I need to know when you think things will get back to normal

[andrewducker]

Poll #24950

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 75

View Respondents

Travel will be back to normal within

View Answers

1 year
10 (13.3%)

2 years
41 (54.7%)

5 years
11 (14.7%)

10 years
1 (1.3%)

never
12 (16.0%)

Office work will be back to normal in

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1 year
14 (18.7%)

2 years
15 (20.0%)

5 years
4 (5.3%)

10 years
0 (0.0%)

never
42 (56.0%)

Theatres will be back to normal in

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1 year
15 (20.3%)

2 years
32 (43.2%)

5 years
16 (21.6%)

10 years
1 (1.4%)

never
10 (13.5%)

Comments

[gingicat]

I’m hoping that these things will carry over:
— being *able* to work remotely
— most medical or therapy appointments not requiring travel
— monthly or weekly family get-togethers over Zoom
— people staying home or wearing masks when they feel sick
— being able to attend synagogue services at my favorite synagogue 100 miles away

And maybe people actually getting out of the habit of blocking supermarket aisles (not that they have anyway).

[channelpenguin]

I also hope the remote work, various family /friend Zoom sessions and staying home / masks when sick will continue!

I see city house prices / rent continuing to drop vs country if more home working takes off.

I hope that the move to make town centres less shopping-dependent picks up steam.

But I think that various venues, restaurants, pubs, shops, small businesses etc. will NEVER reopen. Many musicians/theatre/event staff etc who had an alternative career to go back to may say in that alternative.

[duckshaveears]

Caveat: for a new value of 'normal' where things are different from before, particularly re office work.

(This is Ashfae btw)

[armiphlage]

Businesses: I can have auditors and salespeople do Zoom calls instead of site visits, both saving on business travel costs, and letting me fire half my salespeople/auditors since they're no longer spending half their time in airports? (my company just had a virtual certification audit - the auditor would normally have spent two days traveling, with three days at our factory).

Offices: I can make my employees pay for their own desks and chairs at home, and not have to spend my own money renting and maintaining office space?

Major studios: I can release movies to streaming services (or use my own service) and get money instantly, instead of waiting 60 days for movie theatres to submit receipts?

[andrewducker]

Depends on whether that makes the studios more money overall. Certainly the blockbusters made an awfully large pile of cash at the cinema.

[jducoeur]

Sure, but that's an occasional, high-risk, high-reward proposition. OTOH, a well-developed streaming service is steady, potentially far-larger recurring revenue. Netflix has demonstrated pretty effectively that that's an excellent business model, but it requires a constant flow of enough interesting content to lock viewers in.

So I think the Warner / HBO Max thing is a fascinating natural experiment, which will tell a fair amount about how business models should adjust going forward...

[stormclouds]

With regards to offices, my friend's work have so far sent him two monitors, a laptop, an awesomely comfortable upright mouse, a desk and various things for making a chair more comfortable. I don't know what other places have done but this one was pretty damn good.

[armiphlage]

*envy*

[snippy]

Luxury. I was sent home with a laptop, a printer/scanner, and a box of office supplies. Have supplied my own: ergonomic keyboard and mouse, large monitor (some of the software I must use doesn't even show on the screen size of the laptop and cannot be resized!), ergonomic chair, desk, WIFI, and cell phone to use for work calls, none of which is eligible for even partial reimbursement.

[channelpenguin]

GermanyGov is going to give us €5 / day allowance for WGH ongoing. Used to be you had to have a dedicated offce room. Not any more (I guess from Jan when new tax year starts)

[channelpenguin]

WFH!!! damn typos!

[andrewducker]

Amusingly, up until you replied to that comment you could have edited it...

[channelpenguin]

Yes, that tickled me too. I wasn't logged in so could not edit.

[rhythmaning]

I just assumed WFG was some strange German composite-acronym...

[aldabra]

I've answered as if we're looking at only-covid, but in fact I think covid is going to segue into a bunch of other problems (energy contraction, economic contraction, fascism, climate change), such that the old normal is going to look unrecognisable. But I don't think that's fundamentally covid's fault.

