Some day, the world will be free of the effects of the current pandemic we are living. All would then switch to live a normal life again. But, most experts agree that this switch is not going to be easy. A vaccine, when it is found, “is expected to take at least 12 to 18 months to bring to market”. It is not that our brilliant scientist may not bring the treatment early. The challenge is to make it reach the millions of people affected by the virus. What that means, according to this brilliant essay in MIT Technology Review, “we have to prepare for a world in which there is no cure and no vaccine for a long time”.
There is a way to live in this world without staying permanently shut indoors. But it won’t be a return to normal; this will be, for Westerners at any rate, a new normal, with new rules of behavior and social organization, some of which will probably persist long after the crisis has ended.
In recent weeks a consensus has started to build among various groups of experts on what this new normal might look like.