The uncertainty around the coronavirus seems to prevail for sometime. Though the infection rate has slowed down a bit, in the absence of a specific cure or vaccine available for us there doesn’t seem to be any clarity on when things will finally get back to normal.

But one thing is for sure, we will come out of it!

Even in the past decades and centuries, mankind had been affected by plagues and flu of serious nature that had a global spread but we have been able to overcome them. In the case of COVID-19 or Coronavirus, how soon will that happen is something the whole world is eagerly waiting for.

Whenever that will happen, one thing is for sure - coronavirus will transform the way we live and interact with the world. Businesses will adopt newer strategies, governments will improve healthcare facilities and our lifestyles are going to change. The novel coronavirus as it is popularly called has made us introspect the daily activities we have been doing all these years.

Let us understand how it will impact different aspects of our lives in the long run.

Impact on our Social Lifestyle

 
Man is known as a social animal. This simply means we love interacting, socializing and going out. But none of this is happening any more, at least for the time being. People are locked up in their homes and are not meeting anyone. Whether it is birthdays, anniversaries or any other occasion, there are no celebrations or cake cutting ceremonies happening.

But yes, to extent celebrations are happening in a way nobody could have imagined. Tripti, a resident of Ballygunj had her birthday on 20th April. “I love partying and meeting friends on my birthday but this time it was not possible. Nevertheless, my elder sister baked a cake for me and my mother prepared food of different cuisines. We had a small dinner celebration at our own dining table. Lockdown has helped my two siblings and our parents spend quality time together.”

This is something that many teenagers are experiencing. Even the day-to-day lifestyle of individuals has changed so much. Boys and girls who never thought of mopping or cooking are performing the daily chores. For some parents, this Lockdown has actually proved to be a blessing in disguise. On a brighter side people of all age groups have started practising Yoga, Breathing Exercises and Meditations. This denotes growing awareness towards achieving better physical and mental awareness.

In addition to this, social distancing is going to stay for long. People would be hesitant to greet with kisses and hugs. They would rather prefer a cordial Namaste, that has actually become the case right across the world or other similar greetings. People would start becoming more aware of the food that they eat and take better care of their hygiene.

How Travelling Will become Self-Restricted

 
Naveen, a resident of the Bhawanipore area says that her younger sister, Divya’s fiancé had his birthday on 25th April. “We were scheduled to board a flight to Jaipur on 25th April and had already booked the tickets a couple of months ago but the Lockdown has made it impossible to travel. Leaving this aside, I feel people would be very cautious about travelling in the near future, especially making foreign trips.”

We have become accustomed to living in an interconnected world. You can reach from one corner to another corner of the world within a couple of days. The presence of COVID-19 positives all across the globe shows that the world is more connected than we ever imagined. In just a matter of 60 days, the virus spread from one city in China to almost every country.

Going ahead, people would be cautious about travelling. This would be restricted to urgent work in the short run and leisure travel is going to take a back seat. Even when people take flights or trains for office work, they would be careful about their interactions with people and touching surfaces.

It will take a couple of years for people to be confident about travelling again. Till then, we can just start making a bucket list of places we intend to visit and maybe try learning to know more about them.

Changes in the Business Ecosystem

 
Right from SMEs to MNCs all business organisations are grappled with fear about the sustainability of their enterprises in the long run. The International Monetary Firm projects the global GDP to shrink by 3% due to COVID-19 impact. High-interest burden, subdued demand in the short-run and salary payout is a big concern for organisations. While a bailout package is expected from the government, business owners will have to transform their strategies to revive.

This transformation is more apparent in IT-driven companies who have switched to Work From Home infrastructure. It has helped them sustain their work even when all of their offices are shut due to the Lockdowns. TCS, India’s largest IT service company is already working on a model to make 75% of its workforce switch to Work From Home model by 2025. This will not reduce their productivity and also help in considerably reducing office costs.

For consumer goods, online shopping will definitely become a mainstream activity. This will be most evident immediately post the Lockdown period. Individuals will take time to be confident about stepping outside for making non-essential purchases. As a consequence, shopping for groceries, food, consumer durables and other non-essential products would be done on e-commerce platforms.

When can we expect things to return to normal?

 
Without a vaccine in near sight, that is uncertain. COVID-19 is unlike any other disease seen in the last century. It has spread rapidly even without the host (infected person) realizing that he is a carrier of the virus. In such a scenario a global vaccination is the only solution that seems to be a remedy for dealing with the virus. Global research bodies and scientists are working extensively to develop a vaccine. Though there have been successful trials on rats, human trials will also be underway soon.

But the question everyone is asking is how long will it take for the vaccine to be developed? How much would the vaccine cost? Would there be sufficient production to vaccinate a large global population?

The closest answers to these questions can be ascertained from the recent developments at the Serum Institute, Pune. They have been developing a Covid vaccine in partnership with an Oxford University led-consortium. The Serum Institute has begun human trials in UK and soon plans to start human trials in India from May. It expects to start mass production of the vaccines by September-October and make it available to the market by then.

Serum Institute is the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world, by the number of doses. It exports vaccines to 160 countries, most of which cost around half a dollar, one of the cheapest in the world.serum. If the human trials are a success which the company is hopeful of, the company has capacities to produce 20-40 million doses per month.

The Covid vaccine would prove to be a Brahmastra in the fight against COVID-19.

As for the price, this would cost just 1,000 rupees which is even less than the cost of COVID-19 Testing Kits. Given the wide economic disparity in India even 1,000 rupees per dose is costly for a large section of the society. A global vaccination would be needed to eradicate the threat from the virus. WHO and other global health organizations could lay guidelines and monitor global vaccination drives to cover 100% of the population. Governments around the world will have to allocate dedicated budgets to ensure the vaccination sees last mile coverage.

In another breakthrough Israel and Italy have separately confirmed developing the first Covid-19 Vaccine. Naftali Bennett, Defence Minister of Israel had said they have successfully developed an antibody that can attack the virus. This has been achieved by Israel Institute of Biological Research (IIBR), an organization that comes directly under the Prime Minister’s Office. In Italy, the Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases, Rome has successfully created a vaccine that produces antibodies that neutralizes the virus in animals. However, human trials in the both the cases are awaited and the researchers are hoping that it would work in humans as well.

With these positive developments the world would stand a chance to return to normalcy very soon. We will see people becoming more aware of their daily activities and embrace better hygiene practices. COVID-19 is costing us a lot but when it comes to human behaviour, it has undoubtedly helped us become more sensitive and caring about our individual and global existence.