I am both academically and temperamentally inclined to analyze the unintended consequences of technology innovation. That inclination can lead to some surprising juxtapositions. Right now, for example, I’m thinking that penicillin is part of the reason the current pandemic is so weird. To explain: as of 1930, with the 1918-19 influenza epidemic still fresh in memory, pretty much everybody had lived through severe illness outbreaks. Tuberculosis, polio, typhoid, malaria, and other diseases were part of the normal landscape. After DDT, antibiotics, vaccines, improved nutrition, better public infrastructure (especially water supplies), and indoor plumbing, the late 20th century saw many of these diseases recede from mass consciousness. As a result, we in 2020 lack mental models for processing what global patterns of infection look like. Accordingly, Covid-19 is fueling many (but certainly not all) of the questions we are confronting at this juncture.
Like everyone else, I have never experienced a pandemic. While many questions (including “what do I wear?”) have sort of been answered (athleisure), the cascade of unknowns is overwhelming. Business and civic officials are faced with a huge, complex tangle of issues around which they must plan. We will have more to say about planning under uncertainty, but for now, the U.S. and most of the world confront an unprecedented (in our lifetime) web of questions.
I. Covid-19
Thinking back just 4 months is an exercise in cognitive dissonance, returning to a time when air flights, concerts and sporting events, and bustling restaurants were unremarkable. When large numbers of people can gather indoors again, it won’t be a simple reset. How different populations in different places move on will be a legacy of the pandemic, with many consequences both major and minor. For now, there's so much we don't know.
-Basic statistics
How many people have been infected or otherwise possess immunity? Of those infected, how many became symptomatic? How many people have a) directly and b) indirectly died because of Covid-19? How have the ratios of these numbers changed in the past 6 months? The one number we do seem to have — how many people have tested positive? — doesn’t really tell us much.
-Basic science
How exactly is the virus transmitted? How long will the Covid-19 virus remain stable (will there be a Covid-20 or 21 variant?)? How long does immunity remain viable? Can the virus’s traits that kill people be addressed by treatment? What if any long-term impacts will people develop in a year or five? That is, new research suggests that the virus can involve multiple body systems beyond the lungs including pancreas, brain, gut, heart, and immune system. Might a 20-year-old infected in 2020 develop debilitating lung scarring at 25, or age of childbearing, or at menopause? Might we see millions of cases of cardiac and/or cognitive damage at atypically young ages of onset? Assuming a billion people are eventually infected, and a quarter require long-term care, the costs in both money and lost human potential could be staggering. Or they might not be much more than a blip.
-Vaccination
Can a safe, reliable vaccine be developed? If so, how many people will consent to immunization, and how quickly? Most people have forgotten the 1976 flu vaccine program, which occurred during a presidential re-election landscape (Gerald Ford) and was rushed, largely unnecessary, and heavy-handedly promoted. The current public faith in the vaccine establishment is much less robust than it was 44 years ago, in part because of social media, and the understandable urgency to deploy a vaccine could lead to mistakes that a) harm people and b) drop credibility further.
-Symbolism
Mask-wearing has become politicized in ways few people could have predicted. Governors still hold considerable authority (withdrawing liquor licenses or certificates of occupancy for large venues), but the simplest tool has been taken out of play in many areas. What other responses to the virus might lead to shootings, fistfights, and other conflict?
-Economics
Travel and tourism along with hospitality have suffered substantially since March, and restaurants in particular look especially vulnerable. How many establishments can turn a profit at 1/3 or 1/2 seating capacity (after being completely out of business for a time)? Additionally, with conferences, trade shows, and large sporting events off the calendar for many more months, foot traffic will drop still further. Schools and colleges are other major economic actors that rely on large gatherings in indoor venues, and educators are becoming increasingly vocal in their refusal to return to classrooms under current plans (Fairfax, VA is an example). More than 30 football players at both LSU and Clemson have tested positive so far: even without fans in the stands, can those numbers drop to and remain at safe levels for close, hard-breathing contact for 3 hours at a shot? If not, both amateur and professional leagues could see multi-billion-dollar losses.
-The social contract
Thus far, vulnerable populations — the aged and low-wage communities of color — have suffered disproportionate fatalities in many countries. For a time, this appeared to be a policy calculus in some places. With the coming of fall, a bitter U.S. presidential election, and a projected resurgence of both Covid and influenza viruses, will those populations continue to be harder hit? Or might more affluent communities see dramatic and widespread effects, perhaps triggering tighter lockdowns than were implemented to safeguard more marginal groups?
-Gatherings
Which venues will _stay_ open first? Which venues will people return to and which will see drops in participation? Churches, offices, bars, arenas, and trade shows will likely resume speed on different trajectories. The quick reopenings that are being followed by panicked closings (see: beaches, Florida) may fuel a more cautious ultimate return in some places than we saw in countries like New Zealand, where the governmental response was more coherent.
II. Black Lives Matter
Coincident with the pandemic is a broad-based movement to reverse centuries of institutional racism, beginning with more accountability for police officers who kill and abuse unarmed citizens without commensurate consequences. In addition to the public safety discussion, education, hiring and promotion practices, and cultural representations of people of color are suddenly front-burner issues in many places.
-What will police reform look like?
It’s easy to point to the abuses, but reversing them is complex. Different geographic units count things (or don’t count things) in different, non-standardized units: a drop in arrests could result from either bad policing or good policing. Prosecution of police officers depends on testimony from other officers, in trials initiated by prosecutors dependent on police cooperation in their everyday duties. Absent smartphone video, most policing crimes are neither reported nor prosecuted. Already police walkouts are occurring in response to even minor action by mayors. Personal safety is an emotional topic and police unions appeal to it at every opportunity.
