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The New Normal?

gassor

gassor

There may be more posts after this.
So what will the Brave New Post-covid World look like? Assuming that like the regular flu covid will mutate every year and no new vaccine will be 100% effective what impact will this have on our day to day lives. More homeworking, more internet shopping, less travel to exotic destinations like Margate or Troon and less international travel all round seem quite likely. God knows about sporting events, concerts, weddings, schools, universities, libraries and eating out.

My particular concern is the public house on a Saturday night. The traditional pub is dead and it seems to me so is the High St. One possibility is that as shop sites become vacant rents could fall significantly and these premises could be used as restaurant/bars with lots of space. I'll leave it to the more hip contributors to discuss nightclubs.
 
gassor said:
So what will the Brave New Post-covid World look like?
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I see no rational reason for it to be substantially different from before. Epidemics of this scale happen once, maybe twice, in a century. Seen over a period of a few years, the increase in mortality for a few months in 2020 will be but a blip.

If things do change, it will be because of irrational fear, and there's no predicting where that will lead.
 
mansr said:
I see no rational reason for it to be substantially different from before. Epidemics of this scale happen once, maybe twice, in a century. Seen over a period of a few years, the increase in mortality for a few months in 2020 will be but a blip.

If things do change, it will be because of irrational fear, and there's no predicting where that will lead.
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This may be the case if the increase in mortality is just a few months in 2020. Seems to me the tories are doing their best to keep it going for as long as possible, a short break then kick it all off again.
 
Brian said:
This may be the case if the increase in mortality is just a few months in 2020. Seems to me the tories are doing their best to keep it going for as long as possible, a short break then kick it all off again.
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Without a vaccine, about 50-60% of the population will get the virus, and about 1% of those will die. It might take a shorter or longer time to get there, but the end result is the same. The normal annual mortality across all age groups is about 1%. In the grand scheme of things, this virus outbreak isn't that big a deal. It's a problem right now because nobody has any immunity, so without some precautions we'd end up with overwhelmed hospitals and businesses struggling with high sickness absence. If too many people are ill at the same time, even if only for a week, critical infrastructure functions could be impacted.
 
mansr said:
I see no rational reason for it to be substantially different from before. Epidemics of this scale happen once, maybe twice, in a century. Seen over a period of a few years, the increase in mortality for a few months in 2020 will be but a blip.

If things do change, it will be because of irrational fear, and there's no predicting where that will lead.
Click to expand...

There were four pandemics in the 20th century, the last one was Hong Kong Flue in 1968, the first one, Spanish flue, killed about 50million people.

The Black death lasted for four hundred years killing millions with sporadic outbreaks every few years to kill more people, in the 17th century there were about four outbreaks of black death in the UK/England the last outbreak was in 1912 or thereabouts in China and was still killing people as recently as 2017.

So I doubt that this pandemic will be that much different from those other ones the only thing that works with these things is social isolation until a vaccine or medication becomes available, only small pox has been completely eradicated all of the other common pandemics are still out there albeit not as dangerous as they initially were.

"The first North American plague epidemic was the San Francisco plague of 1900–1904, followed by another outbreak in 1907–1908.[153][154][155]

Modern treatment methods include insecticides, the use of antibiotics, and a plague vaccine. It is feared that the plague bacterium could develop drug resistance and again become a major health threat. One case of a drug-resistant form of the bacterium was found in Madagascar in 1995.[156]A further outbreak in Madagascar was reported in November 2014.[157] In October 2017 the deadliest outbreak of the plague in modern times hit Madagascar, killing 170 people and infecting thousands.[158]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
 
gassor said:
So what will the Brave New Post-covid World look like? Assuming that like the regular flu covid will mutate every year and no new vaccine will be 100% effective what impact will this have on our day to day lives. More homeworking, more internet shopping, less travel to exotic destinations like Margate or Troon and less international travel all round seem quite likely. God knows about sporting events, concerts, weddings, schools, universities, libraries and eating out.

My particular concern is the public house on a Saturday night. The traditional pub is dead and it seems to me so is the High St. One possibility is that as shop sites become vacant rents could fall significantly and these premises could be used as restaurant/bars with lots of space. I'll leave it to the more hip contributors to discuss nightclubs.
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We are being eased into very different expectations compared with only two months ago. Back then nearly everyone was thinking the shutters will be down for a few weeks then we’ll get back to it. This week an economist was talking about an economic global depression that will dwarf the Great Depression. I feel things are quite unpredictable and that if we can avoid war we will have done well. Unfortunately those in control in America are looking for a war with China. Parallels with the 1930s are not difficult to spot- right wing populist leaders, protectionism, a huge economic turn down and scapegoating and recrimination.
 
The Spanish flu was an H1N1 strain, as was the Mexican swine flu of 2009. The latter was also classed as a pandemic, though its impact was fairly minor.

My point of view is that attempting to avoid a very rare occurrence by basically giving up on life makes no sense.
 
mansr said:
The Spanish flu was an H1N1 strain, as was the Mexican swine flu of 2009. The latter was also classed as a pandemic, though its impact was fairly minor.

My point of view is that attempting to avoid a very rare occurrence by basically giving up on life makes no sense.
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There was an excellent article in the NYT or WSJ during the week regarding the black death and how coronavirus may well change the world in the same way, the parallels with what's going on at the moment and with what happened societally during the BD are quite amazing almost like what happened during WW2 when people lived for the hour not knowing when their time would come.

I'll try to find the article.
 
The New Normal?

Too soon to speculate.

The potential spectrum of outcomes is too large.

I am too busy being in the Now.
 
I can see a lot of service industry businesses going to the wall, they usually need to be full or thereabouts to make any financial sense- pubs, restaurants and cafes opening up but only running at 25-50% capacity won't last long at all.

The places I've seen open are 'one person in at a time' etc. places can't run like that for long.
 
I think the changes may be small but the effects may be larger. For instance I’ve started getting weekly deliveries from the meat supplier I use for my food business (burrito van - on hold now) The meat is all local and free range. They also supply fruit and veg, milk, eggs, bread. Good quality and supporting local farms. I get tins Beer and wine and stuff delivered by Tesco and large wholesale supplies of paper goods from Costco. Even though we live 300 yards from a waitrose it will take a lot for me to be going back there in a hurry.
ps if anyone lives within about 40 miles of Fareham in Hampshire the farm people are still taking on new customers - pm me for details
 
twotone said:
There was an excellent article in the NYT or WSJ during the week regarding the black death and how coronavirus may well change the world in the same way, the parallels with what's going on at the moment and with what happened societally during the BD are quite amazing almost like what happened during WW2 when people lived for the hour not knowing when their time would come.

I'll try to find the article.
Click to expand...
This is nothing like the black death. If you catch covid-19, your risk if dying is about the same as if you simply live for a year, regardless of age.
 
I think that inside 2 years we will be back to where we were, with many businesses having gone and maybe a 1% population decline.
 
Will there be any kind of High St at all? I imagine that as numbers can be controlled going into shopping malls they have a greater chance of survival, but will they be able to sustain enough shops to stay open? Going out to the shops eg for trainers will become something of an archaic notion. Plenty of jobs for delivery drivers though.

PS Record shops and bookshops are fecked.
 
Why would going shopping be any more dangerous after the epidemic has subsided than it was a year ago?
 
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