After The Curve Flattens

Whether the curve flattens in days, weeks, months, or heaven forbid years, society, the world will be different.

Will we even recognize the life that we had before?

Because if we can't embrace each other because of fear of getting sick, how can we embrace the future that is coming?

After The Black Death

The  14th-century bubonic plague also known as Black Death killed an estimated 75 million people. Black Death much like its distant cousin killed selectively: the infirm are more at risk. Also similar to our coronavirus, it originated in China. What makes the Black Death different is that it came by flea bites. It took several centuries for the world's population to recover from the devastation of the plague, but some social changes, borne by watching corpses pile up in the streets, were permanent.

Starting in 1347 and after three great waves, Black Death tapered off in 1351.

Historians credit the Black Death to the Rennaissance. As Italy was hit hard by the plague, and it's daily encounters with death caused thinkers to dwell more on their lives on Earth.

Those who survived the Black Death benefited from an extreme labor shortage, so serfs once tied to the land now had a choice of whom to work for. Lords had to make conditions better and more attractive or risk leaving their land untended, leading to wage increases across the board. The taste of better living conditions for the poor would not be forgotten.

After The Spanish Flu

However, our most recent, deadliest pandemic, the Spanish Flu was incorrectly named. One hypothesis is that the virus strain originated at Fort Riley, Kansas from the poultry and swine used to feed the soldiers; the US soldiers who were sent off to fight in World War I spread the disease all over the world. An estimated 17 million people died. Now near Fort Riley and other undisclosed locations across the United States, poultry, more specifically their eggs, are being used to incubate vaccines.

Starting in January 1918 and after two waves, the curve finally flattened in early 1920 and phased out by December 1920.

As many as 18 million Indians alone died of Spanish Flu – the greatest loss in absolute numbers of any country in the world. As the British were the colonizers they felt a backlash. The British were blamed for spreading the flu and it fueled the Indian independence movement which inspired Mahatma Gandhi. The Russian revolutions of 1917 were fanned by the haves and have nots exposing a dire supply situation, and by highlighting inequality. Soon after the Russian Revolution and the brought to the world stage, Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin.

Ongoing HIV/AIDS

In 1959, another outbreak began as a virus was transmitted from an ape or monkey to a human when a hunter or bushmeat vendor/handler was bitten or but while hunting or butchering the animal.  A decade later, in 1969, a 16-year-old African American, Robert Rayford, died at the St. Louis City Hospital from Kaposi's sarcoma. In 1987 researchers from Tulane University detected "a virus closely related to identical to HIV-1 in his preserved blood and tissues. The doctors who treated Robert suspected he was either a victim of sex trafficking or a victim of sexual abuse. In the 1980s, when HIV/AIDs or Human Immunodeficiency Virus, became a household name as it rose to become a global pandemic - a stigma was also attached: AIDS/HIV only infected drug users or homosexuals. Governments around the world were indifferent to finding a cure or treatment.

However, 35 million people who are LGBTQ, straight, healthy, drug users, and of all religions, died to HIV/AIDs or related illnesses. Nearly 40 million people across the globe are infected with HIV/AIDS today. Of these, almost 2 million are children (<15 years old)

As Newsweek reported, "Without AIDS, and the activism and consciousness-raising that accompanied it, would gay marriage even be up for debate today? Would we be welcoming "Will & Grace" into our living rooms or weeping over "Brokeback Mountain"? Without red ribbons, first worn in 1991 to promote AIDS awareness, would we be donning rubber yellow bracelets to show our support for cancer research? And without the experience of battling AIDS, would scientists have the strategies and technologies to develop the antiviral drugs we'll need to battle microbial killers yet to emerge?"

After H1N1/Swine Flu

I have written and contributed my own personal experience by infecting three countries - India, China, and the Philippines from a virus that originated in the United States and Mexico.

Starting in January 2009 and the curve finally flattened in mid-2010 and was under control by August 2010.

