COVID-19 Lockdown Day #47

Actually, things are pretty good!

Things still suck on so many levels: unemployment is hard to even measure, the economy is tanking in ways I've never seen before, and US deaths have topped 50,000 with no obvious end in sight. But as ugly as it all is, my attitude is vastly better than it was couple of weeks ago.

My job is still secure, as is Kent's. Michael's travel business is non-existent but that's not for lack of effort on his part. We've fallen into some stable & workable routines, and while I'd like better lighting in my basement bunker, it's all working pretty well.

We're all healthy, as is our extended family: we've heard of friends of friends down with covid-19, but no first or second degree connections.

Some supply shortages have been corrected, others haven't but don't affect us too much. At least the bare shelves aren't getting more bare: the shortages haven't spread into other products or stores. And the seniors' shopping hours are kinda fun if you can bear getting out of bed at such an early hour.

We miss going out to eat, but we've figured out which of our regular restaurants are open, and can handle the new curb-side pick-up procedures, among other variances. Tipping huge, needless to say, trying to help out the tipped wait staff as much as possible.

Zoom-based karate sessions haven't been too bad. It's nothing like being in an actual dojo with a proper non-cement floor and real people, but I'm able to keep a bottle of water nearby and make recordings so I can review new sequences in slow motion later. Michael's zoom-based yoga seems to be satisfactory as well. It's better than nothing.

The closed library system is a pain, but I've had a steady stream of books on my Kindle. I'd be happier if many of the books I wanted weren't already lent out, but I have several on hold and should be able to get them soon-ish.

I'm missing some of the square dance stuff, but not too badly. I like having many of my evenings back, and the lack of extra event coordination & overhead is nice.

I miss the gym. A Lot.

Mostly though, I miss travel beyond our immediate neighbourhood, especially the trailer at Roseland. Knowing that I can't fly to San Francisco for work, or to Canada for family is a fairly severe limitation.

But despite it all, we've largely acclimatized to this lower standard of living. Nationally, I think we've largely hit the floor after a long & seemingly endless plummet, so the bulk of the uncertainty has passed. Now we need to continue the distancing, keep large gathering places closed, and get a vaccine. None of these will happen quickly, but we can tough this out.

Post-Covid?

The pandemic has shown a lot of things we were told were utter bullshit.

Our Internet and cell phone providers all claimed bandwidth was such a limited resource that they had no choice but to throttle usage. Now the limits are lifted as a public service goodwill gesture.

We were told remote telework was impossible: people can't be trusted to work unless they're constantly supervised. High tech folks already knew that was bullshit, but now traditional industries & services are finding it's not as impossible as they thought. And a lot of workers have gotten a taste of it for the first time and aren't likely to give it up easily. Managers who refuse to permit any kind of remote work are dinosaurs.

Teaching can't possibly be done remotely. Oops, we've now demonstrated much of it can. Not all, to be sure, and there are some age groups which are easier than others, but departments which flatly refused to consider it last year are now embracing it.

Now I'm thinking about future years...

Does anyone still think that Internet access is not an essential utility, like electricity or running water?

If we're going to be keeping our distance from other workers, elevators are going to be problematic. Tall, dense office buildings are going to be a challenge, but smaller buildings with escalators & stairs have a built-in health advantage.

Businesses which embrace remote work won't need large centralized office space. Even if they retain an office for respectability, they wouldn't need a dedicated desk for every employee. This has already been a trend in some fields, but it might now explode into a much larger scale.

If larger numbers are working remotely, do we need the proposed expansions to the beltway and I270 corridor near us? Currently both are flowing at a fraction of their pre-covid levels. Ending the lockdown will bring the load back up again, but if we keep telecommuting at scale, do we need the extra lanes?

We've had a lot of shortages in selected items recently. A large part was hoarding, but a large part was also imbalanced production: producers were supplying a particular mix of office vs domestic versions of their stuff, but needed time to change the ratio when the world changed. We're now rebalancing, but it may need to change quickly again.

Brick-and-mortar stores were already in trouble, but it's even harder now.

Restaurants are problematic. If there are fewer people congregating in large numbers, large (and expensive) dining rooms are no longer cost-effective, esp if there are much smaller lunchtime crowds in concentrated downtown areas thanks to increased remote work. We've always had small take-away shops and food trucks, but we may see more gourmet options as upscale restaurants scale back in-house dining in favour of take-away.

And then there's over-capacity in car manufacturing, as well as used car lots. And insurance will have to change dramatically if there are fewer cars driving vastly fewer miles: work commuting is the bulk of the miles most people put on their vehicles.

Elementary schools are probably still a good thing: the young have a difficulty enough time with focus, and lordy, teaching is hard work which needs trained professionals. But college & university campuses may want to re-think some of their capital budget items: do they need more residences and class rooms if the students are remote?

What will a remote student body do to sports recruiting? I can't wait to find out.

Shopping malls were in decline in so many areas around the country. They're now dead in a ditch in those areas. It will be interesting to see if they can rebound.

Rental car agencies, travel agencies, hotels, Lyft, Uber, Air BnB, and airlines are all in deep trouble. And I'm ok with nearly all of them going belly-up. Dinosaurs have to die off so something new can take their place, and we have huge over-capacity with a concentration of ownership in the hands of bad business managers.

Large stadium events are going to be pandemic hotspots: there is no way to social-distance in such an environment. Professional sports might still make a go of it, since their big dollars come from the television rights & merchandise rather than ticket sales. But when these big, heavily gov't subsidized structures need to be upgraded or replaced, it's going to be a tough sell to get limited public dollars for yet another massive subsidy/bailout.

I'll add more as I think of them, but I think it is beyond doubt that the future is going to look very different soon.