A look into life 30 years after the COVID-19 pandemic ended and the changes that came with it...
I remember how my dad used to be angry at me and often didn’t understand the developments in the world. I used to wonder why he couldn’t keep up with the times, being a technophobe and averse to an understanding of the contemporary world. He often told me about his time and how things were different. I now feel the same way when I have reached his age and regularly complain about the same things that my father used to complain about. With the end of the virus that came about thirty years ago, things have never been the same and I often find myself saying “It was much easier in our time when technology wasn’t advanced and hard-to-use, and there were many problems of mankind that needed to be solved. It was a simple life.” And I have never exaggerated my words. It was indeed the case in my childhood until the pandemic came.
It’s been thirty years since the end of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The pandemic affected the world in ways unimaginable and unprecedented. After everyone got vaccinated, the world started to settle down and changes were observed. General habits from the lockdown period started to slide into daily life and along with it came better practices discovered during the period. All this happened unconsciously and many of today’s generation wouldn’t even be able to imagine life thirty years ago. Children read about it in history books but don’t know the connection between the monstrous COVID-19 virus and the generalities of their daily life.
In terms of daily life, people have started focusing their eyes more and more on technology. Phones, laptops, tablets and other devices are never turned off and everyone has been affected by their magic. Even though the COVID-19 pandemic has ended, it feels like a never-ending lockdown has been initiated. People don’t come out unless, in emergencies, stay locked on their devices and exercise has decreased to a thing of the past.
When I was a child, an idea too good to be imagined was thought of, but this incredibly difficult technology had reached nowhere until after the pandemic. When this idea was sought deeper, this invention led to vehicles becoming a fun factor in people’s lives. Teleportation technology changed the transportation industry and brought many changes in people’s lives. Businesses were hence, shifted home, and people operated through online portals giving a facility for people to get the service with quick (almost at the drop of a hat) calls and delivery of what they want using the teleportation service. The buildings that used to host these businesses were replaced by trees to reduce noise pollution, create an area for nature to grow, and make city air quality better. This all led to the complete transformation of commerce to e-commerce, highly independent of technology. However, this brought the closing of many small businesses as they couldn’t cope up with the advancing technology. However, few worldwide NGOs came forward to help these owners advance their businesses and integrate themselves into larger ones. Advancement comes with its own challenges. I still miss those days when the whole experience of shopping from local street markets, carrying cash in pockets to get daily groceries, meeting with aunty and uncles near me, and discussing local topics was a lived reality. In any case, however, I would have never been able to imagine such digitalization of the world, something which I longed for in my childhood, for the sole reason so I could avoid my mother screaming at me to get groceries.
Education and work environment has gone completely online with the advancement of technology. The only examples of physical schools and offices are small rooms so students and employees have access to limited materials. Education portals like Google Classroom have now been disbanded and many user-friendly portals with new tech have been developed. As schools have gone fully online, anti-cheating procedures have become more advanced in relevance to smart homes technology. This indeed doesn’t stop students from cheating and they bypass software by telling lies to their parents, teachers and the Smart Home AI. They have gotten smarter with smarter technology. However, showing images of my childhood school leave these same children in awe. This is probably just my generation’s version of our parents’ struggle stories; “We used to travel kilometres every day, swimming across lakes to reach our schools.”
In the same way, workplace environments have also gotten advancements that have mostly been funded by the government and the companies the employees work for. I still remember how we used to discuss our parents working from home, thinking it would all soon resume, fortunately, it stayed forever. This has all been the result of COVID-19 and the protocols that were taken to keep the world working.
Technology not only affected daily life but science has also attained high heights over the last thirty years. All this has come with the realization of the sudden dependency on technology during the pandemic. People tried to isolate themselves from the data wave for some time but they were not able to escape from it. With the sudden need for these advancements, it became highly necessary for them to adapt and rise to the challenges. This brings us to today’s age when people are reliant on them. The latest technologies today include the fully integrated smart homes which not only do everything with voice commands but also monitor your daily life, health and body worldwide Science has advanced to quickly prevent new viruses and with the understanding of new laws of physics and the universe, not only a planet with potential life has been found but an artificial wormhole is being created to quickly visit it.
