Post Covid Era: What will 2021 look like?

[Trash fires]

Welp, two weeks in and America STEALS the spotlight AGAIN!

[Kowani]

Considering the wild rally that Trump has planned for January 6th, I expect next year to get off to a crazier start than this one.

Most likely a coup attempt. Seriously hide out in your gated communities and stay safe.

Why the fuck were you right

[Heloin]

The mullet hairstyle will become fashionable again. And flared trousers, big ugly flares.

I for one like flared trousers.

[The Lone Alliance]

And what happens if the virus mutates and they need a whole new vaccine, what happens when they're making the whole new vaccine the virus mutates again, what happens the the virus keeps mutating and the world is stuck with COVID forever?

[Baloo Kingdom]

And what happens if the virus mutates and they need a whole new vaccine, what happens when they're making the whole new vaccine the virus mutates again, what happens the the virus keeps mutating and the world is stuck with COVID forever?

There’s a 1.5% of world population kill cap for Covid 19

[Torisakia]

Bold of you to assume COVID will ever end.

[San Lumen]

Bold of you to assume COVID will ever end.

There are two ways it ends. Socially or medically but it will end.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

And what happens if the virus mutates and they need a whole new vaccine, what happens when they're making the whole new vaccine the virus mutates again, what happens the the virus keeps mutating and the world is stuck with COVID forever?

Then we'll make a new vaccine, like with the flu. I will say if you got vaccinated for covid and caught a new strain that the vaccine didn't totally defend against, you would be better off than a totally non vaccinated person getting covid.

[The Free Joy State]

The mullet hairstyle will become fashionable again. And flared trousers, big ugly flares.

No! We want the 20s! Beaded dresses, the Charleston and art deco.
* * *
As for 2021... I suspect much like 2020 -- at least for much of the year. Depending on how vaccination progresses, we may see some improvement at the back end of the year.

I don't think we'll ever have a truly post-COVID world. The number of people suggesting they won't be vaccinated is not conducive to it. I think it will remain active in society and continue to mutate so that the vaccine will need to continue to be developed to keep up with new strain. I'm not all doom and gloom, as I hope we will develop better treatments and that infections and mortality will fall so it's almost eradicated (I'd like to see it completely eradicated, but -- due to the anti-vaxxers -- I don't see that as realistic).

COVID has exposed deep social divides and anger, and given a voice and face to the worst conspiracy theories. This is a genie that I doubt will easily go back in its box. I don't see this calming easily, and I think some nations may see a rise in populist candidates being fielded by minority parties.

In many ways, when possible, I think life will return to normal: people will return to restaurants again, people will visit their elderly relatives again, people will hug their loved ones again. People might value their friends and relatives more, when they have not been allowed to be in the same room as them for so long. But I do think that, economically, there will be some major changes.

Work will have changed forever, now telecommuting has proven to work, with more people working at home for more of the time and fewer people in the office. This will be hard for bricks-and-mortar retail, and may see the further shrinking of the high street. It may be possible for the high street to reinvent itself as a unique place offering things that can't be bought online, but I see a difficult period ahead.

I think that people will appreciate the outdoors more and I also imagine an increase in the uptake of creative recreations, as some people who took up a hobby such as painting, sewing or music to pass the long hours in lockdown keep them up. This might, in turn, see the rebirth of the damaged creative industries.

I think the entertainment, events and restaurant industries will recover eventually; Government investment may be required. I'm not sure how cinema chains will do -- services that allow you to stream brand new films when they would have been in the cinema (at less than the cost of a family) may have done what the birth of television didn't and killed the cinema: it could possibly rebrand as a unique experience and continue, but cinemas were closing already. I think the arts will suffer some losses along the way (some theatres will probably be lost forever, some smaller organisations may be forced to shutter) but hope it will reform and regrow.

I do feel somewhat optimistic for science. After science (in some cases, in spite of the ineptitude of certain politicians) has provided an answer to help us move forward from the pandemic, there might be more interest in funding for scientists (such as, for cancer research and climate change), and a move to improve education for future generations of scientists, which may lead to developments that help long into the future and a decline in future generations of anti-intellectualism.

