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Coronavirus: 2025 vision

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Hello Quartz readers,

Today we’re focused on one question and one question only: What’s one way life will be different in five years because of coronavirus?

It’s a time period we’ve been mildly obsessed with lately: soon enough that the pandemic won’t seem remote, but far enough away that the worst will be over. Besides, we could all use a break from the present.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been putting this question to everyone—professors, entrepreneurs, artists, authors, CEOs, chefs. We’ve also been asking our parents, friends, kids, each other, and even a dog or two. Below you’ll see excerpts from some of our favorite answers, and you can check out predictions from more than 50 experts here.

Let’s get started.

Best guessed

❤️ Most hopeful. “I hope and I believe that in five years, we will focus more on human relationships not stuff, the importance of all human beings and their rights, and the ways in which we can be a better society working together despite our differences.” —Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, professor of public policy at the Price School, University of Southern California

🛑 Most counterintuitive. “If we want to be secure against these crises and more, we need to add inefficiency back into our systems.” —Bruce Schneier, Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School

🔥 Most unsettling. “While there is consensus that the coronavirus crisis has increased awareness of the many connections between climate and health, I predict that in five years it will have set us back in tackling one of the major public health emergencies of our time: extreme heat.” —Kathy Baughman McLeod, director, Adrienne Arsht–Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center

🎤 Most excited to wear a band T-shirt with sweatpants. “In a post-coronavirus world, virtual events and livestreaming will democratize live events, allowing for more people in more places to tune in to types of events that were previously unavailable to them.” —Jill Krimmel, interim president, Stubhub

🤖 Most prepared for a robot takeover. “The forces of AI and automation will be drastically sped up by the response to the pandemic.” —P.W. Singer, author of Burn-In: A Novel of the REAL Robotic Revolution

🧒🏾 Most prepared for a Gen Z takeover. “Gen Z’s identity formation is a series of taking positions on a crisis with explicit political consequences.” —Joshua Citarella, artist

💼 Most likely to take the next elevator. “In five years, many of us will still be working from office settings, but we will do so less often, with trepidation.” —Melissa Gregg, chief technologist, User Experience and Sustainability for Client Computing, Intel

🍿 Most likely to buy a popcorn machine. “My bet is that movie theaters won’t exist.” —Adam Grant, professor, organizational psychology, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

🏡 Most likely to lend you a cup of sugar. “We will no longer rely on governments or markets alone to take care of us. Instead we will rely on ground-up, hyperlocal neighborhood networks to get stuff done in times of crisis.” —Tricia Wang, co-founder, Sudden Compass

🚴‍ Most likely to have great calves. “I think the world’s major cities will be far more bikeable—and as a result there will be lots more people biking.” —Bill McKibben, author, educator, and activist

We asked

In a recent Quartz Daily Brief, we put the question to readers, and got some great answers back. Here are three of our favorites.

  • “Covid-19 will create the impetus to move toward mail-in, advance, phone and internet voting; greatly changing the number of people who can and will vote as well as the decades-old manner in which votes and voters are gerrymandered.”
  • “Clinical trials! We’ll see (and are already seeing) more and more clinical trial protocols that support clinical trials done in part or in whole ‘from home,’ versus requiring numerous (and sometimes arduous) site visits.”
  • “Food will be different. Global supply chains truncated. So companies are not as vulnerable. More tech in manufacturing and in farmers’ fields to reduce health risks and labor costs. Automated restaurants. Vertical farming in urban areas will be more normal to shorten the distance to food sources.”

Do you have a five-years-from-now coronavirus prediction?

The kids are all right

No one speaks truth quite like a youth. We asked a few Quartz kids what they thought would be different in five years, and got some savvy replies.

Margot, age 9: “There’s going to be a break in the technology world, because nobody right now can make really good technology without other people helping, because people can’t go to work.”

Henry, age 7: “They will put a lot more satellites up in space so we can communicate more and don’t have poor connections.”

Archie, age 8: “We will add more rooms to hospitals, and we will take more safety precautions, like washing our hands after we touch things. But other than that, it’ll go back to normal. No social distancing or masks.”

Ogden, age 8: “I think people are going to wear more masks. Before, not a lot of countries were wearing masks. And we’re gonna be more prepared for the next one that comes: more masks, more hand sanitizer, more hospitals.”

Julianna, age 5: “I’ll only do Zoom meetings with my parents.”

Alexa, age 3: “Movies will be made proper and different.”

Tool for the summer

One thing we’re watching is the not-so-distant future of journalism. By becoming a Quartz member, you can directly support our newsroom and its work, including special projects like ☝️ The New Normal. Plus, with our limited-time summer sale—so refreshing!—we’re offering a cool 50% off your first year.

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