The World After Coronavirus

Nay_Sayer said:
after? ok.
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I think it's fair to interpret it as "after it's no longer a crisis".

As time goes on and more people have been infected immunity will rise, which will itself slow the spread. What's more, as the virus continues to mutate its lethality will go down, because strains which are less likely to kill will have longer to infect other people and therefore propagate.

I know you're probably getting at the fact that this likely won't go away and will instead always be with us, like the flu. That tends to be the opinion of most experts, so it's a reasonable opinion to hold. But even if no vaccine is ever developed, it won't always be this huge pandemic that overwhelms everybody's healthcare systems.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
As time goes on and more people have been infected immunity will rise, which will itself slow the spread.
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Do we have any examples yet for immunity to this coronavirus?


But even if no vaccine is ever developed, it won't always be this huge pandemic that overwhelms everybody's healthcare systems.
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It will just be a world without anyone older than 80 years.
 
Hlafordlaes said:
In the face of today's myriad challenges, how well is everyone applying, say, the terrifically hard lessons of WWII or the Holocaust, even in Israel? Embracing fascism, much? I rest my case.
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Never mind WWII, we unlearned the lessons of the "war to end all wars" in two decades!

Hlafordlaes said:
This event marks the definitive rise of Asia and decline of the West.
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I keep seeing that said, but I'm not seeing how or why myself. China's economy will be just as crippled as everyone else.

Right now, they're back at work and producing for the domestic market only, and that won't keep them going. They need to export, and they're not exporting anything at all.

And on the "why" front, where did all this start? The only reason they've made any progress politically outside China is by dollar diplomacy. The countries who have taken those dollars will find the well is presently dry.

Hlafordlaes said:
The US has lost its place, role, moral and political authority, and much of its former unmatched ability to influence the world.
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They already had, but until military might can be overcome, they aren't going away.

Hlafordlaes said:
Short term prediction: The dollar will fall as reserve currency...
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I wish, but the exact opposite is true - money has come for the USD in a tsunami. Same as their military might - there just isn't anywhere else, and it will never be China.
 
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Hlafordlaes said:
History indicates that all will recede in importance as other matters come to the fore. After all, most memory and all of caution were forgotten in the century since the last major epidemic. In the face of today's myriad challenges, how well is everyone applying, say, the terrifically hard lessons of WWII or the Holocaust, even in Israel? Embracing fascism, much? I rest my case.

Humanity is forever only one small step out of the cave. All it ever takes is for one generation to fail to take that step, to be too weak to look past shiny bling and beckoning self-interest, as is the case of the, ahem, much-vaunted "greatest" USA.

This event marks the definitive rise of Asia and decline of the West. The US has lost its place, role, moral and political authority, and much of its former unmatched ability to influence the world. Voluntarily, btw, through sheer pigheadedness, pride, and stupidity. Not that the Chinese will learn or heed this lesson, as they in turn enjoy the unrestrained ability to undermine all but their own power and interest alone, like the ignorant bullies that came before them. The difference is that their fall may not come for centuries, even millennia. There will be no high-minded efforts (or low-minded treason) to come to the aid of those who would violently oppose them and all they stand for, or to allow their sworn enemies to share in the fruits of whatever is left of modernity enough to become any sort of threat to them. That bitter lesson is one all shall have taken to heart.

  • Short term prediction: The dollar will fall as reserve currency, and for the first time in generations, Americans will have to earn an honest living and deal from the position of relative weakness that the bleak failure of the nation to invest in fact-based education has left it in, apart from massive debt that is now near impossible to service, aging and broken infrastructure, the consequences of poisoning large swathes of otherwise arable land, and the continued stupifying presence of the descendants of the mindless religionists that Europe had to rid itself of as impossibly brain dead.
  • Midterm prediction: On the whole, the US will ironically be a far better place because of it...
  • Final prediction: ...until overrun and crushed.

Oh, and I certainly do not envy what's in store for Japan.
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Uh ... OK.
 
The Atheist said:
I keep seeing that said, but I'm not seeing how or why myself. China's economy will be just as crippled as everyone else.

Right now, they're back at work and producing for the domestic market only, and that won't keep them going. They need to export, and they're not exporting anything at all.
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Things are just starting in the US. I think it's going to be a considerable time before people will be back at work. How long do you estimate before the US will be in a similar 'stage' to where China is now?
 
Cheetah said:
Things are just starting in the US. I think it's going to be a considerable time before people will be back at work. How long do you estimate before the US will be in a similar 'stage' to where China is now?
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Couple of months. Their slow start will be sped up by the rate of infection and death increases, and all states will be taking action soon.

