As I look at the world with the coronavirus, I am trying to identify second and third-order effects that will affect my members and myself. Also, I am trying to figure out what the new world will look like post coronavirus because as with all major events, behaviors change permanently.

March 14th, 2020

At the moment; however, it is too early for such predictions, but here are a few I will make.

Coming Baby Boom!

With the sports season canceled and quarantines, we can expect a baby boom in 2021! The size of which I believe will correlate to the length of the quarantine.

Increase in Divorce Rates

As couples have to spend more time together, trying to work and manage children without outside distractions and escapes, more people will realize that they really can’t live with their spouse, I would expect a rise in divorce rates, especially among the very wealthy who rarely spend time together anyway.

Streaming Wins

The growth in streaming subscriptions has been growing dramatically with more platforms, i.e. Disney and Apple TV coming online. However, with quarantine and no sports, I expect the numbers to grow even further, leading to more people cutting the cord as they will not want to pay for TV. The question is: Will Google Fiber and AT&T Fiber start actively selling and expanding their networks to cope with residential demand with more people working from home? If streaming really takes off, this will be the final nail in the coffin of movie theaters.

Coronavirus will devastate Africa and possibly India

Cities like Mumbai, Lagos, and Nairobi are huge clusters of humanity with large populations located in slums. Once Covid-19 infects the population it will spread dramatically in these cities. Since many residents cannot social distance as the slums don’t allow for it the ability to limit the disease will be minimal. As it spreads, their healthcare systems will collapse as they are definitely not able to handle the volume. India may be able to cope, but not as well as China. African cities cannot. Since a large portion of Africa’s middle-aged population died due to the AIDs epidemic, this threatens the old. Africa will be left with a young population and few elders.

Pray for a light Hurricane Season

This is not a prediction, but for decades, utility companies in hurricane-prone states have decided it was cheaper to patch up their above-ground wiring networks, rather than incur the cost of burying power lines, etc. As I understand it, the median age of a line worker was 45 five years ago. At that time according to EUCI, over one-half (50%) of utility workers will be eligible to retire between 2020 and 2022. As the work is hard, this group could be susceptible to the virus and if many are sick, there may not be enough to fix a hurricane disaster. In that case, power lines may eventually relocate underground in the south.

Copyright (c) 2020, Marc A. Borrelli

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