be here for decades and we will need the NHS and its funding to revolve around saving lives and stopping the spread of the virus.

@ChronicallyCurious

I also think there’s going to be a great pressure on the mental health sector of the NHS, more so than now. I genuinely know people who have hardly left their houses in over a year, it’s terrifying. Plus the people who have been ever so lonely in lockdown and have developed or have had current mental health issues made worse by the lockdowns.

Unfortunately, the NHS will be needing huge sums of money for everything as the pandemic has exposed it's flaws in so many ways. I really can't see MH getting much in the way of extra resources when we clearly need more hospitals, more ICU beds, a revolution in GP services, etc that will get more public sympathy/demand.

I think climate change, green polices, the environment, etc., will be a big issue as we come out of lockdowns/restrictions etc.

We've proved that we really don't need to have millions of commuters clogging up the roads twice a day, we don't need to smell eachother's armpits on busy buses and underground trains, etc.

Lots of people are shopping more locally, i.e. using their nearest supermarket or convenience store rather than travelling to the other side of town. Again, less travel, less pollution, less road congestion. Add into that the massive increase in online ordering and home delivery.

Roads, trains, buses, etc are going to be quieter for years to come and may never get back to their "peak" levels.

Holidays/short breaks abroad will also probably become less popular. Especially environmentally damaging short breaks for the likes of stag and hen parties in Amsterdam or Barcelona - the cost will probably make foreign travel less popular. We really shouldn't be heading back to the stupidly low cost flights to Europe, i.e. anything less than £50 is clearly not profitable and not sustainable, either financially nor environmentally. Foreign travel may well become more of a once per year thing for the average person rather then 2/3/4 flights a year. Again, no bad thing as air travel (and everything around it) is awful for climate change/environment.

Unfortunately, the NHS will be needing huge sums of money for everything as the pandemic has exposed it's flaws in so many ways. I really can't see MH getting much in the way of extra resources when we clearly need more hospitals, more ICU beds, a revolution in GP services, etc that will get more public sympathy/demand.
And that money will be taken from cutting and reshaping all of government spending in society. The NHS will need to cut out all the money squandered. They will need to remove the 400K salaries and replace them with 200K salaries. They will need to have pay scales imposed upon them at management levels, and a lot of jobs will be lost in ancillary services and supply chains. Non-essential work will cease and staff will be retrained or let go of. Similar cuts will come to Local Council workers and DWP, everywhere that the government employs people there will be change to deal with the huge need to find money.

@ElliFAntspoo

Unfortunately, the NHS will be needing huge sums of money for everything as the pandemic has exposed it's flaws in so many ways. I really can't see MH getting much in the way of extra resources when we clearly need more hospitals, more ICU beds, a revolution in GP services, etc that will get more public sympathy/demand. And that money will be taken from cutting and reshaping all of government spending in society. The NHS will need to cut out all the money squandered. They will need to remove the 400K salaries and replace them with 200K salaries. They will need to have pay scales imposed upon them at management levels, and a lot of jobs will be lost in ancillary services and supply chains. Non-essential work will cease and staff will be retrained or let go of. Similar cuts will come to Local Council workers and DWP, everywhere that the government employs people there will be change to deal with the huge need to find money.

In theory, yes, efficiencies and reduction in waste is essential, but in reality, we know that won't happen, so it'll just end up with splurging huge sums of money into the NHS leaky bucket. Too many vested interests and too many incompetent managers for there to be any meaningful reform. People have been trying to reform and improve efficiency for a couple of decades, but every change costs huge sums of money and ends up creating more inefficiency. No one has the balls to actually reform it as it needs to be done.

Judging by how quickly everyone forgot last summer and immediately started saying 'There wont be a second wave, Covid is done' and cramming their silly selves into restaurants, nothing will change.

The only thing I think will happen is that fewer people will go into teaching because a) They've seen or heard how hard it is for people to teach their own children and b) They've seen how despised teachers are by much of society and how they're treated as irrelevant (and even cannon fodder) by politicians.

@Wafflewife

Judging by how quickly everyone forgot last summer and immediately started saying 'There wont be a second wave, Covid is done' and cramming their silly selves into restaurants, nothing will change.

The only thing I think will happen is that fewer people will go into teaching because a) They've seen or heard how hard it is for people to teach their own children and b) They've seen how despised teachers are by much of society and how they're treated as irrelevant (and even cannon fodder) by politicians.

If constant rolling lockdowns are seen as an impending norm, more parents will begin to take educating their children seriously. The shift towards parental responsibility will result in greater demand for online educational resources, and online educators will step in to fill that void.

Children who do not learn over their educational life, to work independent of others, self motivate, and operate and be comfortable with online interactive environments, will be at a substantial disadvantage in future working environments.

Yes, we need people to do manual jobs, and there will be plenty of people to do those.

I'm afraid employers will discriminate (indirectly at least) against mothers and women of childbearing age.

A lot of what Kazzyhoward said.

London and the commuter areas will see huge changes as more people wfh. With less needing to be within walking/short driving distance of train stations some will move to bigger houses in more rural areas. High streets that were struggling will have more business as many who wfh go out for coffee, lunch, shopping, hair appointments etc.

Once all of the leisure, beauty and hospitality businesses are allowed to reopen unemployment won't be anywhere near as bleak as some on here are predicting.

Working from home most or more of the time in some professions I think is going to be the biggest change, and second will be the economic impact of job losses that have or will occur. The change to more wfh will have an impact on where people live and may lead to fewer people moving just for job reasons.

The high street is going to be different I am sure, and I think there will be arts and cultural venues that do not survive in their present form.

I think there will be a massive drive to get people back into their offices. Working from home is great if you have a big home but it's not such a luxury for most people in small homes with no separate working space. Young people starting out in their careers need to be meeting new people, not stuck wfh. I would also argue that over time, employers will see the benefit of employing cheaper labour from abroad which would have a huge negative impact. Flexible working should definitely be adopted though.

Jeans will go to the charity shop as they no longer fit out of fashion.