Five or six weeks into the crisis and we’re at the blame-game stage of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some of current debate is worth having, but much of it is not. Figuring out who to blame or pointing fingers at inadequate preparation are somewhat important, but they do very little to address the current dual challenges of health care capacity and looming economic ruin.
As the late Jim Flaherty said during the 2008 economic crisis, “… this is battlefield surgery.
Don’t second-guess past decisions – do the best you can and then move forward”.

That’s good advice. So, in that spirit, I’m looking at the economic and societal mess in front of us and choosing not to dwell on what’s behind us. I’m thinking about the hard choices that leaders at all levels of government and business and civil society will have to make and the more I think about it, a few (really big!) questions come to mind.

For example, what is the future for public transit? Over the past decade or so, a big driver for investment in mass transit was to get people out of their cars that are stuck in traffic, belching greenhouse gasses and wasting unproductive time behind the wheel. But in a post-pandemic world, will people tolerate that extra time alone in a car knowing that they won’t be crammed on a crowded bus next to a sneezing stranger? Will people who have the option to drive get back on that bus? Will riders who are still forced to take public transit because they cannot afford a car now demand more buses so they’re not so crowded? Both?

I, for one, will probably be ok taking the GO Train with designated seats and some ability to stay away from my neighbour, but don’t count on me getting on a TTC subway or a crowded bus anytime soon – even after we get a vaccine. That may not be a completely rational thought, but I doubt I’m alone.

Will these (arguably irrational) choices just exacerbate the income and class divide that has always been found on our public transit systems? Will the working poor and students be forced to take public transit while the privileged sit and stew in traffic? Probably! How do municipal leaders plan for this? How do they budget for it?

In the GTA, we have a housing shortage and policy makers have been trying to address that by increasing density. In Toronto and the inner suburbs, like Mississauga, hardly any single-family homes are being built. Developments are almost invariably multi-unit residential with increasingly high density. This is the only way to economically house people close to efficient transit and transportation options that will allow them to get to work somewhat quickly.

In a post-pandemic world, will the value of single-family homes go up because the value of grass and a yard are treasured that much more? (I for one, consider myself extremely fortunate to live in a “typical” suburban house with a patch of grass that I can see out my window.) Will people who are now cramming into downtown condos start to reconsider their choices and look at options farther afield, if they can afford it? If knowledge workers can work from home productively in the middle of a pandemic, why do they need to continue living close to their office and going in every day? Can today’s condo dweller get that house in the suburbs or a small town for half the price and tolerate the lengthy trip to the office once in a while, instead of every day? How do urban planners plan for that change in behavior? Where do real estate investors and land developers think consumers will want to settle? How far is too far to commute?

The pandemic is making us re-think how we care for and treat our elders. There will always be a place for long-term care institutions, but how many families who have loved ones in these institutions now wish that mom and dad or grandma was back at home with them, receiving appropriate home care instead? In a post-pandemic world, will the public demand more and better long-term care, or will they demand home care supports to allow aging-in-place so they can avoid a long-term care home? Will they demand both? How much will this cost? Does price even matter?

Is anyone questioning the value of on-line learning now? The current cobbled together system is far from perfect, but it is showing that with a few tweaks and a focus on ensuring equitable access, it can work. At the post-secondary level especially, “learning” needn’t be confined to big institutions and campuses. It can be distributed and delivered much less expensively, at least for some. For policy makers, the question becomes: Do I build a new post-secondary institution, or just extend the reach of existing institutions by building more on-line tools? For communities that rely on that influx of students every Fall, what does a post-pandemic world look like?

Should our health system be organized around big, full-service mega-hospital institutions, or would dozens of specialized, smaller hospitals spread around the community allow for at least some health services to continue during pandemic outbreaks? If you’re hit with COVID right now, you value with your life the full weight of the health system working hard to save your life. If you’re at home with a bad knee or hip waiting for “elective” surgery, you wish there was a hip and knee specialist clinic open and accessible to you.

I could go on … literally everywhere you turn, the pandemic has called into question old assumptions and policy directions. Challenging those assumptions and asking these tough questions will lead us to better answers, but boy-oh-boy, these are tough (and expensive!) choices.

I don’t envy the people who will be asked to take these tough decisions.
The “new normal” certainly won’t be the same as the old normal.