Whatever the advancements in technology may be like, the saying, “Fire, an essential product of nature, is often controlled.” still applies. The government has created new rules to control the over-use of technology. Such includes the rule to switch off all devices at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. for one hour of exercise by each person as to maintain mental and physical health. When I first heard about this, it reminded me of the practice to turn off lights for an hour on Earth Day. That was a self-led initiative but now all such practices are automatic, maintained by Smart Home technology. These exercises specifically include 15 minutes of eye exercise to give them rest from screens, something inspired by what our parents used to control us over extra use of mobiles and limiting our screen time.
Drastic changes have been observed in how the calendars have been arranged in this new world. Many of the national holidays were found to be redundant and it was modified based on the emerging needs of people. A holiday refers to meeting with family and enjoying joyful times with them but I feel the fear on everyone’s faces if they are asked to make a physical appearance in these gatherings. They prefer ‘e-meetings’. People do use teleportation technology to go and meet relatives but many don’t follow the practice. Vaccine holidays have also been added which come every 6 months encouraging people to get vaccinated for diseases that come from prolonged use of technology and staying indoors.
The area of sport is restricted to Indoor activities today. However, the excitement for sports hasn’t changed at all. The Olympics events were still held during the pandemic period, with the never-ending lockdown, these events soon lost their charm. This led to the creation of an online and indoor version of the event, the ‘Ilympics- Indoor Olympics’. These contain varieties from classic games like ludo, chess and cards, etc expanding to video game tournaments and e-sports. These are the one and only famous sports events held every two years all over the world. Recently, an initiative to relaunch the Olympics event was released by the Government, but it’s highly doubtful if it would be anything like the Olympics in the past.
It may seem that technological advancement is the only major thing that has happened over the last three decades but guess what; it’s not true. Our mother, nature, has developed more than technology ever will. In the early twenty-first century, nature was on the way towards destruction. Being filled with pollution, be it air, water or sound; nature had stopped advancing. As forests were destroyed to fulfil the demand of the growing population, animals had started coming into human habitats and with this, bats brought the solution for nature’s regeneration. COVID-19 made people stay inside their homes isolated from the entities of the world. This gave nature its much-needed rest and as people stopped contributing to pollution, it slowly started advancing into the state when it was a beautiful creation. All this may seem a small achievement to today’s generation, but this was all an unsolvable riddle before COVID ever came.
Another peculiar change after COVID-19 is the change in everyone’s dressing and eating styles. With the end of COVID-19, masks were no longer necessary but people automatically and unconsciously started wearing them outside as if nothing had happened. Many had even forgotten the reason for wearing them and thought that it was just a new fashion style spreading across the world. Eating habits changed with the lockdown as a sudden trend to cook junk food at home rose. Everyone rushed to the market to buy ingredients and while many succeeded in making delicious delicacies, others came out with a burnt and roasted outcome. This process kept repeating itself throughout the COVID-19 lockdowns, and soon many junk food shops had closed and people had started making these delicacies at home becoming master chefs.
COVID came with its deathly disadvantages, but it evolved humanity for the best. People adopted better practices for nature and everyone around them, something which came from the humanity that rose during the pandemic. People all around grew selfless, ready to help each other and never thinking of anyone else’s harm. We all unconsciously found redemption and; crime and discrimination were reduced to almost none.
Even after seeing so many positive changes in the world over the last thirty years, the impact of COVID-19 will never change in our lives. I believe change is necessary for growth. But as you grow older, you start to drift apart from the changes around you which is the sole reason why my dad used to compare his childhood with mine and why I do it myself when I have reached his age.