[Post-Covid World] Sharp thorn of the New post-virus World

Do you also think that we all live in a strange world in last few weeks? New pleasures and opportunities, as well as new fears, are bizarrely mixed here. All together they increase our confusion right now, but gradually change our fundamental behavior in the coming years. The world that has overcome the coronavirus pandemic will not be the same: everyone who claims to be the analyst is repeating this phrase now. However, what kind of this Brave New World will be, is impossible to say.

Caricatures show us the beginning of a new life in China like a dull people walking along gray streets through the dozens of drones, past a miffed policeman, under the encouraging look of Xi Jinping from a huge poster. It’s nothing more than the fearful irony of “democratic” Western societies, shocked by the prospect of an “authoritarian” China’s global leadership. There will be no answers how to live on in the post-pandemic world neither during virus spread, nor immediately after it. However, some signs of the new world are already beginning to emerge like sharp corners through a thick layer of the global hysteria, the lockdowns and the closure of a borders.

This feature opens the “Post-Covid World” project at the Pan Pacific Agency’s website. So, let’s first make a deal, what information will not be shared in this section.

This section will not have covered the huddle of world geopolitics. Broadly speaking, geopolitics seems to be falls to populist nationalism. There are many theories on the China’s future power increase on all fronts (some even apply the term “geopolitical weapon” to the coronavirus) and the related transformation of the world community. But we left discussions about the end of the dollar era or the breakdown of the unipolar world and EU to narrow specialists, that are politicians.

Any attempts to predict the decisions of state leaders, their blocks and international institutions under the influence of the crisis are futile. Different states respond to a pandemic very differently, although WHO general recommendations have been developed. The problem is that the recommendations of organizations like WHO no longer solve anything, as Mr. Trump recently made clear. Sorry, we promised – this section is not a geopolitics about, ok.

In the same way, we will not touch on the issues of domestic policy of the govts. All of them are under tremendous pandemic pressure. People reproach the rulers for being ineffective as managers and unable to cope with the crisis. Recently, the chief of the Scottish health service resigned, cause she was catched in an outrageous walk with her family during the nationwide ban.

Emergency budget support measures for enterprises that have lost their customers or laborers who have lost their jobs, all these countless loans and tax benefits are nothing at all, as many peoples thinking. The truth is that many of us will face the inevitable drop in income and living standards. How the voters’ dissatisfaction will influence their choice will be shown very soon by the nearest major example – the US presidential vote in this November. Overall impact of the pandemic on domestic politics in the long term is not as obvious as when the pandemic will be defeated: in two months, in 12 or in 18?

Explosion in new technologies, issues of the quick growth of video conferencing companies, online delivery services, big data systems and artificial intelligence, to also not be our focus in this section, if you don’t mind. More precisely, we are closely monitoring such changes in another section – Pacifica’s STEM, and we will link these publications as necessary. Discussing on how the world is transforming after a pandemic and basing only on technology without people would be strange. No, we don’t think that robots will capture the world soon. Not now yet.

On the other hand, it’s also unacceptable to talk about how human’s mentality is changing without outdoor condition understanding. Now a third of the world is locked in the solitude of their own room, and someone cannot see anyone at all, because it is under quarantine or lockdown.

We are trying to establish a daily routine as not to lose those weeks in bed. We are trying to invent hobbies that we don’t actually have. We are surprised that no need to go to office, and working meetings can be held around the clock, – was a working at home always possible, really?

We experience mixed emotions, from joy to disappointment, on a sharply increased concentration of loved ones nearby (the stepped up probability of spur-of-the-moment sex is not a disappointment, of course. But “these kids”…).

So, what are we talking about? The question is reasonable. Honestly, we are inspired by several ideas that are about to occur or already expressed by our colleagues. For example, authors from the US Boston Consulting Group in their analysis, recalls that the chaos of any crises gives chances for useful changes, if you remember the example of the coming decades.

The Second World War led to the emancipation of female labor, the 9/11 attacks – to tighten transport security measures, and the SARS epidemic in South-east Asia – to the rapid growth of e-commerce. In all these cases, the measures taken in response to the crisis changed people’s behavior, and when the crisis disappeared, life has not changed back.

Please, you don’t need to accept it word for word. Of course, people will not walk masked in public places after the coronavirus retreats. But what can you say that people all over the world wear masks every day amid of air pollution in megacities? And people in many parts of India were surprised that they actually have the Himalayas in their country just thanks to coronavirus spread. They see the mountains a first time for a life, cause vehicles’ restriction cleans the air for hundreds of kilometers of visibility? We don’t need to stop the economy and return to the world of Adam and Eve. However, why we can’t clean the exhaust thoroughly?

“Risk management will become a core activity in the new world.” It’s another inspirational idea by Forbes’ author.

It doesn’t mean that the world will gradually become safer on its own. But one can hope that the decision-makers will finally begin to listen to forecasts, and a plan will appear for every trouble. Perhaps our life as a whole will become more predictable. Boring, right?

By the way, our colleague makes eight general predictions about the transformation of the world after the Covid-19, which we are generally agree with.

Starting today, we will work hardly to extract signs of a new after-Covid-19 world from the avalanche of information about the virus. These grains can be lost in a heap of terrible details about deaths and deprivations, which are formed the current picture of the day. But we believe that very soon it will be time to put down the armor and take up the arrangement of ordinary life. What things will be in demand in the world after a pandemic, and what thing will not? What skills will be important to you to find your place? Our mission to be completed, if our advice will help you navigate how to do it faster and more efficiently.

Perhaps some of our hypothesis will not come true. We will try to think in a positive way. You can’t wait from us some predictions about revolutions, total state control over citizens or the international tourism’s end. We believe that any negative trend could be turned into a profit, and after big shocks the world can and should change for the better. No matter what the world itself thinks about it.

Read us, bringing closer to yourself a wonderful “Post-Covid World“.

Russian version of this article is available here.

Tags: Donald Trump