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Where Do We Go From Here?
Where Do We Go From Here?
Where do we go from here? Many states are beginning their reopening phases, and this question continues to linger inside many people’s heads. How are things going to be different? As we have seen COVID 19 take our world by storm, every area of our world has had to rethink the way in which they perform and live a “regular life.” Whether it's universities suspending in-class instruction, small businesses unable to open again due to stay-at-home orders, or at-risk populations frightened for their lives to simply step outside, things have certainly changed. The way in which our world perceived as a normal life will no longer be the status quo, and the way in which society functions, in every facet, will be different moving forward.
Politico magazine interviewed 34, “macro” thinkers of our world to investigate their personal analyses of how our world will be reshaped following a global, novel virus. For many Americans specifically, this pandemic has resurfaced similar feelings and behaviors from that of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2008 financial crisis. They compare how our world will begin to operate under these new, normal circumstances, and if we are truly prepared to open our doors back out to what will be considered a new global state.
The first theme we will begin to contemplate and think more intensely on are our personal relationships and interactions. Deborah Tannen, linguistics professor at Georgetown, wrote how many future choices will no longer be of contemplating on if we can do this online or not, but rather is what we are doing pressing enough to be in person? While prior to COVID 19, we lived in an extremely globalized society, companies and colleagues on opposite ends of the globe could be reached in a matter of seconds, the typical office setting and group interaction is now forever altered. Shaking hands may become taboo, and loss of personal interaction will greatly change the way in which we interact with our neighbor, colleagues, and family.
Kenneth Rapoza from Forbes highlights how this pandemic even threatens our continued globalized world. As many have seen from the media, shipping, communication, and employment globally has come to a significant halt and shortage. With stay at home orders being put in place, the world is no longer turning around the axis that is its interconnectedness, but rather the wheels that spin right on their homeland. This specifically applies to the relationship China has with the rest of the Western world, and how that relationship will look following the pandemic, if it will ever go back to normal at all. Many have clearly established their prejudices towards the nation as being the one to start the spread of Coronavirus, which also means that going forward, many abroad offices and factories placed in China could very well return back to their homes. Below is a graphic from Bloomberg outlining various travel bans and restrictions throughout the globe, thus emphasizing our once globalized world and economy is starting the close their borders. The future of this is still uncertain as we continue to navigate how globalization and the post-COVID19 global economy will look like.
China being one of the world’s leading economies, this new shift of globalization and relationships amongst global leaders will certainly change the way in which the global economy operates. Sonia Shah, author of Pandemic: Tracking Contagions From Cholera to Ebola and Beyond, writes on how consumer culture and mass consumerism will forever change as a result of COVID 19. As this mass consumerism comes to a slowing pace, she describes it as being a “reasonable price to pay” for the defense of our future against more mass contagions and pandemics. Due to the mass globalization of our planet, the environment and wildlife take a backseat in the discussion of world problems, thus allowing the proximity with which we interact with unknown animal microbes becomes heightened, says Sonia. Theda Skocpol, professor of government and sociology at Harvard, discusses how our inequality gap will widen, but particularly for the wealthiest fifth of Americans (Top 20%). This group of people have been able to withstand the hardships of this pandemic (i.e. job security, children with their own bedrooms, entertainment options, etc.) The bottom 80% have had to deal with unemployment, health risks, lack of affordable/available healthcare, and more and this pandemic only emphasizes and widens that gap.
While these times are certainly unprecedented and every nation has varying levels of approachability towards this pandemic, it has wholeheartedly brought nations together unlike anything ever before while also becoming a very polarized reality. Populations are banding together to protect, help, and strengthen their nation’s front line workers such as nurses, grocery store clerks, doctors, and more. While the near future is uncertain, I truly believe, as do many great scientists and thinkers of our time, that this will be a time that we look back upon and remember not only the ways in which this virus upended the daily lives of many, but also brought important topics regarding human rights to the frontline of conversations.
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