[snippy]

This is sensible and I'm glad to have read it.

[ninetydegrees]

"Office work will be back to normal in"

I voted one year because it's already back to normal in my country to some extent, masks and some new regulations notwithstanding. Nothing like it was back in June. However, I do think normal is a new normal where some things will be done differently.

[agoodwinsmith]

"A" new normal, yes. The old normal, no.

[birguslatro]

I chose 2 years for each answer, but that's for everywhere except for the UK and Ireland, where 'never' is the correct answer.

[darkoshi]

By "normal", do you mean "like it was before COVID-19"?

One thought I had is that "normal" means different things in summer versus winter, and likewise, "normal" can mean different things in times of pandemic and not. But also, "normal" is always changing, and has already changed in many ways since last year, and many of those changes may not be only temporary.

[danieldwilliam]

I would define "normal" here as people are by and large able, willing and comfortable to do a thing in the way they choose to do a thing.

My expectation is that a lot depends on the vaccine. Looking at qualities of the early vaccines in terms of a) preventing illness, b) preventing onward transmission and c) preventing initial infection. Also considering the efficacy and efficiency of the roll out programme. Thirdly, looking at the qualities of follow up vaccines.

I think we are probably looking at a year from now before the first roll out programme of vaccination is finished (in the UK). In order to reach herd immunity we need to have about 80% of the population either (recently) vaccinated or with some (recent) exposure to the illness. For the UK that's approximately 52 million people. Conveniently for my mental maths, a million people a week, about 150,000 a day. My back of an envelope estimate is that a team of vaccinators could do 500 people in an 8-hour shift. Times two for the double dose. So you need about 1,000 vaccinator teams across the UK. Which seems entirely doable.

We might be able to go faster but I'm mindful that there is some reluctance to have the vaccine abroad in the population, that plans rarely survive contact with reality and that, in England at least, this is being run by Boris Johnson's Tory government, who are poor at actually running things.

So I assume that in a year's time pretty much everyone who can have and wants the vaccine (including those people who don't want the vaccine but who will coerced in to having it in some way) will have had the vaccine and community transmission in the UK will be pretty much at a standstill and many, many people who are exposed to the disease will have had the vaccine and benefited from the reduction in the illness. In tandem with this we will have a year's extra experience of treating people. Fewer people will die or become hospitalised as a result of the illness. So we should be at the point where we can treat the disease much as we treat a bad seasonal flu.

(Also, worth bearing in mind that, with a vaccinated population of 40% (i.e. 50% of the 80%) that should have a impact on the speed of transmission equivalent to some (?) degree of de jure and de facto COVID restrictions.)

Once we reach that point I think we'll see things like theatres, live music and dining out returning to "normal". These are things that people like to do. They will have been frustrated in them for two years. There are opportunities for these activities to organise COVID-safe operations with things like a vaccine certificate which could see them returning to operation earlier in the vaccine roll out process. (A wise government with an emphasis on solidarity might make licencing of live events or restaurants selling alcohol dependent on them limiting custom to those who can prove they've had the vaccine.)

So I think by the time we get to December 2021 we should see things like live theatre in full swing. Largely unrestricted in practice for almost everyone. I suspect that not everyone will feel comfortable going to the theatre or out for dinner and we'll have had two years of alternative business models working well. (Would I, for example, go out to see a live, in person amateur production with some dinner when, for half the money, I can watch a live-stream or recording of the National Theatre with a takeaway on my lap? Don't know.) So, that sort of thing back to something like normal in a year's time - with a bit of tail.

Travel by public transport. Comprises three elements for me. Commuting by public transport, business travel and thirdly, holiday travel. Lots depends on one's definition of normal here. If you take my definition of normal then I think we are looking at two years, with commuting also bound up in what's going on in offices.

