Pandemic prediction -- future of travel

 It is now November 2020:  the COVID-19 Pandemic has been going on since February or March of this year.

 

Here are my prediction regarding international travel:

-It will take many years to develop a workable vaccine.

-"Life in a pandemic" will become "the new normal": people will just accept the additional precautions (physical distancing; masks; hand-washing) as "what you do". 

-Recreational international travel can't get put on hold forever.  Therefore, travel will resume -- but it will incorporate various COVID-19-related precautions, such as:

-Physical distancing on airplanes -- which means that they'll only be able to fly at about one-half capacity (family groups, and parties traveling together, will not have to be seated apart).  This will double the price of air fares -- but people will be desperate enough to pay them.

-People will not be allowed to leave the airport during long layovers (e.g. to explore the town).

-Mandatory two-week quarantine periods, both before, and after, each leg of the journey.

-Specialized cruise ships will become more cost-effective than air travel:  the journey across the ocean will be part of the "two week quarantine" period.

--GG

Predicted recurrence of C-19

Here's another C-19 prediction:  here in Australia they're calling it the "once in a hundred years" pandemic -- but really, i think that there will be a worldwide pandemic every ten to twenty years (but hopefully more like twenty years).

It won't be great -- but, similar to people who live in flood zones, hurricane regions, or places that experience forest fires:  you adapt; you fall into a pattern.

Next time the world will have a better sense of how to address these things:  much like a tornado warning in the American Midwest:  you take cover early, wait it out, and come out after the danger has passed.  So I reckon the next time around, countries will call their people home sooner; we'll get better with quarantining people from the get-go; and we'll just take three weeks or so of lock-down right at the beginning.  Which hopefully will mean a shorter over-all period of trouble -- because everyone nipped it in the bud right away.

That's my prediction:  every twenty years or so; and, we'll better know how to address it.


--GG

Three unexpected effects of C-19

Here are three unexpected effect of C-19 -- or rather, the social isolation policies going on around the globe.

First, that it's actually increasing social cohesion -- particularly in urban areas and in the suburbs.  Because people are now home a lot more than usual, they are becoming aware of the people the next balcony over (in urban areas), and actually stopping to chat with neighbors (across the fence, or on the front walk -- while maintaining proper social distancing, of course).

Second, and related to the neighborhood-level social cohesion -- families are probably spending more time together.  Among other things, I know that in my household I've been seeing more of my kids.  I'm still working nine-to-five, Monday through Friday -- but usually it takes me an hour to get to work, and an hour to get home. Whereas now:  I turn off my PC -- and I'm home!!!  And -- there are my kids!!!  So we're actually running around in the yard more, and etcetera.

And third: now that people are running fewer errands, and working from home if they can, there are a lot of cars not on the roads at the moment:  surely that's good for reducing global warming?


I might not be the only one to have noticed this -- but I haven't directly read or seen anything that has expressly stated this.


--GG

C-19 prediction on airfares and border closures

I predict that, once the bulk of the C-19 situation is over, that most countries will still keep their borders pretty locked up -- for about a year.  So, perhaps highly limited international travel until July 2021?  April 2021 at best.

This means that recreational travel (i.e. "vacations") will have to be within your own country -- esp. for larger countries such as the U.S. and Australia.

I also predict that airlines will neither discount nor increase the prices of airfares:  there will be pent-up demand for travel -- so the airlines won't need to reduce their ticket prices.  But, at the same time, people won't be so desperate to travel that the market forces would support price-gouging by the airlines.

Thus:  ticket prices will be essentially what they were, pre-C-19.


--GG

C-19 and social predictions

So -- this is my first day of working from home... until I'm told otherwise.  Strange times.


Here are three predictions I have for the aftermath of the current coronavirus (or, as I'm calling it, "C-19"), which I came up with on 25 March 2020:

1) Improvements in video conferencing:  There's probably a lot of people like me who never got around to trying out video chats -- and especially not "group" video chats (video conferencing).  But this last Wednesday my church council had a test run of a video conference, in preparation for a "re-shaped" church council meeting on the weekend (i.e. "no longer face-to-face").  And teams that work from home are going to use it more than ever before.

