When you think of the Coronavirus pandemic, you don’t think of something good. But, there is always a good side of something bad. One effect of the pandemic already visible in Earth. Air and water pollution across the globe has been reduced drastically just within 2 weeks of the outbreak. For example, there has been a 25% decrease in carbon dioxide emissions from China due to the quarantine and social distancing. Also, in Venice, while the waterways used to be so murky, they were opaque, they are now clear and you can see the fishes swimming in them. In San Francisco, the average concentration of fine particles dropped 40%. This number also dropped 28% in New York City and 32% in Seattle. While these are probably only short term effects, they might have an effect on the planet in the long run if these numbers stay low for a while.
Even though these are effects we are seeing right now, people have predicted the effect this pandemic will have on the world. For example, many people predict that a lot of things will move online or virtually. Like working, schooling, voting, visits to the doctor, or even congress. But this will leave people who don’t have access to the internet at a further disadvantage than they already are. Related to the government, people might realize that a good government is essential and will start putting more importance on it, which will cause it to be better. Maybe they will look back on this time of uncertainty and see that hiding things from the public is not good even if they only have bad news. It’s bad because then the public will trust the government less if they don’t put out the truth. People might also want scientific facts to assess the risk of something and not just comforting words.
During social distancing, people might realize that they really miss being with other people and having found out that they love parks during this time too, the use of parks and meeting with people will increase. Or people might realize that they actually like being alone much more, and won’t use public restaurants and other public places as much and their use will decrease. Consumer culture might also change because the public will realize that it allows disease to spread more easily from animal to animal and animal to human causing more epidemics and pandemics. They might also start valuing domestic items more than items imported from other countries for this reason. There have been a lot of predictions for what will come after the coronavirus, and I have not listed all of them, but nobody knows what will happen in the future.