Pandemic and historical change

The corona virus pandemic has exerted enormous pressure on American society and forced a host of changes to how we live and work. But those pressures have ebbed and flowed with the outbreak’s progress. When it all recedes in the likely not-too-distant future, experts expect older, more familiar ways of doing things to return, undoing some of the changes we’ve seen since March.

Harvard experts say some of our adaptations have accelerated already existing trends, like the development of a cashless society, the increase in remote work, and the decline of brick-and-mortar retail. And, they expect, some of these will become a more permanent part of the post-pandemic’s “new normal.”

They also say, however, that the most lasting impact may turn out to be one that is invisible: the marking of those coming of age in the pandemic era, much as the Great Depression and World War II marked their generations, with broad but hard-to-predict effects that will affect society for decades to come.

Compiled by ; Indrani Kukkadapu