[EvaH (OP)]

Darren says:

Is Covid-19 potentially an "end of civilisation as we know it" event? Looking back over history, events such as flooding, famine etc have been known to end civilisations. Is this just one more?

What do you think?

[alancalverd]

It will probably set civilisation back a hundred years in the USA and other banana republics but proper governments will eventually organise  containment and eradication of the virus with a return to something approaching normality in 10 years or so.

[strongernow]

Really interesting, would love to already have a time machine and see what the future looks like.

How will our view be in 3 or 5 years when we look backward. Good or bad?
Did we overreact or underestimated it... I don't want to be in the position to make desicions at the moment.

It will be a very eventful situation that will be in history books for sure .. or online books as we all don't know if maybe the school system is being transfered in online learning or so what ..

[alancalverd]

Early on in the UK farce, the chief scientific advisor said "If people ask what was that all about?"  we will have got it right." Clearly we have got it wrong.

[evan_au]

There have been previous pandemics, and there will be more in the future.

And I'm not just talking about the 1918 flu outbreak. There was SARS and MERS in the past 20 years.
- Zika probably would have been called an epidemic if its mosquito carriers thrived better in North America, but since it is mostly in poor countries, it is now pretty much ignored.
- But a disease that spreads directly from person to person knows no climate boundaries, and can spread to the other side of the world in 24 hours once air travel resumes.
- Ebola certainly could become a pandemic if it escaped from Africa and/or became spread by aerosols

Some Guesses about potential impacts:
1. I think that Western countries may adopt the common sight in pre-COVID Asia of people wearing facemasks in public (eg if they have a cold, or want to avoid a cold, or don't like breathing particles from car exhaust pipes).
2. Erosion of personal privacy took a few steps forward during the pandemic - and probably won't take quite as many steps backwards after the pandemic.
3. Once the current crisis is over (or in the lull between waves), I think another side-effect will be an increasing use of the large number of PCR machines sitting idle for a variety of purposes that we can only guess at present.
- Perhaps sewage screening for a variety of public health risks?
- Perhaps routinely checking blood samples for a variety of potential pathogens?
4. Having proven a number of new genetic techniques in vaccine development, I think vaccines will start to appear for a variety of neglected tropical diseases. But the expected income will be lower, since it is mostly poorer countries that are disabled by these diseases (it's sort of obvious, when you say it like that...).