A Post Covid-19 World

Most of us dream of going back to a world where corona virus was not standing in the way of
our normal lives – lives where we could go out with friends, spend a day working in university,
drive over to see a friend or a family member. While we cannot return to the same world, we
can try to bring back some normalcy until the day comes when the medical organizations of the
world announce that the situation is under control. Using health precautions set by guidelines
written down by the WHO and the like, we can attempt to go back to doing essential things like
our jobs and going shopping for grocery items. Although these actions still pose a risk to our
health, the public will need to eventually leave their houses – as they already have.
A post covid world seems like a future very close to us, although none of us knows for sure
when it will happen. Our brains have a way of trying to make things look easier for us to survive
through, by bedazzling what is bad and refusing to believe things are as horrible as they seem.
Once this process helps us to completely disregard the fear of the pandemic, that is when
things will start to go back to some degree of normal. But it is possible that this fear of the
pandemic might carry on longer than the pandemic itself – with people more conscious of the
pandemic reappearing as it plays games with the numbers of people catching the disease. It
could also work the other way around, with the fear dissipating before the actual corona virus
leaving us to exist peacefully, but for this paper, I shall focus on the former point of view as we
have to talk about a post covid world.
A post covid world would include people very conscious of the way they eat and move around –
although things like public transport might not be able to see a great change, mostly due to the
huge difference in the ratio of the people using the transport to the transport available, there
might be more awareness to disease and the affect it could have on a level as widespread as it
has already.
Following the bubonic plague, researchers found that people were healthier and stronger as
their bodies adapted to living in survival mode and seemed to evolve to deal with the plague.
They worked on better diets, incorporating different kinds of foods into what they had every
day. When researchers compared their bodies with bodies found in cemeteries that preceded
the plague, they discovered bodies before the plague were smaller, shriveled and more
malnourished. Most of them were younger. The bubonic plague led to society being cleaner
than before, and the overall life expectancy increased.
During the bubonic plague, people were told to adopt social distancing measures much as the
people are asked to today – and as we complain today of being touch starved and deprived of
friends, they did, too. There are reports of people secretly meeting in churches to perform
many sexual acts due to the desperation they felt for the need to be close to other people.
Humans are a social species – the fear of a pandemic rocks that inherent core and messes up
the mental health of many. If not everyone, many people would require therapy to go back to
their normal routines. Many, myself included, have barely spoken since the quarantine period
began, and to return to a routine where talking is normal and exchanging pleasantries and ideas
with other people on a daily basis is possible – that seems like too much to process all of a
sudden. Whether post covid situation lets us be closer to our friends or makes us fall farther
apart is also a question up for debate – especially with the emergence of closer online
communities. Will people prefer to go back to all the pretense that comes with most physical
relationships? Our values are too deeply ingrained for us to completely disregard them, but
there is the possibility that for a pandemic of this magnitude humans will change the way they
behave with other humans. Many will be very suspicious of others, always scared of
reestablishing the virus in one way or the other. It is a social dilemma that we will take a while
to get over.
People might begin to take more of an interest in how clean and organized the spaces they
occupy should be. While this is a very positive approach, it is also an idealistic one. We have
already seen people struggling to only go back to their jobs and means of earning money
without having to change any of their lifestyles and habits. This virus is forcing many to change,
but many will only grow more resentful and frustrated with the events, lashing out at those
who are close for any place to vent out the anger and loss of control.
Work from home and online learning will become more acceptable, as people have already
been forced to switch to online methods of work and study, a lot have realized that this is more
favourable to them than the older ways of going about it. For many, especially women, work
from home is letting them broaden their work horizons without having to fight with their
families about the life decisions they want to make. They can take on several jobs and at the
same time maintain the stereotypical “achi bachi” persona that their families demand of them.
Work from home will also lead to people creating spaces inside their houses which they can
dedicate for work. Mixing the work and the home routines has led to a strange way to how an
individual goes through their day, with no time being essentially for work or essentially for
leisure. The divide between the two is very important, and many will look for ways to
implement these strategies in their houses.
Some speculated that bigger gatherings would quiet down, and that events such as marriages
might turn into smaller affairs, but for those getting married during the covid crisis, there is no
question of reducing the crowd attending the wedding, and so there are few chances that
things will change any time after the crisis has been averted.
The one thing humans might appreciate more is their relationships and how difficult it is to stay
away from ones loved ones for so long. There is a strange mental stress that develops when
one cannot meet others for a time period so stretched out – feelings of hopelessness,
exhaustion, frustration, depression are not uncommon and the periodic realization of living in a
pandemic hits individuals with another kind of existential crisis. The absurdity of everything
done and accomplished hits one in the face like a burning iron rod, pulling at everything one
has ever felt proud of, to bring out the bare, raw person that hides underneath all the qualities
that this person has developed to bring out what lies at the core. Do we even have a personality
if it is not validated by other humans? Is this bringing out the hopelessness of existence in
humankind through this epidemic?
A post covid world holds many possibilities, many of them centering around a heightened sense
of awareness and perception of one’s surroundings. This might help to foster an evolved sense
of intellectual abilities, although speaking so optimistically of a world after this disease seems
unethical in itself. Will we survive till then? Is there a point to getting a degree or writing a
paper for this subject? Did I spend my entire life studying for a point where I would find myself
on the brink of death without ever having stepped into the real world, crafting an individual out
of myself, someone who would make me proud and intimidate the person I am presently?
Unfortunately, there are no answers. If we do survive this pandemic, I would gladly write an
analysis on the silent horrors that humans had to bear with – from nature, from their
households (many of which have increased in domestic abuse numbers), from their academic
institutions and employer companies, even from humans living near them. The reactions to this
pandemic have varied across the globe, and where some have drastically worked to end it,
there are others who are still careless, despite knowing someone or the other who has
succumbed to the virus. In times of such dire hopelessness, even someone who does not
believe in godly powers looks to a higher dimension for answers – but we all know there are
none. This is a tragedy that will stay with us for the rest of our lives, shaping the way we are as
individuals and as groups, and it will remain a dark period for most of us who survive.

Mahnoor Fatima
2015-ARCH-03