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Coronavirus is going to bring with it some permanent changes to the way we live. What might some of these be? THREAD of my guesses in no particular order:
1. Cash will never recover from this. In the short term, the maximum amount for contactless payments will be abolished, but our retreat into our homes and preference for contact-free money means that cash will be on its way out very quickly.
2. Nobody will travel for meetings any more. Those days of taking an intercity train just for a single meeting will be gone. Zoom works and now everybody knows it.
3. I don& #39;t know if copyright will recover. So many TV stations, libraries, journals etc have opened up their archives for free - boxsets streamed legally with no money changing hands - the Bar Ilan Responsa Database with no charge - will we ever go back?
4. The distinction between doctors and nurses will begin to shrink. We might see more doctors doing a nurse-like role, or nurses doing a doctor-like role. The view that doctor > nurse, which was always daft and unfair and sexist, will finally die.
5. Our conception of which workers are essential will change very quickly. Priti Patel& #39;s list of which professions should be given enhanced immigration status is only a few weeks old, really, but it now looks very silly. Wot no Deliveroo drivers?
6. A four day week? Now we know quite how many meetings are unnecessary and how easy home working can, potentially, be, will the standard employment pattern over the coming decades be a four-day workweek?
7. Less of a generation gap. As the grandparent-generation is being bought iPads and more and more of them are rapidly learning about technology and the internet, will the stereotype that they& #39;re more out-of-touch and conservative hold water in future?
8. A new paradigm for consumer rights, with refunds for cancelled flights, trains, concerts etc coming more readily and with fewer conditions or hurdles.
^^ That& #39;s it for now, but I might add if more things come to me.
10. Oh wait, how could I forget the Great Kosher-for-Pesach Racket? That& #39;s never going to recover next year.
11. And the high street of course. The high street may have died a death.
