While most people are rightly focusing on short-term measures against #Covid19, including #lockdown and #socialdistancing, I wonder how the medium to long-term political development will be like? In this thread, I want to collect the good, the bad and the ugly of this #pandemic.
How may societies react, and what may happen politically, if #Covid19 runs its course? In other words: How will #pandemicpolitics look like? Short term: I Assume we can halt the further exponential spread within the next 2-4 weeks due to isolation measures, but what comes next?
After 4 weeks or so, we will begin to reestablish normal life, based on what we learned ourselves and observed in other countries. Maybe schools reopen again, as they seem not to be central to the pandemic. More people will want to get outside and need to go to work.
Maybe we manage the pandemic waves in a way that it won't collapse our #healthsystems. For Germany, if it takes 2 years for 70% of the population to get infected, and without a vaccine, we are looking at 80,000 new cases per day for 24 months, with 4,000 a day in intensive care.
If average time in ICU is 14 days, this requires 56,000 ICU capacity only for #Covid19, plus all the usual stuff - heart attacks, strokes, broken bones and so on. We have 28,000 beds today, so we need to at least double, better triple that number, and very quickly.
The good: This challenge will likely move the health system out of the economization pressure it has been under for the past 20+ years. Might mean the end of #neoliberalism at least in this sector. The US and also UK will learn the hard way what focus on profits not public means.
Also the good: Isolation and home office will force a huge #digitization wave. Everyone will now quickly (have to) learn how to do #webinars, teleconferencing, #elearning and whatnot. We may even be forced to do entire international conferences and diplomatic negotiations online.
At least during lockdown, shopping and consumption of stuff will go down. Maybe this puts a dent into our growth model, and some people will rethink what we really need in life. More people though will likely enjoy the hell out of themselves once restrictions are lifted #partyon
If we are smart, urgently needed countermeasures against the economic recession have built-in sustainability measures, so helping businesses now is done #futureproof and does not come at the cost of young generations. #greennewdeal
The bad: That would obviously be a high number of dead people. If case fatality rate (CFR) is around 1%, in Germany alone that would mean 800 deaths a day for 2 years, or a total of 560,000 additional deaths over two years until 70% have been infected and #herdimmunity comes.
Also bad: The economy goes into recession. Business will go bankrupt, global supply chains are interrupted, wealth goes down. Sure, some digital businesses may win big. But for majority of people, this will not be good. Even worse: Borders close, freedom of mobility restricted
Which brings us the ugly. Naomi Klein's #shockdoctrine teaches us that crises are used as opportunities to push through measures that would otherwise be successfully resisted. You can see that in some of the US measures, excessive tax cuts and planned bailouts for airlines.
If economic measures only favor grey consumption, we buy short-term economic relief but pay with long-term ecologic stability, not a good deal. If we pour money into digital infrastructure, better education and health system, clean energy, sustainable mobility, much better!
Now this is very rough and based on a few conversations and a lot of reading the news over the past days. What do you think will happen over the coming 3-24 months? What's the good, the bad and the ugly to expect from this? What will be #pandemicpolitics? [End of thread]
Symptomatically, I forgot the most ugly that's going to happen: We will abandon and forget the poorest and most vulnerable: Low-income / #minimumwage workers, refugees, people without access to welfare and health services. Both in developed countries and in the #globalsouth.