Once people discover video conferencing, they'll use it a lot -- because (despite the extra bandwidth it uses), it is more "personal" to be able to see facial expressions and body language when talking.

This increased uptake, and frequency of use, means that people will "shop around" for the most efficient, easiest to use video conferencing software -- whereas before they probably just used whatever everyone else in their company used.  This means that there will be increased competition in that sector (remember the "browser wars" in the mid-'90s?) -- and we'll get a lot of extra features, better interfaces, and generally better video chat products. 

I can't say whether the "base packages" will be free, and the "premium" versions will cost money -- or whether the "free" versions will be funded by advertising.

Unless one is just amazingly better than the alternatives (much like Google is still the strongest search engine), I don't see there being a quasi-monopoly.  Especially since -- unlike computer operating systems (or type of video tape cartridge) there aren't strong "costs" to switching back and forth (except perhaps the nuisance of exporting your "favorites" list of contacts).


2) Working from home will become normative:  By the time this C-19 thing blows over, a substantial portion of the entire industrialized world will have spent (I estimate) two months working from home.  The technical kinks will have been addressed; bandwidth will have improved.

Everyone will have established their "working from home" routines -- for individuals as well as workgroups.  This means that if people want to work from home -- to save commuting time; to minimize pollution (from travelling); or just from personal preference -- it will be more acceptable.

I have anecdotal evidence of workgroups that have wanted to have the flexibility to work from home, but were denied permission:  but now, they can.

Kind of like "Rosie the Riveter", where after women were so broadly integrated into the workforce during World War II, it was hard to force them "back into the home" again.  Except that this is the opposite:  it'll be hard to keep people from the home (as they work).


3) Smaller workspaces; more hotdesking:  I do think that there is something benficial about having co-workers physically located around you:  social interaction, spontaneous conversations -- and nipping down the hall to ask a question is often still the right level of interaction:  e-mails are too cumbersome if there's a lot of follow-up questions (e.g. for clarification), phoning takes a little too long -- and you can't gauge how open to interrupting someone is (even with their electronic "busy status" flags).

It's also good for creating social integration -- especially with new hires:  my team has worked together for at least a year, so we all have a sense of each other, and of the group -- so we can not be "in person" for a month or two and still feel like we "know" each other.  Whereas integrating a new person to the group would be difficult, if there are only e-mails, phone calls, and the occasional group chat to bring him or her into the group.

Maybe when we have better holographic imaging technology -- so we can do the "Kingsmen" (the first movie) style of "virtual colleagues".  But until then, it is good to have at least some face-to-face time.

My prediction is that workplaces will grow physically smaller -- at least in terms of the number of desks (and computers) that are required.  If your workplace currently has 100 people, five years from now I predict you'll only have 60 workstations set up.

Some people -- like me! -- are "nesters", and like having personal items, photos of the family, and etc. on their desk.  But others have fairly spartan desks, and would probably be happy to only come in for meetings (as needed:  once a week, if you can schedule things efficiently).

I foresee two variations:  one is that two teams share the same "pod" (group of cubicles) -- maybe with one person piling their things on the left, and the other on the right.   They then alternate working from home, and coming in to the office.  The converging on the office would largely be for for developing and maintaining social cohesion.

The other is that each team is allocated space:  I'm estimating that about one-third of a team would want to work at the office all the time; one third would share a desk with another team member and just trade off (based on a schedule arranged between the two); and one third (pragmatically, more one one-quarter) would work from home unless they had a specific reason to come in -- at which case they'd sit at a super-small desk with their laptop.  This means that only about half the number of proper "workstations" (computers, proper desks) would be required -- a long as there were enough small, "blank desks" available for the "drop-in" people to set up for the day.


I predict that there will be enough inertia, post-C-19, that a lot of people who had worked from home over the last two months will just... keep doing that. 

The process of the reduction in workstations back at the office wouldn't be felt for two to three years:  it would largely come up whenever space gets reassigned (e.g. your team or directorate moves to another floor) -- and the new set-up has fewer desks than the old set-up.


--GG