Swine flu as a pandemic determined that it's not the deaths or the periods away from employment that causes economic activity to decline. It is the disruption to markets caused by a loss of confidence and a change in spending patterns driven by fear. 

After Coronavirus

The gig economy is broken.

It seems that since the financial crisis of 2008, lower to middle-class families and their teenage, college-age children have multiple jobs - working at a restaurant, coffee shop for tips, growing a social media channel, driving a Lyft or Uber, and doing small tasks such as web development, graphic design for fixed fees.

The "shelter in place" or quarantine requirements forcing restaurants to close their doors and only offer take-out or gift certificates to keep them afloat - will kill the small mom and pop local restaurants.

Local boutique stores that cannot pay rent will have to sell their stock at drastically reduced prices or in bulk to bigger competitors.

The next job seekers might seek out occupations that offer much lower salaries but come with benefits. Universities will fill up with future medical professionals of all types. Or job seekers might go back to basics to learn trades that are always in need: plumbers, electricians, and other trade jobs.

The baby boomers near extinction.

Coronavirus seems to be affecting those who are 60 and above. It was already predicted that 2037 would be the great decline year for baby boomers. But if that year moves up by 17 years, how will that impact the financial markets and politics? As more empty houses flood the market, life insurance policies payout, long term retirement homes begin to empty, and votes go uncast - how will that change society? Certain regions will be hit more than others - specifically Florida in the United States - who has the highest population of retirees. Other tourist investment cities in and around the Smokies or the Rockies might also be hard hit. Retirement tourism to countries like Thailand and the Philippines might impact their economies.

Family is more important.

One of the positive side effects of the quarantine is people finding out who really cares about them in times of crisis. Following influencers and having 5,000 friends on Facebook no longer matter.

Although after the first week of being stuck with family and the second week begins to drive everyone crazy. Slowly families begin to realize where they came from. Kids get to really know their fathers and mothers.

And when the kids go to sleep, the parents get to reconnect on both a physical and emotional level. Or either, decide that when this quarantine is over - happiness is more important than just staying together for the kids - and divorces begin to spike. But at least a civil understanding of what's important - families will reform.

The power of crowds.

Watching television and movies during a quarantine makes you nostalgic for the old days of being in crowds - drinking a beer at a bar, dancing, and rooting for your favorite sports team.

If the Coronavirus begins to dissipate during the middle of Summer, football, soccer, F1, NASCAR might see record ticket sales.

The bars and clubs who are still open - will see record numbers of customers returning just to get drunk with strangers.

Autonomous rises.

As the job market begins to rebound, certain jobs will be forever lost. Autonomous will become commonplace. Robots will start to show up at fast-food restaurants to cook the burgers and the fries, cashier-less retail and grocery stores, and Uber or Lyft rides with no drivers.

Artificial intelligence will seem less likely as the end of the world scenario. It will seem like the lifeblood of mundane tasks when the next pandemic strikes.

Humans in contact with other humans caused the quarantine.

Robots could keep both the local and big city financial heartbeat going.

Everyone has a digital wallet.

The Coronavirus Aid Package will be nearly 6 trillion dollars. But also attached to this stimulus bill is the creation of a digital currency that gets sent to every US Citizen's digital wallet.

The country-wide adoption of a digital wallet allows for the ease of Census taking, filing for taxes, updates of credit scores, linkage health records and although it hasn't been defined but if built using blockchain - it means finally true consumer privacy and protection.

For the startup I co-founded, Blockstamped, this will be a digital boom for the blockchain industry and smart contract applications.

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If any of the preceding prognostications come to pass, one thing I can guarantee when the curve flattens, and Coronavirus is last year's pandemic: a hug, a handshake, or pat on the back with a stranger will feel so good.

Being required to stay six feet (or 1.3 meters) from all humanity makes me long for any type of embrace that makes me feel human again.