You would be naïve to think that there is more of the Covid-19 epidemic behind us than in front of us.
We have experienced 10% of the deaths we expect to, by the time we reach the peak of the mortality curve.
Much has been written about the doom and gloom of Covid-19 and I am just as guilty as anyone else in this respect.
Although we should not forget the trauma that South Africans have and will experience, I thought I would focus on what our world might look like post Covid-19.
As America sinks deeper into socio-political chaos, China, Russia, and to a lesser degree India are jockeying to be pre-eminent world super powers.
South Africa has always walked a fine line between maintaining solid relations with the United States, and being a force to be reckoned with within the BRICS Alliance.
Africa could become a battleground between the US, Europe and the East, as these three power blocks look for resources and markets to grow their economies after the devastating impact of the virus.
Both internationally and upon the JSE, we are bound to experience further aftershocks on our markets.
The government will probably have to go on another capital-raising expedition.
Where will it look – West, North or East?
None of this funding will come without political and economic strings attached.
As South Africans we should be preparing for a new world economic order.
Within this global context, how should we expect our daily lives to change?
Unless many industries can creatively overhaul themselves, we may see the closure of sectors we have grown used to.
The days of labour intensive industries, with workers working shoulder to shoulder are surely going to come under intense pressure.
All company CEOs must be actively investigating not just mechanisation, but robotic automation.
With 1 million additional workers standing in the unemployment queue, it will be a stretch to think that somehow South Africa will return to the unemployment rates prior to Covid-19.
Even at a household level, because of tight finances, as well as the threat of infection, people have been debating how they should manage their domestic workers.
Over the last few weeks all of us have become experts in Zoom, Teams and Google Hangouts.
Sometimes we switch between all of them as we flit from meeting to meeting without getting off the couch.
The virtual workplace has become a reality.
As some of us have had time to think about a second income, an e-commerce business must seem very attractive.
With many of us now working from home, the legal definition of the ‘workplace’ has become very different.
Will employers be willing to compensate employees for the use of their homes as office space?
As business rental agreements are cancelled, will the savings employers enjoy be passed on to employees?
Perhaps what we are witnessing unfold, is the decline of the industrial era, and the rise of the high-tech cottage industry.
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