What’s life going to look like in 5 years?
With the announcement that some Connecticut businesses can start reopening May 20, there’s light at the end of the coronavirus tunnel.
But even as people begin to venture out, some things may never return to “normal.”
To that end, we asked residents two questions:
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Here are their responses.
Alan Gunzburg, of Greenwich, chairman of the Statewide Rehabilitation Council
If a vaccine for COVID-19 is discovered and distributed, Alan Gunzburg said his life “would be very similar to what it is now” — or at least to what it was like before he began staying home — “except I’ll just be five years older.”
In part because of his work with people with disabilities, Gunzburg had more to say about how life in general may look in the future.
On education: “Education and public education now has a handle on a better way to do distance learning, which sometimes is helpful for everyone including people with disabilities and I think that is awesome,” said Gunzburg.
On health care and internet access:
“Hopefully we turn ourselves around and we find people that believe that healthcare is a human right, not something that is afforded as a luxury the same way in this time of stress and distress ... that internet is not a luxury, internet is a vital utility that everybody should have like power and heat and water.”
On the economy:
“I think the economy will bounce back,” Gunzberg said. “I am not sure if it will bounce back by the end of this year — I think it will be a longer term — but I think we will bounce back and we will be more resilient to hopefully all of those issues (education, health care and access).
On remote work:
“The most interesting part that I think we’ve realized in this time is that it is OK to work from home, which has been one of the larger struggles that disabled people have had forever,” Gunzburg said. “The mass layoffs aren’t because you can’t get into the office, so hopefully the idea that you can work at home as a viable alternative to working in an office has to come out of this somehow so we can employ more people and use more people’s skills.”
Chris Barlow, digital banking product manager, Berlin resident
In the next five years, Chris Barlow said he’ll be “using technology more to virtually connect with people” and that “working from home will be the norm and in the office will be the exception.”
He said while some industries and people may be thrive after COVID-19, others won’t recover.
“[There could be a] larger gap between have and have-nots,” Barlow said. “Access to care will be harder and healthcare will be much more expensive. Travel and service industries will not recover. Digital will surge, augmented reality and gaming will have explosive growth.”
Jennifer Jennings Williams, Bridgeport
As a mom caring for six young children, Jennifer Jennings Williams sees herself remembering “for years to come” the lasting effects of friends and loved ones who couldn’t properly bury their loved ones or even be by their bedsides.
She predicted homeschooling may become more prevalent because schools now provide teaching materials via internet apps — and most aren’t requiring families to get explicit permission to home school.
“Many schools may now have the ability to ask parents if they would prefer distance learning or inschool programs because the program is now developed,” she said.
Jennings Williams said “health care may change in many ways.”
1 “Many roles that were once powered to family members when loved ones are hospitalized or in nursing homes may now create decision-making processes for the doctors and nurses that are on the front line to decide what is best for your loved ones.”
1 “Biochemists will need to create more vaccines for viruses and for strains of viruses before they are introduced to the human body.”
1 “Hopefully, more research funding will be delegated to future pandemics, and test practices will go into effect to prepare if pandemics happen again. Doing this, the state of Connecticut will not suffer significantly from job loss, shortages of food, shortages and lack of masks, not enough ventilators and other life-saving benefactors that keep many Americans afloat.”
Gaby Rattner, executive director of Community Centers Inc. in Greenwich
Gaby Rattner said in these uncertain times it’s hard to predict what will happen next month, let alone five years from now.
“The only thing I can answer is, ‘Different than it is now,’” Rattner said. “That would be true under ordinary circumstances, but I think we are all just beginning to contemplate how we are going to work differently, live differently, provide service differently and I don’t know the answers yet.”
Of our respondees, Rattner is among those who think the health care industry could change for the better.
“I like some of the ways I see health care changing,” Rattner said. “I like the expansion of telemedicine to all economic brackets and not just those who are privileged to be able to afford what used to be called ‘concierge medicine,’ so I feel like that is a really positive change and I hope that it endures well past this crisis.”
On education, Rattner said, “I think at the moment I think we are woefully underdelivering.”
“...but I also think that if we can harness the technology successfully over time that things like snow days will become part of our past and that we will be able to help kids experience classrooms across the world and really kind of broaden their educational landscapes rather than what is currently happening which is extremely narrow,” Rattner said. “Here again, I think technology has a huge potential positive impact.”
Janet Kipphut Ainsworth, state government attorney from Guilford
After spending 11 years as a newspaper reporter at the Journal-Courier/New Haven Register newsroom in the 1970s and ’80s, Janet Kipphut Ainsworth has been a lawyer since 1985.
“My plan is to retire [next year] and spend more time volunteering with conservation organizations,” Ainsworth said of what her life could look like in 2025. “I’ve done quite a bit of this in the 12 years since my youngest child graduated from high school, but as a retiree, I’ll have much more time to devote to it. I think climate change is the most consequential issue facing the planet.”
Ainsworth said “COVID-19 will fundamentally alter many aspects of our lives, but I think it is too early to know exactly how.”
“No doubt, a lot will be negative and will persist for years. The ability to remotely participate in work and school will likely change the way we do both those things. The negative impact on the economy will not only harm families, but the ability of government to provide services to its citizens.”