What will society look like in the post-COVID world? Will this pandemic be just a blip in the march of human history – or will it be a major turning point in our evolution?

History has shown us that pandemics come and pandemics go – and the world continues to function after the pandemic has gone. The Spanish Flu of 1918, coming so soon after the horrendous First World War, decimated populations and destroyed societies. Different countries tackled the problem in different ways – and even in the same country, while San Francisco did one thing, New York (like Frank Sinatra) did it its own way. But by 1920, with the pandemic having wreaked its havoc and gone away, the world went back to functioning again.

In 1665 the Bubonic Plague (Black Death) devastated London and killed off a sixth of its population. Following the Great Fire a year later, the city was rebuilt on essentially the same street plan used before the fire – and life went on as before.

So I suppose that we can be confident that in the course of time even this 21st century pandemic will come under control. The question then arises, of course, as to how long COVID-19 will take to be controlled – and whether we will go back to the old “Normal” or a “New Normal”. If the latter, what will the “New Normal” state of affairs be like? Will we be able to reclaim our health, our time, our travel and our community to the way they were before?

Will COVID-19 accelerate the flexibility of the workplace? A recent survey in the UK revealed that 87% of office workers stated that they wished to work from home in a post lockdown world. Will we change the way we work? Will there be less commuting as we work from home when we realise that we are able to work more productively, not in central workplaces an hour or more away from where we live, but in flexible workplaces closer to our homes or even from our home itself?

How will education change? In the past when I gave a lecture I never had more than a hundred students – if that – attending one of my lectures. These days using platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and others, I can sit in my study at home in front of my computer and talk to an audience sitting in front of their own computers in different countries and different time zones. I can share my computer screen with my audience and answer their questions in real time. Even assessments and exams – including medical school examinations – are now being done remotely. Will we ever go back to using exclusively face to face assessments?

How will the way we access food and shopping change? Already businesses are seeing an exponential increase in online shopping. Nowadays when we do go to buy things at shops and food outlets we seldom use cash or coins – we use contactless cards. Will tattered bank notes and grubby germ-coated coins become things of the past?

Will we continue to greet each other sensibly as we in Sri Lanka (like the Indians and the Chinese also have been doing for centuries) with the no touch technique of putting our hands together and bowing – rather than the germ sharing methods of shaking hands and kissing and hugging? Will we become less averse to wearing masks (as is customary in Japanese society) not only to prevent catching germs from others but also to prevent ourselves spreading our own germs to others?

We have for many years and in many countries been coasting along in unprecedented affluence with nary a care for the world and the environment that provides us with life. Perhaps this pandemic will teach us that sustainability and unbridled capitalism cannot go together. This virus has humbled us to realise our own vulnerability and the very frailty of our being.

How we shape and accept the New Normal will have far reaching consequences well beyond our own lifetimes.

 

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