i feel like this is pretty accurate. I hope that this becomes something of a test case that highlights our deficiencies in preparedness and response and we adjust accordingly in case something even worse or considerably deadlier comes along. Much like how Taiwan and South Korea were much better prepared this time after making changes by learning from SARS.
I agree except with the WFH. Businesses work more efficiently when people are centrally located. Communication is faster, easier and clearer. But this will all blow over fairly quickly. This world has moved on from much worse.
Mass hunger. Isolationism. Xenophabia. Regional conflicts and... maybe worse. As for everyday life, a lot of road rage and flared tempers at the very least. An uptick in suicides. Weird cults. Divorces for those that can afford them. A baby/future soldier boom. Lots lot of depressing stuff potentially. Or none of those things could happen and we''ll all just go back to life as usual in a few weeks. But I doubt it. Before this is all said and done, this will hit the economy harder than 9/11, Katrina and the Great Recession combined, I'm afraid. Hopefully I'm wrong.
That's an extremely narrow viewpoint. If you're collaborating to say, create advertising, sure, a brain-trust all together all of the time is absolutely better than one separate. However, if all you have is drones pounding out work on keyboards or answering a phone line, there's no reason that they need to sit together and breathe the same air. The only reason this 'has' to happen is poor management. And communication is very good for me at my day job with emails, instant messaging, voice and video.
Demand for universal coverage and paid leave in America. Delivery services become more prominent. People go back to normal touching wise. Giant global recession with all that entails. Don't think this is over until 2022. Our containment efforts will stretch it out until then. The only way for this to stop now is for mass vaccination or herd immunity.
Communication is good for me as well but not near as efficient. As a developer I'm working closely with other developers usually on the same app. For example, it's far easier to just shout out who broke the home screen than type up and send an email or IM, etc - and then wait for someone to respond. Those types of communications tend to create too much noise and therefore get ignored. And you could research why the home page is broken and then research who last changed it but again - who broke the home screen is way faster and easier to get what you need - the home screen fixed from the person that broke it - and a bit of social shaming goes along with it to test better to help keep it from happening again. We're given 1 wfh day per week as a treat and I can also tell you that some people work better from the office than home. They get too "distracted" at home. The boss is well aware of that as well as the rest of us. But you're right that many jobs that are not team based could be done from home with little impact.
Drone Flamethrowers will be used to de-contaminate our travel paths. And cats will be trained to sky dive so they can kill more birds. So skydiving cats with flamethrowers. It's a mad mad world.
I'm looking at the impact the Spanish Flu in 1918 had, which was 50,000,000 deaths, juxtaposed with our ability to self-isolate in the modern era. You also have to consider that it was during WWI, life was cheaper, people had far more kids per family, and news was nonexistent or slow. Here's a study
It will be very, very common for us to have a “pandemic kit.” A very good supply of N95 masks, surgical gloves, products to disinfect your hands, the things you touch in your house, your car, etc., and several weeks worth of what you realized you needed badly when you were shut in because of this damn thing. Also, the sale of freezers to store the food that can’t just sit on your shelves will rise. That, and things I’m forgetting.
Software developer perspective here as well. It honestly depends on the team and infrastructure of the company. Our remote infrastructure is top tier, we have had people full time remote (myself included) and a majority of the rest being 95% remote (once every two weeks for the sprint kickoff, retrospective, estimations, etc.). Video conferencing and software development collaboration tools are usually more efficient and effective for us than in person meetings and in person collaboration. We essentially also have a centralized all-hands chat that people can use to do those "WHO BROKE THE X?" broadcasts. Suffice to say there are still people that get distracted at home versus the office, but I would have to say there is no drop off in performance on average from when we used to be more in-office.