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Imagine you’re talking to a couple of high school students in 2050. They ask, “How did the pandemic change the world as you knew it?” How do you think you would answer?

I'm hoping the pandemic makes crap jobs less crap and forces the people at the top to start taking care of their constituents. More pay, better and more affordable housing, more oversight to keep corporate big wigs from making life in the trenches awful for no good reason (a higher CEO bonus is not a good reason). This is the perfect opportunity to get back on a good track to make this country live up to its own ideals and propaganda, to be as great as certain sectors think we are and the rest of us know isn't true. We've got all this money tied up in rich people who don't need it, and the pandemic has exposed every one of the cracks that caused; take the good path and fix all the problems. What I'm afraid is that the schools in the far future will be teaching some sanitized version of all this that glosses over the truth, or won't teach it at all bc it's as rough as the race stuff in the 60s that doesn't get taught either--except also with an illness the gov totally dropped the ball on. I'm afraid any good Biden et al can do now will be specifically undone before 2050 by people who hate him (also for no good reason). Somewhere in the middle would be, like, you know your elders lived through the pandemic because of how they wheeze when climbing stairs, or have crumpled ears from years of mask wearing, or are shut ins and germaphobes. It'll be interesting clinically (and probably horrifying personally) to see how a whole damaged generation that now have chronic pain and weakness, bad lungs, no taste or smell, weird brain chemistry, and all sorts of developing future issues changes things down the line. Will healthcare improve? Will debt caused by it ever be dealt with or will they just let it bankrupt the whole country? Will the treatment and accomodation of disabled people improve if millions of previously nondisabled people find themselves now needing those same accomodations? Will work at home stick around after all this? Idk if 2050 is far enough to really see how all of it shakes out, but I'm 100% sure this is going to be a whole class in lots of schools, and maybe a whole major in some!