COVID-19 is the single most disruption in our lifetime that has made us re-evaluate our lifestyles almost in totality. From being confined in our own homes and immediate surroundings to industries taking a pause and scaling down operations, the pandemic has put a heavy burden on different sectors of the economy of many countries.
The pandemic may change everything in the near future from how we greet each other to accomplishing everything in our bucket lists. Imagine a future where you can’t enter a supermarket or office building without sanitizing or wearing a face mask, and maintaining social distancing while in the company of others? The act of wearing a mask alone could send a message about how seriously you take public health warnings especially at a time where COVID-19 is considered a high threat to the older generation. Thus masks could draw lines, both personal and political, and between young and old.
With this type of vigilance comes a ‘touchless’ or ‘distance’ economy where people are more concerned about safety and hygiene. Telemedicine, Zoom meetings, e-commerce digital media etc are all experiencing a surge in use. As the way is being paved for a digital economy, tech companies have literally been put to task to innovate faster and come up with tangible solutions that will somewhat smoothen the transition. This is especially visible in the healthcare sector as we see the widespread adoption of telemedicine by health facilities.
There’s however no way of predicting what’s coming next as it's hard to guess the depth of the downturn or how long COVID-19 will stick around. The most critical question is whether there will be a cure. In 1967, the Mumps vaccine took 4 years to be developed and experts are saying that the COVID-19 vaccine will take 1-2 years if we’re lucky, but it could be longer. So what does this mean? We are not going back to the way things were in the short term but with new habits and precautions, we will be better prepared in case of a second wave, or a new virus.
The most critical approach to preventing its spread is adhering to the set guidelines especially constantly washing our hands, maintaining social distancing and wearing masks. What we essentially must do is keep ourselves clean in order to survive in the COVID-19 era.