[Kragholm Free States]

Post Covid? Possibly wishful thinking. Unless these vaccines prove to be effective against every new variant of Covid that pops up it may well become endemic or have seasonal spikes like flu. It's just a question of how we handle that. We could have the sane and reasonable method, keeping up the vaccine development to tackle new strains and giving at-risk people regular Covid jabs. Or we could have a continuation of the long march down the path of total erosion of all semblance of human rights, keeping millions of people under indefinite house arrest and subjecting them to on the spot fines or detention without trial for violating any one of an increasingly arbitrary and Byzantine set of rules, turning friends, neighbours and families against each other and into relentless snitches, the death of local economies and small businesses in favour of near-mandatory subscription services from the state-corporate cronyist apparatus, et cetera.

Considering the absolute fucking state of most of the world's governments today, I can't say I hold out much hope for sanity here.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

The mullet hairstyle will become fashionable again. And flared trousers, big ugly flares.

I for one like flared trousers.

Worst trousers ever.

[Ethel mermania]

I for one like flared trousers.

Worst trousers ever.

Spandex worst ever.

Bell bottoms be cool yo

[San Lumen]

Post Covid? Possibly wishful thinking. Unless these vaccines prove to be effective against every new variant of Covid that pops up it may well become endemic or have seasonal spikes like flu. It's just a question of how we handle that. We could have the sane and reasonable method, keeping up the vaccine development to tackle new strains and giving at-risk people regular Covid jabs. Or we could have a continuation of the long march down the path of total erosion of all semblance of human rights, keeping millions of people under indefinite house arrest and subjecting them to on the spot fines or detention without trial for violating any one of an increasingly arbitrary and Byzantine set of rules, turning friends, neighbours and families against each other and into relentless snitches, the death of local economies and small businesses in favour of near-mandatory subscription services from the state-corporate cronyist apparatus, et cetera.

Considering the absolute fucking state of most of the world's governments today, I can't say I hold out much hope for sanity here.

No one is going to tolerate this way of living long term and its absurd to think they would. People weren’t meant to live like this and our leaders have to be realistic or they will find themselves out of a job.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

Worst trousers ever.

Spandex worst ever.

Bell bottoms be cool yo

Goddam dirty hippie.

[Kragholm Free States]

Post Covid? Possibly wishful thinking. Unless these vaccines prove to be effective against every new variant of Covid that pops up it may well become endemic or have seasonal spikes like flu. It's just a question of how we handle that. We could have the sane and reasonable method, keeping up the vaccine development to tackle new strains and giving at-risk people regular Covid jabs. Or we could have a continuation of the long march down the path of total erosion of all semblance of human rights, keeping millions of people under indefinite house arrest and subjecting them to on the spot fines or detention without trial for violating any one of an increasingly arbitrary and Byzantine set of rules, turning friends, neighbours and families against each other and into relentless snitches, the death of local economies and small businesses in favour of near-mandatory subscription services from the state-corporate cronyist apparatus, et cetera.

Considering the absolute fucking state of most of the world's governments today, I can't say I hold out much hope for sanity here.

No one is going to tolerate this way of living long term and its absurd to think they would. People weren’t meant to live like this and our leaders have to be realistic or they will find themselves out of a job.

People have spent millennia tolerating a litany of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, genocides, purges, unjust wars, human rights abuses, slavery, massacres of protestors, blatant government lies, and much more, all out of fear. When people are in danger (either real danger like Covid, or in many cases imagined danger), most of them will tolerate just about anything. When the danger passes, they rarely if ever get back all the things they sacrificed to be safe.

[Ethel mermania]

Spandex worst ever.

Bell bottoms be cool yo

Goddam dirty hippie.

Love power.

[San Lumen]

No one is going to tolerate this way of living long term and its absurd to think they would. People weren’t meant to live like this and our leaders have to be realistic or they will find themselves out of a job.

People have spent millennia tolerating a litany of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, genocides, purges, unjust wars, human rights abuses, slavery, massacres of protestors, blatant government lies, and much more, all out of fear. When people are in danger (either real danger like Covid, or in many cases imagined danger), most of them will tolerate just about anything. When the danger passes, they rarely if ever get back all the things they sacrificed to be safe.

Ever hear of the roaring twenties? Did any mandate from the Spanish Flu become permanent? The answer is no.

