Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash

As of March 15th 2020, the world has 156,400 confirmed cases of COVID-19. The United States reports just under 3,000 cases, but it is generally accepted that the real number of infected persons is anywhere from 2 to 20 times that. Despite these numbers and the potential for rapid exponential growth, people across North America roam more or less unencumbered to restaurants, bars and malls. Unless rapid and extreme measures are enacted imminently, the US will no doubt continue to follow the same trajectory as Italy. The world over the following months will inevitably be drastically different from the world we know. Most countries will have no choice but to enact strict quarantines across the board as hospitals become overcrowded. Conservative projections estimate the potential for millions of deaths. When the world finally emerges from this pandemic next month or next year, what will it look like?

1. A severely shaken economy

The stock markets of the world have begun to crumble in recent weeks and will likely continue to do so for the length of the pandemic. Wall Street experienced its largest single-day percentage drop since 1987. Supply chains are altered, workers are staying home, and consumption of many types of goods and services is reduced. It is not certain what will happen to the economy over the following months, but expect a continued decline in the stock market and the economies of the world in general as normal business operations become unstable.

2. A shifted age demographic

Some young people have been referring to COVID-19 as “the boomer remover” due to its preferential fatality rates in older members of the population. Now that widespread infection is all but inevitable, the unfortunate reality is that many older people will die while very few young people will. The severity of this change will depend upon many factors including the efficacy of quarantine measures and the compliance of everyone in the community. The removal of a percentage of the aged population will underlie several other changes the world will face when it emerged from coronavirus.

3. Political changes

Partially brought about by a reduction in the elderly population, politics will likely see a leftward shift in the US and globally. Political leanings vary considerably among age groups, with the oldest people more likely to support right-wing policies and vice-versa. Furthermore, a pandemic that destabilizes the economy and strains the healthcare systems of the world exposes the need for socialized medicine and safety nets for the vulnerable. Many people will be unable to work, making it tough to maintain housing and feed themselves and their families. It is plausible, then, that the political landscape in the US and globally will shift leftward and people will tend to support increasingly social policies. This, combined with the fact that young people who support these policies will make up a larger percentage of the electorate, will spur this change. People of the world uniting to respond to an emergency such as the COVID pandemic may also awaken many to our ability to change our society to adapt to emergency, which is something required to fight climate change.

4. Softened real estate market

The sad reality of the situation unfolding before our eyes is that many people will die as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, many of them older people who are more likely to be property owners. When we emerge on the other side of this, there will be fewer people overall and fewer property owners, but an equal amount of housing available. In many cities across the globe, particularly places like Toronto, Boston, Vancouver, San Francisco and New York, the price of housing is at an all-time high. People in these cities struggle to find affordable places to live and are forced to move away. The affordable housing crisis also exacerbates a class divide between wealthy and poor. A silver-lining side-effect to the aftermath of coronavirus is that the real estate markets of such cities will likely ease off and provide an opportunity for younger people to become property owners.

Overall, there will no doubt be extensive changes to the world as we know it during and following the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the uncertain nature of the government responses, individual behaviours, and infection progression, it is impossible to say for sure what the effects will be. The extent to which these speculative changes I have outlined will come to pass is unknown. All we can do, for now, is stay home. Seriously.