Pandemic — Blessing in Disguise?

The peril of being a professional consultant is that you are always working out scenarios in your mind. The worst case scenarios, the best case scenario and the realistic scenario.

There have been a lot of deliberations on TV chat shows and social media about how life after Coronavirus will look like. Almost everyone agrees that it won’t be the same ever again.

Here is my take on the worst case scenario: Coronavirus is here to stay for a few years, at least until the vaccine is found and the majority, if not the entire world’s population is vaccinated.

The cities will soon be empty. Coronavirus will leave a trail of vacant, haunted, cold, dark, concrete structures.

The lure of the cities was because most offices, especially corporate ones, were in the cities. But if most people can work from home, as has been proven in the last couple of months and this trend continues, the concept of physical office may well be extinct.

If someone has to work online, one can work from anywhere in the world. Why live in crowded, congested, filthy, noise, and expensive cities? Why not live in a cottage on top of the mountain with a scenic view and a stream of ice cold water flowing in the backyard?

After all, living in the lap of nature is believed to improve the quality of life in terms of both physical and mental health.

Coronavirus has also impacted education.

The normal criteria for selecting schools used to be proximity to residence, fee, and quality of the faculty.

But if students are going to be studying online in the near future, school buildings would be reduced to an ugly structure used for providing shelter to the homeless and destitute.

The number of students in any school was previously restricted by the physical facilities available. However, with online schooling, there won’t be any such limit.

Students will gravitate towards schools with better faculty rather than better physical facilities, resulting in an upswing in the quality of education with mediocre schools, which have so far survived on superior physical infrastructure, would be forced to close.

The downfall of physical schooling will save the children enormous physical as well as psychological trauma. No more heavy bags, long bus rides, bullying, body shaming, introvert stigmatization, and the constant nudge into the rat race.

Online schooling will further strengthen the argument for families to move out of the cities and live in the lap of nature.

Socializing will also likely be the thing of the past.

The clusterization of the human population shall end. The human population will spread out, distributing itself mostly over villages and small towns, limiting the socializing to within the village or town.

Socializing will be possible but would require extensive protocols and procedures. Weddings will be a two family affair only with extended family and friends attending the rituals and others through Zoom. No more splurging and extravaganza.

Dating will be limited to online.

Before they can culminate into a physical meeting, valid Coronavirus test certificates would have to be produced, and even then one would be expected to display decent social distancing etiquette.

This does take out all the fun from dating but ensuring a mental connection before any physical connection would lead to a much healthier emotional wellbeing.

During the lockdown, online shopping surged in popularity.

This trend will likely continue post Coronavirus, leaving the huge market places and malls redundant superstructures that can be used for providing a home to many.

The end result?

With commute time between office, work, and school completely eliminated and shopping time reduced, people will be left with a significant amount of extra time at hand to devote to personal interests and professional pursuits, further resulting in improved quality of life.