Will we ever return to normal?
It is a question being asked across the globe as a dismal 2020 turns into 2021.
And there are several additional questions.
Will vaccines against the coronavirus prove effective? How long will immunity last? Will sufficient numbers be inoculated to allow for viral suppression? Will the virus mutate, shape-shifting its genetics, forcing vaccine scientists to scramble in a game of catch-up?
And even if the virus is suppressed, will the longer term political, social and economic repercussions of the pandemic mean life will never quite return to “normal?” Furthermore, should we just want a simple resumption of the status quo?
The world was out of sorts with itself even before the coronavirus turned everything upside down. With the 2008-09 financial crash, established political orders already were being roiled by the rise of populism.
Writing in his pre-coronavirus book, “Age of Anger: A History of the Present,” Indian essayist Pankaj Mishra argued many people felt powerless, losing faith in traditional political authorities to protect them or in their ability to restore reassuring predictability.
Resentment was rising at the increasingly unequal distributions of wealth and power. The “left-behinds” wanted a new deal. And the rise of new powers also was starting to buffet the global status quo, reigniting old resentments and triggering new conflicts.
All of that was prior to the emergence of the deadly virus to test governments, adding yet more unpredictability and suspicion. And now the public health crisis has morphed into a multi-headed hydra of interlinked upheavals.
Tens of millions have lost their jobs. And when the full tsunami of economic repercussions hits, say economists, the ranks of the unemployed will swell. “While mass vaccination points to an end to the COVID-19 pandemic in the next year or so, it does not provide immunity against longer-term economic damage,” says Stephen Roach, a senior fellow at Yale University and former chief economist at Morgan Stanley, the New York-based investment bank. COVID-19 is the illness caused by the coronavirus.
“Recent research on the impact of 19 major pandemics dating back to the 14th century — each with death counts in excess of 100,000 — highlights the long shadow of the economic carnage,” he adds.
Governments are borrowing massively or burrowing deep into reserves to try to weather the pandemic, hoping that post-pandemic economic growth will pick up fast to restore equilibrium.
In Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio's classic book, “The Decameron,” completed shortly after the 14th century Black Death, seven young women and three young men escape the bubonic plague and seclude themselves in a villa outside Florence. There they narrate 100 tales to occupy themselves. The book concludes with the group returning to Florence to pick up their former lives when the plague is over.
But pandemics and disease, like wars, leave their mark, and the history of pandemics suggests many won’t get to return to their pre-contagion lives. Plagues and pestilence have reshaped countries before. They can also doom empires. According to American historian Timothy Winegard, author of “The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator,” published last year, a fresh virulent strain of malaria may have contributed to the decline of ancient Rome.
In England, the long-term effects of the medieval Black Death were far-reaching, according to historian Tom James, with “agriculture, religion, economics and even social class affected. Medieval Britain was irreversibly changed,” he wrote in a commentary for the BBC. The same happened to Boccaccio's north Italy.
Analysts and historians warn the pandemic will cast a long economic shadow. “Long-lasting changes to the way we shop, travel and socialize are likely to significantly affect certain sectors,” says Stephen Machin, director of the Center for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. “Uncertainty about the course of the pandemic means the recovery could be even slower. Consequently, the economic scars have considerable potential to cut even deeper,” he adds.
World economic output will be about 7% lower than it would otherwise have been due to the pandemic, according to projections. The United Nations has warned an additional 207 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty by 2030, due to the severe long-term impact of the pandemic, bringing the number to more than a billion.