![]() ![]() ![]() But when the economy weakens, people have to make decisions about where to pull back. Out of habit, many customers continue to buy from them. His point is that companies with flawed business models can look healthy in good times. Until then, the world will endure waves of sickness, death and uncertainty. In this scenario, a vaccine will arrive sometime in 2021. The changes that I’m imagining in this article are based on neither an unexpectedly fast or slow resolution, but instead on what many scientists consider the baseline. Thousands of restaurants would be wiped out (even if they would eventually be replaced by different restaurants). The long-predicted demise of the traditional department store would finally come to pass. So could many movie theaters and minor-league baseball teams. Large swaths of the cruise-ship and theme-park industries might go away. Any industry that depends on close human contact would be at risk. On the other hand, if a vaccine remains out of reach for years, the long-term changes could be truly profound. If scientific breakthroughs come quickly and the virus is largely defeated this year, there may not be many permanent changes to everyday life. One message I heard is that the course of the virus itself will play the biggest role in the medium term. With help from economists, politicians and business executives, I have tried to imagine what a post-Covid economy may look like. The best-case scenarios are now out of reach, and the United States is suffering through a new virus surge that’s worse than in any other country. ![]() But the pandemic increasingly looks like one of the defining events of our time. ![]()
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