The Next COVID

Written by: Sam Bazzi
Edited by: Esther Melamed

By the end of this week, I will have received my second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. A few weeks after that, I will have built up a high enough number of neutralizing antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus to be protected. I will still have to wear a mask and keep my distance from others, but for me and probably many others who have been vaccinated, it is a step towards everything I miss about life before pandemic, no matter how far away that reality may actually be. To use a tired metaphor, that reality is the light at the end of the tunnel. But as I walk towards that light, a shadow is cast that follows me with every step – a nagging question that I can’t escape: when will the next COVID come?

That might seem overly pessimistic to some. After all the suffering we will have endured, the end of the pandemic will surely be a moment of joy. Why worry about something that may never happen again at this scale? At the same time, we must reckon with the reality that restrictions will not be lifted in a single, dramatic and joyous gesture. Much like how we move through different stages of lockdown depending on the severity of case numbers, the final “all clear” will likely follow a long, gradual easing of restrictions. During (and after) this gradual relief of restrictions, we may finally experience the things we so dearly miss, like seeing friends we haven’t seen in a long time, getting our hair cut, watching a movie, eating at a restaurant, shopping at a crowded mall, and even seeing the dentist for a cleaning. I truly hope this scenario plays out, and I think parts of it likely will. Yet, another part of me considers the unintended, long-term consequences of the pandemic on how our society is structured. 

Our world is rapidly changing in unimaginable ways. I’m currently writing this piece as Austin, Texas is under six inches of snow, likely due to climate change. Climate change has also been predicted to lead to an increase in infectious diseases and potential pandemics (1). The fear around “the next COVID” may not be so pessimistic as it is preemptive, and the possibility of it happening may fundamentally change how we make decisions. All future businesses must now consider how they may continue to operate, or even thrive, during a pandemic, but could that mean fewer people will be willing to take the risk in opening a new restaurant or other business where people congregate? We are yet to see but I would certainly think twice about it. Instead, I predict that we will now see an explosion of innovation on devising ways to bring services or products to consumers or patients in their homes, much like how so many of us already attend work meetings, doctors appointments, therapy appointments, happy hours with friends, and so much more over video conferencing or rely on Amazon and other online retail for products. I fear that our homes will become our doctor’s office, our mall, our bar, our workplace, and our gym for much longer than the current pandemic because there will be increasingly innovative and financially lucrative ways to deliver these services to us. Changing our background on Zoom has replaced what would normally be a commute by car, and perhaps these seemingly innocuous changes may condition us to a new reality where every meaningful human interaction occurs in our homes.

I must step back at this point and admit that I don’t think all of this will come to pass. I cannot predict the future, but my imagination extends from where we are now. Perhaps within five years, we will be living lives extremely similar to the ones we had before COVID-19. Perhaps a second, deadlier respiratory virus emerges and we will be back in lockdown. Who knows? But if the latter occurs, how will we cope? Will we double-down on the strategy of turning our homes into a Swiss army knife of spaces for different purposes by improving the quality of these experiences at home through better technology? Or will we restructure how public spaces in society function to make them pandemic-proof, if such a thing is possible? My biggest fear is that neither will occur or that either will occur to an insufficient degree so that the next pandemic will feel much like the current one: very, very bad. It will take a great deal of creativity and planning on our part to prevent this outcome.

Outside my window, people have constructed makeshift sleds out of cardboard and are sliding down snow covered hills in the worst winter storm Austin has seen in a century. We are managing to have fun despite a lack of power in our homes and disruption to our work lives. I only hope that when the next time this happens, we won’t be only equipped with cardboard.