Will Living In Isolation Be Our New Normal?
Will Living in Isolation Be Our New Normal?
Sophie Parenti May 18, 2020
The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have caused massive changes to our day-to-day lives. Most changes have been abrupt and are rapidly causing frantic behavior from citizens. Almost everyone is in the unknown and aren’t sure what to expect in the upcoming future.
Who is living in isolation?
According to Johns Hopkins University, “More than 3.5 million cases of the novel coronavirus, including at least 247,000 deaths have been recorded worldwide”. In the US more than 1.1 million cases and at least 67,000 Covid-19 related deaths have been recorded. In the past month over 316 million people in at least 42 states, three counties and 10 cities are being urged to stay home. Most states have ordered residents to stay at home except for gathering essentials in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus. California was the first state to shelter in place and has been doing so ever since March 17, 2020. New York was the next to follow a few days later. Most of the nation's citizens have begun living, working, exercising and entertaining themselves for the past month. The US isn’t the only country experiencing isolation. Most of the world has just finished shutting down with only a few countries returning to a normal society.
What will happen to our economy?
Lockdown is placing pressure on the global economy. We face a serious recession and this pressure has led some world leaders to call for an easing of lockdown measures. The economics of collapse are fairly straightforward. Businesses exist to make a profit; if they can’t produce, they can’t sell things. This means they won’t make profits, which means they are less able to employ you. Across the country, the stay-at-home orders have had serious economic consequences. As of today, around 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits over the past four weeks. In some areas, this has prompted backlash, often from conservatives. In a normal crisis the prescription for solving this is simple: the government spends, and it spends until people start consuming and working again. So what we need is a different economic mindset.
We tend to think of the economy as the way we buy and sell things, mainly consumer goods. But this is not what an economy is or needs to be. At its core, the economy is the way we take our resources and turn them into the things we need to live. Looking at this way, when we are released from shelter in place, we can start to see more opportunities for living differently that can allow us to produce less stuff without increasing misery.
If ever, when will the stay-at-home orders end?
Last week, President Trump issued a set of federal guidelines for states to begin slowly reopening their economies, saying governors could begin reopening businesses and restaurants by May 1 or earlier. The guidelines recommend that states not do so until the number of coronavirus cases has steadily declined for at least 14 days. However, the guidelines do not make provisions for the dramatic increase in testing that many public-health officials have said will be necessary to safely reopen the economy.
Technically we aren’t able to return to a normal society until we have a vaccine. Coronavirus vaccine research is happening at breakneck speed. About 80 groups around the world are researching vaccines and some are now entering clinical trials. The first clinical trial for the vaccine was announced last month by scientists in Seattle. A vaccine would normally take years, if not decades, to develop. Researchers hope to achieve the same amount of work in only a few months, as we are in a global crisis. Most experts think a vaccine is likely to become available by mid-2021, about 12-18 months after the new virus, known officially as Sars-CoV-2, first emerged. That would be a huge scientific feat but there are no guarantees it will work.
Where will we be in 6 months, a year, 10 years from now?
“From an economic perspective, there are four possible futures: a descent into barbarism, a robust state capitalism, a radical state socialism, and a transformation into a big society built on mutual aid.” Simon Mair from the BBC states in his article. Both Covid-19 and climate change are caused by the same thing, non-essential economic activity. If we took a stance and decided to reduce the non-essential economic activity our chances of further global crises like these, would be a lot less. For climate change this is because if you produce less stuff, you use less energy, and emit fewer greenhouse gases. The epidemiology of Covid-19 is evolving quickly and almost every day. But the cause of these things is similarly simple: when people mix together they spread infections much faster. This happens in households, and in workplaces, and on the travel/transportation people make. Reducing this mixing is likely to reduce person-to-person transmission and lead to fewer cases overall.
Why does shelter in place benefit us now, and will it in the future?
Shelter in place has been ordered throughout the US to ensure the safety and well being of our world. As of right now shelter in place orders have helped scientists focus on their research in developing a vaccine to lessen the future impact of COVID-19. Shelter in place has lowered the numbers of infected people and has given the population a chance to recover. Shelter in place has also given the ecosystem many benefits that has led to an improvement of climate change. As of today no one is really sure how much quarantine and shelter in place will benefit us in the future, but we do have hope. After this global crisis we can work as a society to shape our world into a better place with different standards. We do know that many things will change especially our usual customs and habits such as the usual handshake. As well as a change in habits we will most likely have a huge change in our day to day lives. There will be less travel, less consumption, and schooling and work will be set up much differently.
I know for one thing, that when quarantine is over most of us will be much more appreciative for the things and people we have around us. Things won’t be taken for granted anymore as we will have experienced a life without some of our favorite things.
How will this change impact our future?
In the past week an additional 3.84 million people have filed for jobless claims. Many companies have gone bankrupt. Experts worry that people all over the world may be experiencing an increasing number of mental health issues. This certainly came across loud and clear from the many responses that MNT received from people across the globe. Some people spoke to them about how the specific measures in their country have affected their physical health as well. When they were asked about their hopes for a post-pandemic future, many respondents told MNT that they did not want things to go back to the way they were before the pandemic. Many people said that working from home had been a positive change for them and expressed a wish that employers everywhere may start offering more flexible work options going forward.
Everything about the pandemic and returning to a normal society is still in the unknown. No one knows how much longer it will take to have a curing vaccine, meaning we also don’t know how much longer we will be quarantined. Every state is experiencing something different and receiving different information based on how many ongoing cases that state has. As of right now, all we can do is put in our best effort to keep all citizens safe by social distancing and hope for a better future!