Holiday travel will have pent up demand but countries and individuals will be cautious and we might see some restrictions still in place until 2022. Especially assuming that at least some countries will have screwed up their vaccine roll out programme.

Business travel will be back to normal sooner. General reluctance will be overcome by business travellers being told by their boss to get on the plane. However, what the previous two years will have shown is that lots of business meetings and business relationships can be kept going with fewer in person meetings. There will be less business travel.

How these two interact I'm not certain. I can see a model where, although demand for both holiday and business travel is reduced the airline industry has suffered a net loss of capacity due to bankruptcy or seating restrictions and demand outstrips supply for few years. Or not.

This whole thing is complicated in the UK by Brexit. Personally I don't see me trying to organise a family holiday outside of the UK until 2022 at the earliest.

Commuting is a whole different ball game. I can see people being reluctant to go back to commuting. It's expensive, unpleasant and takes you to a place you don't really want to be. I think we'll see a permanent reduction in demand and permanent shifting of demand to non-peak times. Very much tied in with the office.

The office is going to take longest to get back to the new normal. Firstly, it's uncertain what the optimal balance of working from home versus working in an office actually is. I expect this to be different for different industries and for different firms in those industries. Somewhat moderated by personal preference. What I'm certain of is that there will be a general reduction in the demand for office space overall and for office space in central city business districts particularly. How much of a reduction in demand I don't know. Back of an envelope calculations - if we shift to people on average working from home 2 days out of 5 then that's a 40% drop in demand for office space. Even if only 1 person in 10 is able to do that and an additional 1 person in 10 manages 1 day working from home that's more than a 5% drop in overall demand for office space. Add in the impact of people shifting offices out of the city centres to cheaper commercial property closer to (the bosses) home that is some significant changes in the pattern of commercial property usage. Also, considering the impact on bricks and mortar retail in general and the potential for that to shift to being more locally supplied.

What I observe from discussions about the impact on offices is a failure to understand how slowly these markets move. It takes a year to sign or exit a lease. Leases run for 5 years at a minimum up to 20 years. However the costs are a significant part of the business. In central London I would expect a decent office to cost £10,000 a person to provide. In Edinburgh (not a cheap city), perhaps £5,000 a person. There is a significant incentive for businesses to have as many people working from home as possible. Plus the ability to provide a free benefit of a tax free pay increase by removing some commuting costs. There are going to be lots of accountants arguing with Theory-X managers about the cost savings to be had by reducing office space and moving out of London. The accountants will win. It will take them 10 years.

However, senior management will not communicate this Titanic battle to staff. What staff will see is an instruction to come back in to the office in early 2021 (as Theory-X managers bang their shoes on the table), followed by a relaxing of the requirement (as HR remind them that people are leaving for jobs where they can work from home), followed by mandated working from home or office relocations (as each businesses property management and accountancy teams win the argument about whether saving £5k per person a year is a good thing or not a good thing).

We're going to messing about with the office for a decade and along with that commuting.

I think.

[rhythmaning]

I think Dan's view stacks up, though I don't think I'm quite as pessimistic for the roll out of the vaccine - especially if the Oxford/Astro-Zeneca easier-to-transport vaccine receives regulatory approval. I reckon late Summer 2021 for major uptake.

[danieldwilliam]

I hope you are right and I don't see any great blockers to you being right.

It only takes a doubling of supply to move from a Dec 2021 completion date to a June 2021 completion rate. That seems doable, if challenging.

[rhythmaning]

I had assumed that this was going to be a Brexit question rather than a covid question!

And I think Brexit could have a huge influence on the mid-term outcomes, as I think others are alluding to above.

So much as I think Dan's analysis feels about right, overlay potentially huge issues arising from Brexit (including political and economic collapse and public disorder in the spring/summer, when the role out of covid vaccines might be expected to be at their peak), followed by the break up of the UK (a Scottish referendum in the autumn? Plausible. By the following spring? I reckon a certainty. And the reunification of Ireland) - well, by then I think we'll have forgotten what "normal" actually is!