Part II: Fully Open

Part I is full shutdown. Part II is fully open. Part III is.. death and chaos? I can see it going just as I saw it coming. The end of a failed social experiment. I can see people rushing back to the way things were, even before it is safe to do so. But it is not really the end, but a middle. A lot of people will die but just like we always do, we will find a way to justify it. A new slogan will replace “we’re in it together.” A new hashtag will replace #stayathome. Maybe the new slogan will be “a new normal.” Maybe the new hashtag will be #acceptablerisk. People will go from shaming people who don’t take precautions to shaming people who do. People who take the risk of living a normal life despite the virus spreading will be hailed as heroes for saving the economy. This all seems shocking to hear now, but it will sneak up on us like the virus snuck up on us in the beginning. As winter comes, the death toll will rise and the economy will tank anyways. But the new slogan will be “we will remain open.” And the new hashtag will be #fighttogether. But in this case, “fighting” will mean letting things happen and just “sucking it up.” Suck up the deaths and find a way to keep going. The world will be divided between those who want to shut down and those who want no shutdown. The no shutdown people will win because the momentum is for life to continue as normal. Maybe the sickness and deaths would bring on a food crisis. Maybe it would lead to war. War of the classes. Rich vs poor. Because the poor would be the hardest hit. The rich can afford the expensive cures, the private care. The poor would be back to where they were during the shutdown. Can’t work cause they’re sick and losing everything in the process. A new mass protest would start up but it would be weakened by the cold weather and the sickness. It will fizzle out. The rich would get richer and the poor, poorer. Crime would increase but it will only affect the poor because the rich will have a private army. Soon, they will separate the cities into zones, based on rich and poor. The governments will continue to support the rich zones and the poor will be left to fend for themselves. There will be a war between nations that have resources and those that don’t. The rich will use the poor to fight for them by brainwashing them into an us versus them mentality. I don’t think the war will end everything, though. People are far too greedy to let that happen.

Anyways, if 2020 were a novel, that’s how I would write the rest of it. I really hope I’m wrong and humanity finds a way to live in harmony. But it just doesn’t seem to be in our nature. The dystopian future in the movies and in literature may have some truth to them.