Great Expectations: Planning for Life After COVID
Great-ish Expectations.
We tend to have varied sightlines when it comes to our views of the future. Popular culture loves to imagine the far future (We still love you, Jetsons.), but we tend to have a particular blind spot when it comes to seeing the near-to-medium future. If disappointment = expectations - reality, we think it’s worth wrapping our heads around how this next year is likely to play out and adjust perceptions and plans accordingly. At the same time, those adjusted expectations can also build up toward a winning exit plan for post-COVID life. We’ve rounded up some thoughtful pieces to inform your own expectation-setting.
The beginning of the end
We found this Atlantic piece spot-on in describing the split screen we’re seeing—devastating numbers of new cases, deaths and economic destruction juxtaposed with true medical achievement, as vaccine rollouts signal a much-sought end in sight. Earlier this year, we were lucky enough to interview writer, Juliette Kayyem, who has since become a celebrated go-to for solid COVID life thoughts.
Turning point timing
NY Times science reporter Donald G. McNeil, Jr. has become our resident pessimist. Excuse the pun, but when we need a booster shot of cold, hard reality we tend to turn to him. This episode of “The Daily” lays out a potential timeline to vaccination—and the holding pattern we’ll continue to live in until enough of us are inoculated.
We want to go to there...
...But if we’re being honest, when and how we get there—factors from COVID status in our country and elsewhere, to potential airline and customs requirements—are still laden with high-flying speculation. Still, we appreciated this piece gathering different perspectives to provide an educated bird’s-eye view on how it might look.
The corona conundrum
We mentioned this book, Post-Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity, in our last newsletter, but it deserves another shout out. The quick read highlights the existing dynamics laid bare and accelerated by the virus. We appreciate the extra time that Galloway, a NYU professor, gives to its impact on higher education—which, as anyone with students zooming at in-person tuition rates can attest, seems ripe for disruption.
Escape hatch
You need not be a corporate titan to get something out of this piece from the braniacs at McKinsey, highlighting COVID exit strategies. We found particular merit in their suggestion to avoid comparing everything to the good old days before “social distancing” was a thing—and their observations on the emerging practices worth preserving.
