
Ask HN: What societal changes will result from Coronavirus? - omosubi
In what ways will society (wherever you live) look different in say a 6 months or a year?
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axisofpleasure
From a purely IT perspective, a lot more infrastructure to do with working
from home is being thoroughly tested. Knowing how large numbers of home
workers cope with the isolation and the infrastructure available within their
companies could lead to even more people working away from company offices.
This in turn could lead to better comms infrastructure, but with reduce
commuters to major centres of work, the public transport companies may have to
scale back. In turn less sandwich shops, less taxis, etc.

People going through this sort of experience I hope will lead to people taking
on a greater expectation of the importance of good hygiene. When the flu
seasons starts again at the end of the year this experience will hopefully
still be strong in people's minds and they'll be more careful about simply
ignoring it.

As Winter comes back around at the end of the year I think people may start to
change certain habits, more people wearing masks in public as annual flu rises
again, people less willing to shake hands or kiss each other openly if they're
not already intimate. Many European cultures regard the touch of cheek-on-
cheek to be a mark of affection among friends, will that action simply start
to die out as people are reluctant to touch each other.

Ultimately you can't tell, but I think post-COVID will certainly a very
intersting time for the social behaviour observers and the stats collectors.
Interesting times for sure.

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muzani
Depends a lot on whether or not there's a vaccine/cure.

We might still be dealing with COVID-19. Ideally, we probably still would be
at the peak of it, if we managed to flatten the curve.

With all the resources focused on this, it will likely cause an economic
shock. Italy's deep in debt, suspending taxes and mortgages. Other countries
will soon follow. Our economic systems today are remarkably fragile - we make
50 year investments, take on lots of debt and debtors, whereas in the past,
economies are built with the inevitability of war in mind.

We tend to abstract things out like supply chains. Your sandwich and coffee
might go through a dozen countries. What happens when it's no longer free
flow? Do prices go up or down?

A lot of industries could die. Mainly airlines, who are already dealing with
thin margins.

In harsh times, people either become savage survivalists or become a tight-
knit tribe-like community. We'll see which way it goes.

