Yep, some of these predictions are outright comical. "has covid ended handshakes forever" or "will we ever go back to bars?".
Bars and handshakes have survived thousands of years of pandemics. I get that people always tend to think their moment in history is particularly special, but I'm just gonna say if the black death didn't do something in this won't either
> Yep, some of these predictions are outright comical. "has covid ended handshakes forever" or "will we ever go back to bars?".
I agree. Do people think it's really a good idea to always be coddling your immune system? If this were to happen, the next pandemic will probably be far worse. Just saw a study that says that having the cold recently could help your immune system fight covid-19. Of course I don't know how accurate it is, but the one thing I do know is that nobody fully understands covid and how the immune system handles it.
There is some indication that exposure to some other coronaviruses may improve immune response to the pandemic one, but I think it's still a bit vague and undefined. Since there are coronaviruses in circulation which cause colds, this is possibly true.
It's not something to base public health policy around though!
You are certainly right that we lack a lot of understanding, including about various kinds of immune response to the virus which is critical to developing an effective vaccine. The level of scientific activity around this one virus is utterly phenomenal though. I'd like to think this is going to be a defining moment for human medicine, but I fear it might turn out otherwise.
I agree with you and I’ve been repeating this point to my close circle, though this article did (for the first time) make me sort of excited to see what will stick, if anything.
Take the searches for yeast and recipe, for example. I don’t think its totally farfetched to imagine that a sizeable handful of people have wondered, maybe for the first time, how to bake things like bread and cookies or how to make meatballs. It would be really cool if we actually saw these things’ growth in popularity persist in some tangible form into the future. These things have definitely existed for a long time, but I feel like we North Americans have been trending towards fast food and delivered meals for a few decades now.
I agree with the general feeling of promoting home cooked food and having/learning the skill set for it.
However, specifically on the bread making aspect, we should probably do some back of the napkin estimations before supporting this more long term.
One good thing about a bakery is that it uses huge ovens, in which multiples trays of bread are baked, at the same time, with minimal dead space.
Contrast that with the scenario where we all decide to start baking our own bread, in a normal oven, raising it to very high temperatures, for a long period, to bake a single loaf every 1 or 2 days. This sort of makes me worry what would be the carbon impact of that consumer change?
The future of home electric power is renewable power such as rooftop photovoltaic, so maybe the change's carbon impact tracks the trend of the rest of home carbon impact? Efficiency at a community level should be considered, but it should be considered while looking at all the trends.
I'm not sure bars existed in the times of Black Death. I learned recently that a sit down restaurant with a menu is a relatively new thing. Two hundred years or so. Plus minus a few decades.
Your point still stands though. I just thought I would point that out as I found it somewhat interesting because for a long time I had assumed that restaurant business was much older than that.
>I'm not sure bars existed in the times of Black Death
depends what you mean by a bar?
In the UK, taverns certainly existed prior to the Black Death (1346 – 1353). For instance:
> Established in the 13th Century, The White Hart Inn on Drury Lane claims to be London’s oldest pub. Historical records show its first license was granted as early as 1216
This article kind of fudges the Black Death and an Italian plague 300 years later, but there were "wine windows" to allow serving without physical contact, and some have been recently put back into service:
> Yep, some of these predictions are outright comical. "has covid ended handshakes forever"
I hope so. Handshakes are pathogen vector I can easily do without. And they don't seem essential to anyone's livelihood.
> handshakes have survived thousands of years of pandemics. I get that people always tend to think their moment in history is particularly special, but I'm just gonna say if the black death didn't do something in this won't either
Our understanding of infection has advanced since then. Let's apply the knowledge.
Bars and handshakes have survived thousands of years of pandemics. I get that people always tend to think their moment in history is particularly special, but I'm just gonna say if the black death didn't do something in this won't either