What Awaits us After the Epidemic?
Experts believe that some restrictive measures will have to be implemented up to the invention and distribution of coronavirus vaccine. It's shocking to everyone. Many have already gotten used to the fact that after the end of the epidemic, almost the whole world is waiting for "new normality", a life in changed conditions. However, these conditions are not reduced to a mandatory social distance of one and a half to two meters or wearing masks and gloves in transport. The "new normality" implies a rethinking of everyday habits, everyday practices, ways of interaction, and coexistence in society, work, and service delivery.
For example, many citizens can move towards meaningful hygiene and disease prevention. They will wash their hands more thoroughly at all times, not just when the World Health Organization asks them to do so. More people will voluntarily wear masks and gloves during the usual seasons of epidemics, take care of the disinfection of workplaces, use public transport more carefully, much less relaxed than before, to treat the violation of personal space.
No one has prepared to live in isolation or quarantine for two or more months. Now it's the experience of millions of people. Coronavirus behaves unpredictably, new waves of the epidemic are likely. Consequently, people will also rebuild their lives with this perspective in mind. For example, this means that - within the limits of what is possible - they will try to make their housing more comfortable, expand their free space, get rid of unnecessary things, probably even move, organize for themselves the conditions in which it is easier to survive the epidemic.
The experience of the pandemic must also affect the general environment. It is not only a question of reducing production waste as a result of the economic crisis, partial shutdown, or even closure but above all a question of private environmental behavior. A person can now think much more about the environment in which he or she lives, and this will affect, for example, everyday practices such as rubbish recycling.
In the last two or three months, the Society has taken a powerful step towards becoming online. Employers will think about whether it makes sense in crowded offices if much of the work can be done remotely. Economic losses will force the search for a way to reduce costs, one of which is to pay for the rent of large premises. Everything that can be done without physical contact will happen more often in this regime, and this applies in particular to the public services sector.
Even after returning to the concert and theatre halls of the audience the practice of online broadcasts may remain: after all, these services may become paid, as sites with series and films, which will bring additional income. Gyms may continue to broadcast training over the Internet. A new paradigm in sports broadcasting is also conceivable: we will have to invent how to show matches without spectators while maintaining the attractiveness of the spectacle. Losses in the entertainment industry due to the pandemic are significant, but it can also creatively manage new opportunities.
