How coronavirus will change the US, from where we live to the way we connect
As America continues to fight the COVID-19 virus it seems increasingly likely that when we look back, the pandemic of 2020 – like 9/11 and the 2008 financial crash – will be a time when the world around us changed in sudden and profound ways. It will affect everything from where we live and work to how we communicate with and relate to others, and even what counts as patriotic service, worthy of the nation’s salute.
That does not mean the post-coronavirus world will be different beyond recognition. The pandemic will not change the basic direction of history so much as accelerate it, according to Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. The importance of the United States to other nations may decline, while that of China increases; but that is happening in some form already. Our screen time may skyrocket along with reliance on Zoom, FaceTime, and other video connectors; but that basic trend preexists. Manufacturers may diversify suppliers to create redundant globalized production chains; but far-sighted managers have pushed this for some time.
Nor are coming changes completely predictable. The influenza epidemic of 1918 turned the world upside down and ravaged the U.S. population. What followed was not a new seriousness of national purpose, but the Roaring ’20s, a free-spending decade remembered today as one of the shallowest eras of American life.
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But crises can shake up the status quo. They override tendencies toward
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