[Major-Tom]

No one is going to tolerate this way of living long term and its absurd to think they would. People weren’t meant to live like this and our leaders have to be realistic or they will find themselves out of a job.

People have spent millennia tolerating a litany of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, genocides, purges, unjust wars, human rights abuses, slavery, massacres of protestors, blatant government lies, and much more, all out of fear. When people are in danger (either real danger like Covid, or in many cases imagined danger), most of them will tolerate just about anything. When the danger passes, they rarely if ever get back all the things they sacrificed to be safe.

I think you're missing the point drastically.

Yes, if these restrictions went on until after most of (insert your country here) received your vaccinations, it would be a little odd. But that implies that the vaccines won't be effective. The COVID vaccine empirically can protect against the new strains, be they the UK or S.A variant. The genetic makeup is similar enough that a one size fits all approach will work for now.

In addition, much like the Spanish Flu or other novel coronaviruses, these viruses have an end point. For whatever reason, after some time, they stop circulating among the general populace, despite the fact that they still have carriers. And, of course, there are places where lockdowns worked well enough (IE NZ, Australia) where life is essentially back to normal.

Overall, the grim portrait you're painting isn't so much rooted in hard data as it is rooted in a (perhaps understandable) fear that this will never end, because we've been conditioned to having this as our norm.

[The Free Joy State]

Goddam dirty hippie.

Love power.

The original Producers! I've loved that movie since I was a kid.

Sad that Lorenzo St Dubois was written out for the musical and its movie, because he didn't fit the setting. It's still fun (it's Mel Brooks!), and Ulla has something to do, but I missed his character.

[Ethel mermania]

Love power.

The original Producers! I've loved that movie since I was a kid.

Sad that Lorenzo St Dubois was written out for the musical and its movie, because he didn't fit the setting. It's still fun (it's Mel Brooks!), and Ulla has something to do, but I missed his character.

I should have looked for a full body shot with the pants. he sant the Greatest nazi blues song ever.

One and one is two
Two and two is four
I FEEL SO BAD CAUSE WE ARE LOSING THIS WAR.

[Kragholm Free States]

People have spent millennia tolerating a litany of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, genocides, purges, unjust wars, human rights abuses, slavery, massacres of protestors, blatant government lies, and much more, all out of fear. When people are in danger (either real danger like Covid, or in many cases imagined danger), most of them will tolerate just about anything. When the danger passes, they rarely if ever get back all the things they sacrificed to be safe.

Ever hear of the roaring twenties? Did any mandate from the Spanish Flu become permanent? The answer is no.

The twenties were pretty full of a lot of the stuff I just mentioned though, communists and fascists fighting in the streets to impose their own preferred brand of tyranny, while anyone in a position to "not tolerate" either one of them just ended up caught in the crossfire. Crackdowns, military dictatorships, paramilitary thugs murdering civilians. And then over in the US, where we most often think of the twenties being "roaring", the appetite for authoritarianism remained, with the prohibition movement finally getting their way and creating, in the process "a nation of spies, of nosy busybodies, empowered by the state to infringe on personal liberties" (https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/ ... =en&gbpv=0). That took over a decade to go away, meanwhile back in Europe things had only got a hundred times worse. Now of course the Spanish Flu wasn't the primary factor to blame for all that, the First World War was, but it hardly makes the twenties a great example to use.

[San Lumen]

Ever hear of the roaring twenties? Did any mandate from the Spanish Flu become permanent? The answer is no.

The twenties were pretty full of a lot of the stuff I just mentioned though, communists and fascists fighting in the streets to impose their own preferred brand of tyranny, while anyone in a position to "not tolerate" either one of them just ended up caught in the crossfire. Crackdowns, military dictatorships, paramilitary thugs murdering civilians. And then over in the US, where we most often think of the twenties being "roaring", the appetite for authoritarianism remained, with the prohibition movement finally getting their way and creating, in the process "a nation of spies, of nosy busybodies, empowered by the state to infringe on personal liberties" (https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/ ... =en&gbpv=0). That took over a decade to go away, meanwhile back in Europe things had only got a hundred times worse. Now of course the Spanish Flu wasn't the primary factor to blame for all that, the First World War was, but it hardly makes the twenties a great example to use.