-What constituency will drive change?
Speaking of police unions, political progressives are in a bind as they both march for police reform (or “defunding,” a word with many meanings) and seek to bolster labor union membership and bargaining power. Ethnic minorities, by definition, are minority populations even if they may be a majority in a precinct or locality. Suburban whites have marched and told pollsters they support change, but how deep or long-lived will that support be? How much management attention will be devoted to fixing policing in an economic recession in a pandemic in a period of high emotional anxiety and uncertainty? Put more bluntly, will fixing police brutality get a mayor re-elected if she doesn’t create jobs, fix potholed infrastructure, or maintain the aforementioned personal safety?
-How long will change take?
Universities pledge to hire and tenure more people of color: many groups are underrepresented in the professoriate and are rightfully speaking out. Businesses pledge to increase minority board seats and C-level appointments. Many people and groups seek to support Black-owned businesses. None of these commitments can be realized overnight. Between 2011 and 2017 the top 20 U.S. economics programs graduated a total of 15 Black PhDs. That’s collectively: in other words, about a tenth of a PhD per year per school. Filling the talent funnel will take decades, beginning in pre-K programs like Head Start. How can early gains be realized at the same time that structural reforms will necessarily take a long time to kick in?
-Where is the political will?
A divided U.S. congress has already claimed one effort to begin to address abuses in policing. State budgets are being crushed between increased Covid-related costs and decreased tax revenues. All politics may be local in the Tip O’Neill sense, but programs to equip police forces with military armament originate far away from city streets. Following the money reveals considerable cash devoted to the status quo. What coalition can change that?
-Where are the invisibilities?
There are many Americas, and residents of one can be oblivious to the others. I have only seen two or three Indian reservations that I know of (casinos notwithstanding) and that's probably by political design. Aggressive inequities in policing in Minneapolis are long-running, yet the Twin Cities routinely score well on quality of life indexes like this one: https://realestate.
III. Macro-level dynamics
Even before the virus rearranged everyone’s lives in March, high-level social and economic winds were shifting. With new forces such as telework and telehealth suddenly accelerated by the virus response, life as we knew it in 2019 is likely gone forever in many regards. Despite lots of people talking about getting “back to normal,” our future non-pandemic life is going to require some adjustments.
-International trade
The trend toward globalization of the 1990-2019 variety was already slowing, and post-Covid-19, we will see new developments. China has become a true super-power and future negotiations will reflect that reality. Critical items like facemarks are too important to be manufactured only in plants far away from points of urgent need. A growing global middle class is loading the planet with demand for animal protein, motor vehicles, and air transportation, and every country will have to re-evaluate its role in that load. Factories can no longer be as easily relocated for convenience of low wages and lighter regulatory burdens.
-Technologies of fabrication and motion
Micro-manufacturing, micromobility, and advanced materials will transform transportation and manufacturing. Bicycles (which are selling fast these days) and pedestrians will play a bigger part in formerly car-centric urban planning. This shift in transit means more bike and light-rail factories and eventually fewer car-makers. How fast and how far air travel rebounds is another major uncertainty.
-Real estate
With the link of work and place broken, for good at some firms, real estate will be shaken up at all levels. Many malls, already an endangered species in the past few years, are going to fail sooner than they would have absent the pandemic. Office space will be scaled back in favor of telecommuting and virtual teams. People can buy houses where they want to live, to a greater extent, than they could when physical work presence was the rule. Such familiar practices as commutes, business travel, and industry gatherings will be redefined rather than simply resumed.
-Skills mismatches
Despite lots of people making creative pivots (corporate magicians and other entertainers doing Zoom sessions), the pandemic has heightened the realization that the current skills base both in corporations and coming out of universities doesn't align with what institutions (businesses, non-profits, governments) will need in 2025 or 2030. As Benedict Evans points out, internet telephony was not invented by Skype, nor could Skype dominate the market: many apps now have voice embedded. Might Zoom go the same way, breaking down an ease-of-use barrier only to see video embedded in social, learning, customer service, and other scenarios? Will resumes of the future embed the technology, essentially encapsulating the interview in the application document? The same questions can be asked of new manufacturing, advertising, retail, social service, and recreational-access technologies. Who will staff the organizations built on the legacy of the Covid-19 quarantine?
IV. How does one cope?
The general sense of anxiety is widely reported: major uncertainties cloud one’s health and safety, economic well being, kin and friendship networks, and future prospects for one’s offspring. The huge academic literature devoted to decisions under uncertainty isn’t much help. Much of it is written to support neural network and other machine learning research. Other bodies of work (including the Nobel-winning contributions of Tversky and Kahneman) show how humans revert to known patterns in the use of heuristics rather than relentless examination of the evidence. Further, many decision models are built on binary outcomes: the election will be won by a Democrat or a Republican, the student will attend college or not attend college, tomorrow it will rain or not rain. What we are faced with now is far from such simplicity: economic recession and/or recovery and policing that no longer commits the crimes of the current institution are non-binary futures. Modeling our current future is an exercise in murkiness.
Let me end with a prediction based on hope more than evidence. With travel curtailed, with commuting redefined, and with people taking a bigger role in urban transport (vis a vis automobiles), perhaps we will see a resurgence of physical community, of neighbors taking action alongside neighbors, putting aside the “virtual” social networks that have proven to be so toxic to the republic and to the body politic. If we take Tip O’Neill at his word then perhaps a corollary is that all localism can generate political change.
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