Lockdown and the New Normal
Hey folks, let's talk #lockdown! A cheery topic, no doubt, but an important one - and one with ramifications for all of us.
There are two* ways this state of lockdown, with businesses closed and people told to stay home, ends. The first is with a vaccine, which is (at best) 12 months away. So best case, we're locked down until next April; more realistically, factoring in time not just for testing and discovery, but also for production, we're 18 to 24 months away from being allowed out.
The second is, as China has done, gradually relaxing the lockdown - allowing people to incrementally move around more, visit shops and so on - coupled with continued mass testing for #covid19. The idea is that by continuing to test people, the government can control any subsequent outbreak of Covid-19 before it grows out of control. In practice, there WILL be further outbreaks: it's the nature of the virus that by the time we know someone has it, they've already passed it to other people. And, without a level of mass testing that Western governments have so far shown themselves incapable of delivering, it's inevitable that people will catch and spread the disease.
So we'll go through this cycle again - governments will have to instate lockdowns, to minimise the spread of the disease, and ensure that national healthcare systems aren't overwhelmed. The alternative, of keeping people locked in their houses indefinitely, is untenable: governments don't want to risk widespread civil disobedience, so will have to relax and reimpose restrictions in response to the situation at the time.
What does this mean in practice? Well, for one thing, lockdown is here for the rest of 2020, people. When we're finally allowed out of the house again (perhaps around mid-May in the UK and Canada, maybe earlier in Italy but later in the US), this isn't the end of it. There's a limit to the number of times lockdown can be instated, as public compliance will fall further each time, but expect #Lockdown2 ("this time it's summer") and possibly Lockdown3 ("getting really sick of this now").
But more than that, it's vital for government, for individuals and (most importantly for LinkedIn) for businesses to understand that *this is the new normal*. This incredibly strange experience won't go away like a weird dream - this is what 'normal' looks like for the rest of this year, and perhaps into 2021. That means travel will be incredibly limited. In-store purchasing will be almost non-existent for much of this year, and replaced by online purchasing for most things. People won't be going to restaurants, bars or cinemas. Those recent quirks of consumer behaviour we've seen - watching more TV, listening to more streamed music, and using Zoom to stay connected with friends, colleagues and clients - aren't just quirks. They are now regular consumer habits.
For businesses, it also means there's no waiting this out. While sitting tight and doing nothing might be a reasonable plan for a month or two, it doesn't work for a year. If the coronavirus crisis rolls on for another year, businesses that don't get a handle on this and adapt won't survive. Marketing, selling, connecting with customers, building new products and delivering excellent customer service: none of these can wait, and there's no point hoping that things will soon go back to how they were. That too-smug business lesson of "adapt or die"? Yeah, that's now; and it applies to all business. So get back out there, get innovating, selling, marketing and working. Because this is the new normal, and if you're not in it, you're not in business.
*technically the third option is just to let everyone out and see what happens. On the plus side it'd build herd immunity within a couple of months; on the minus side, around 1-3% of the population could die and the basic systems of society such as police, healthcare, public transport etc would collapse.
I am already hating the term #newnormal