But we didnt have mandated masks and forced closing of business or limits on gatherings. We didnt have that during the war either.

None of that became permanent then and none of it will be now.

[Sarderia]

Bold of you to assume COVID will ever end.

There are two ways it ends. Socially or medically but it will end.

The COVID-19 virus will never disappear - but the current pandemic would eventually end, of course.

correct

That’s what I’m wondering. I’ve pretty much resigned myself to the fact that there’s a number of things I will never get to do now. I’ll never get to travel across country (and it actually be worth it). I’ll never get to see Europe except in pictures and maybe VR. I’ll never get to go to an amusement park again. If movies start going directly to streaming rather than theaters then I may never get to see a new movie again.

Really there’s no point in me ever leaving the house again except for work and that’s only because I won’t be able to work from home.

...meanwhile, millions of people slid back into poverty in Asia and Africa, millions more went jobless, and thousands experienced hunger.

The COVID-19 pandemic will end; it would eventually end sooner or later. Rich countries (GDPpc-wise) would perhaps end the pandemic faster than poorer countries, depending on the mitigation of the pandemic itself. But saying that the pandemic wouldn''t end at all is bit of a stretch. It is in almost everyone's interests to get and roll out the vaccines as quickly as possible.

[Husseinarti]

Post Covid? Possibly wishful thinking. Unless these vaccines prove to be effective against every new variant of Covid that pops up it may well become endemic or have seasonal spikes like flu. It's just a question of how we handle that. We could have the sane and reasonable method, keeping up the vaccine development to tackle new strains and giving at-risk people regular Covid jabs. Or we could have a continuation of the long march down the path of total erosion of all semblance of human rights, keeping millions of people under indefinite house arrest and subjecting them to on the spot fines or detention without trial for violating any one of an increasingly arbitrary and Byzantine set of rules, turning friends, neighbours and families against each other and into relentless snitches, the death of local economies and small businesses in favour of near-mandatory subscription services from the state-corporate cronyist apparatus, et cetera.

Considering the absolute fucking state of most of the world's governments today, I can't say I hold out much hope for sanity here.

No one is going to tolerate this way of living long term and its absurd to think they would. People weren’t meant to live like this and our leaders have to be realistic or they will find themselves out of a job.

"need haircut"

People lived under worse and didn't bitch as much. Like this is literally nothing compared to what happens and has happened historically.

The twenties were pretty full of a lot of the stuff I just mentioned though, communists and fascists fighting in the streets to impose their own preferred brand of tyranny, while anyone in a position to "not tolerate" either one of them just ended up caught in the crossfire. Crackdowns, military dictatorships, paramilitary thugs murdering civilians. And then over in the US, where we most often think of the twenties being "roaring", the appetite for authoritarianism remained, with the prohibition movement finally getting their way and creating, in the process "a nation of spies, of nosy busybodies, empowered by the state to infringe on personal liberties" (https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/ ... =en&gbpv=0). That took over a decade to go away, meanwhile back in Europe things had only got a hundred times worse. Now of course the Spanish Flu wasn't the primary factor to blame for all that, the First World War was, but it hardly makes the twenties a great example to use.

But we didnt have mandated masks and forced closing of business or limits on gatherings. We didnt have that during the war either.

None of that became permanent then and none of it will be now.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1997248/

I hope you can read long studies, I understand you need haircut, need go out, but you should read it.

We did have forced closings and some places had mandated masks. You have no idea what your talking about and are just talking out of your ass because someone told you want to do.

How about you grow up.

[San Lumen]

No one is going to tolerate this way of living long term and its absurd to think they would. People weren’t meant to live like this and our leaders have to be realistic or they will find themselves out of a job.

"need haircut"

People lived under worse and didn't bitch as much. Like this is literally nothing compared to what happens and has happened historically.

But we didnt have mandated masks and forced closing of business or limits on gatherings. We didnt have that during the war either.

None of that became permanent then and none of it will be now.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1997248/

I hope you can read long studies, I understand you need haircut, need go out, but you should read it.

We did have forced closings and some places had mandated masks. You have no idea what your talking about and are just talking out of your ass because someone told you want to do.

How about you grow up.

You misread what I said completely. We were discussing current restrictions being permanent and how nothing implemented during Spanish flu became permanent.