A Better Normal

One of the big impacts of COVID-19 that I see is the change in what is normal. Though many are anxious to see things re-open, there are just as many who have changed their habits and may not go back. This will shift the economy in ways that are not well understood. 

Commercial real estate may not recover for a long time since companies have discovered their employees are as or more productive working from home. All of the restaurant take-out infrastructure that was quickly thrown together may not be dismantled as people continue to enjoy their restaurant meals at home or restaurants may find that the take-out model works better for them.

The challenge for the State is going to be to watch and learn how to recognize permanent changes to long standing habits. There will likely be some big surprises along the way and the State is going to need to adapt to those changes or it will be playing catch-up and missing out.

One area that needs to be studied carefully is education. Are there things that are being learned about education delivery that should be retained after COVID-19 instead of blindly dropping back into status quo? There would likely be significant resistance to systemic changes in education but it would be a shame to lose any advantage that was learned during these many months.