[EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is a Letter to the Editor, written by a verified resident. It does not necessarily reflect the opinions of The B-Town Blog, nor its staff:]
As we come out of COVID-19.
The information technological trajectory is better, faster, and cheaper communications networks, robotics, automation, electronic meetings, and so on, leading to smarter organizations, cities, homes / condos, telework, telemedicine, and telefinance. A simple example is creating a smarter home by automating HVAC, door locks, lighting, music, TV, draperies and blinds, surveillance cameras, and so on with existing technology. A side benefit would be an easier transition to aging in place.
The demographics trajectory is increasing percentages of Black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans along with a decline in the percentage of White Americans. By the mid-2040s, the percentage of White Americans will be under 50%. This trend is baked in; how we adapt to it is not. We can fight it, deny it, or accept it and work with it; the choice is ours.
The social trajectory includes social distancing, hygiene factors such as wearing face masks and gloves, frequent hand washing and hand sanitizing, and not touching your face in addition to other social factors such as denser living in cities and reduced numbers living in rural areas.
The business trajectory includes social factors covered plus new ways to reduce human interaction such as noted in information technology. Additionally, many restaurants may fail yet others survive via takeout, home delivery, reduced internal seating capacity, and outdoor dining. Overall, we should expect homes, businesses, hospitals, and government agencies to become more automated, use more robots, and employ fewer people with distance separation.
The transportation trajectory will take some time to recover, yet as the highways were close to capacity, we will need to find ways to adapt to more public options such as ride hailing, transit, rail, and aircraft. Deep cleaning of seats and hand rails will become critical as well as the need to wear masks and maintain social distance. All of this is easily doable and low tech.
Hotels, sporting events, museums, in-door dining, schools, and so on have their unique problems to overcome, but with all of thinking about what we can do and how we can adapt, we can get through this pandemic and create a better future.
– David Gould
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