China was able to just shut down the portion of the country with infection and America can't do that.

Which means that China won't be getting significant work from USA for a while.
 
Interesting article on supermarkets supply chain. Seems that JiT doesn't allow for a significant number of shops just buying that little bit more to tide themselves over. Whilst there was panic buying the number of people involved weren't that significant.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/stockpiling-supermarkets-coronavirus

The implications are a more direct supply chain from producer to supermarkets for some products, changes to how items are displayed and restocked (Aldi / Lidl model), and changes to how and how many items are stocked at warehouses.
 
Mikemcc said:
Interesting article on supermarkets supply chain. Seems that JiT doesn't allow for a significant number of shops just buying that little bit more to tide themselves over. Whilst there was panic buying the number of people involved weren't that significant.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/stockpiling-supermarkets-coronavirus

The implications are a more direct supply chain from producer to supermarkets for some products, changes to how items are displayed and restocked (Aldi / Lidl model), and changes to how and how many items are stocked at warehouses.
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I hope people will get used to seeing a few empty shelves in supermarkets. This could lead to far less waste in teh supply chain.
 
The impact on poorer counties will far outpace that of the richer ones: the top nations are already fighting over medical supplies - there won't be much left for the rest of the world.
And the poorest don't really have the option to quarantine because they can't get food.

Geopolitics of Africa for the rest of the century might be decided by which Power helps the continent in this time of need.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Geopolitics of Africa for the rest of the century might be decided by which Power helps the continent in this time of need.
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And what form that help takes. Is it actual help, help in return for gutting natural resources, or help in the sense of "we'll give you a loan, the interest of which will be larger than your GDP so you are permanently giving us all your money and can never invest in your own infrastructure, etc."?
 
The Great Zaganza said:
The impact on poorer counties will far outpace that of the richer ones: the top nations are already fighting over medical supplies - there won't be much left for the rest of the world.
And the poorest don't really have the option to quarantine because they can't get food.

Geopolitics of Africa for the rest of the century might be decided by which Power helps the continent in this time of need.
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Mind you the populations of poorer countries tend to be less mobile to spread the infection in the first place. Unless they have nice beaches so wealthy foreigners spread it for them of course.
 
Matthew Best said:
People still use cash? Why?
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For various reasons. I live in a rural area. Locally there are Mom and Pop type places. Some take credit but get charged for taking it by my bank. Some take a credit card but charge a percentage extra directly to me. Some only take cash. In the wealthier areas, I only use my card because of the cash rewards. I just redeemed $294 the other day and got that plus 50% more added to my checking account. I profit but the locals don't so I use cash around here. Also the medical cannabis shops only take cash or debit. I prefer cash there.
 
Just about the only time I use cash is when I have my fortnightly lunch out with my sisters and we all pay our share of the bill in cash (and give the one who drove a cash contribution for the petrol). I'm realizing this because, at the end of a month with no such meals out possible, my wallet is as full as it was at the beginning.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Yeah, I think that things like Apple Pay will eventually make cards obsolete, but the timescale for that is longer.

It's already available on phones and watches, can be used in shops, can be used to transfer money between people directly, and can be used to pay for transport. It's more secure, too, because to use the watch you need a PIN (so this would be the equivalent of the suggestion of stealing someone's cards and extracting the PIN from them, rather than just being able to use contactless), and on the phone it requires face ID, so nobody who steals the device will be able to use it at all. Or, at least, it requires some serious know-how and effort, so a mugger is unlikely to be able to use it to buy a packet of fags. It took the FBI 5 days to get into the iPhone of one of Trump's cohorts (I forget which one off the top of my head), so I suspect that muggers would likely take longer.

But it still all seems rather novel for many, and I don't see it being adopted as a standard any time soon.

Cards, however, are something that even the elderly are familiar and comfortable with. They may prefer cash, but almost everybody would be able to cope. So I think that a move to a card-based society is credible in the relatively short-term.
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In China it's pretty much ubiquitous already. People pay for everything with either WeChat or Alipay. And it's been that way for a couple of years now. I was actually a very late adopter.

One nice thing about WeChat wallet is that you can transfer money to friends with a click, which you can't do so easily with your bank card.
 
Here is the worst case for the world next year. Suppose getting the virus does not give a person immunity from the virus. So as soon as the lockdown stops the virus comes back killing more people. Even if one country gets rid of it then as soon as they allow international travel they import it again. Society will then collapse.
 
Cheetah said:
No one thinks there will be a relative shift in power from the west to the east?
I think the US and Europe are probably going to take a bigger knock than Asia and take longer to recover.
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I remain skeptical about that. I suspect that China in particular took a much harder hit than they are admitting.
 
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