Beyond creating the global health emergency of our time, the spread of the novel coronavirus has had many unexpected peripheral effects on life in 2020. Homeschooling has never been so widespread, pollution is at record low levels, video happy hours are now a thing, and with quarantines in place across the country, couples have never spent so much time together. Will these more intimate times lead to a spike in the birthrate next year? Are we headed for more divorces? Or is there just going to be a lot more binge-watching and naps?

Some companies in the sex industry have seen opportunities for growth in this downturn. Last week online porn giant Pornhub offered Italians free access to its premium site as they weathered containment. German sex toy manufacturer Womanizer announced that their sales are soaring, attributing new demand from some of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic, including Italy, the U.S. and Japan.

Beyond couples spending all day together in makeshift home offices, nearly all evening social activities like going to bars, going out for dinner and catching a movie at the theater are now out of the question.

Family planning clinics are aware of the possibility and have started taking steps to extend birth control services. The nonprofit Maine Family Planning is moving to extend prescriptions for three months to make sure families don't see an interruption in birth control.

“We wanted to accommodate our patients. For women and families, there's already enough anxiety, so the idea that you can't get access to birth control is just too much,” Maine Family Planning's Evelyn Kieltyka told the AP, adding that other family planning clinics across America are taking similar steps.

Planned Parenthood encouraged people to head to Planned Parenthood Direct this week, an app that allows people to get birth control pills without leaving their house.

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Leslie Root, a PhD candidate in demography at UC Berkeley who studies fertility and childbearing decisions, considered the possibility of a corona baby boom, "I think when people are envisioning this scenario they're thinking about people falling into bed and letting nature take its course, but the reality is that most sexually active people use some sort of protection unless they're actively trying to get pregnant."

There's also a possible reverse effect, Root said, with less people meeting and mingling in the city, "unexpected one-night stands are probably less frequent at times like this. That said, the U.S. has a relatively high rate of unintended births for a developed country, so it's a little more likely here than elsewhere."

The most noteworthy baby boom in America occurred after World War II when marriage and fertility rates soared as couples found post-war job opportunities, leading to the famous boomer generation. The baby craze slowed in the '60s as Americans desired more material objects and an economic downturn kicked in. After that slowdown, however, boomers grew up and showed increased fertility, known as the echo boom, leading to the millennial generation.

These booms of the 20th century were mostly caused by economic changes and relief from war, although smaller birthrate spikes resulting from people being unable to leave their houses have also occurred, such as the bump that happened in 1998 in New Hampshire after an ice storm shut down parts of the Northeast.

However, if a recession is on the horizon, which is seeming more likely by the day, this may lead to a lowering in the coming birthrate.

"We clearly saw the results of the last recession in a lower U.S. birthrate. So I'd imagine that if anything, people will be even more careful about using contraception properly at a time like this," Root said.

With quarantines and shelter-in-place orders extending through the coming months, there may be little else to do at night but get intimate. Only time will tell if a generation of corona babies emerges in 2021.

Andrew Chamings is a digital editor at SFGATE. Email: Andrew.Chamings@sfgate.com | Twitter: @AndrewChamings