I think we need to rethink our supply chains and determine a list of strategic industries where we ensure we are, or can readily adapt to be, nationally self reliant. IOW, some of the ere principals applied on a national scale instead of an individual/family scale. Food, medicine, energy, certain technology, etc. That would include maintaining strategic stockpiles in some instances, maybe.
We need to totally retool CDC, NIH, FEMA, etc. Can't get pantsed like this again because the next pandemic might be far more grave. Huge amounts of money poured into these organizations over the decades, need better ROI.
Also, for situations like c19 where the biggest threat is to an identifiable fraction of the population, we should consider national strategies focused more on humanely isolating and protecting the vulnerable than wholesale shutdown. That may not always be possible, but when it is it should be strongly considered. Over the next year I think we'll see aside from the communal bill we racked up, there will be a lot of long-term devastation on Main St.
There are a number of reasons to continue to shift more towards work-from-home. Disease is one, but I don't think it's the biggest day-to-day advantage. Savings in time and energy and reduced pollution and congestion would make this pay off all the time. That said, there's still a ways to go--my workplace is less efficient because they are still trying to preserve the old way of doing things in a now suboptimal environment for them. At the same time, I've noticed lots of middle management whose absence doesn't hinder anything (warning: may be a lot of confirmation bias in that observation
). Eventually businesses will figure out that it helps their bottom line to have the employees pay for workspace, electricity, connectivity, and HVAC as much as possible. The question is whether they are willing to relinquish an amount of micro-control in exchange for the money saved.
I think we need to be a little more demanding of the quality of "models" before we base public policy on them, and we need to use them more wisely. Companies in the business of making money who use modeling as a tool certainly do both already. Can't afford not to.
Businesses need to think through and prepare for continuity plans that include pandemics. Lots being learned now, need to remember for the future. I've been involved in drafting business continuity plans and pandemics were never considered. I imagine that is true for the plans of a lot of entities.
We need to cultivate new "news media" outlets who are more interested in providing useful information to the populace than they are in picking sides in ideological battles and personal spats. One of the most common things I hear is, "I don't even know who the &^%$ to believe any more." That's really bad during a pandemic.
On a personal level I think I'm going to be much more aware of "crowding" and will probably look for ways to maintain some semblance of social distancing even after the all-clear. Prior to all this I did so more for convenience--it's just easier to get in/out of the grocery store or whatever early on Sunday morning, for example. Being an introvert helps.
In an odd juxtaposition, I'll also be more aware of cultivating at least a minimum threshold of social interaction. Despite being a pretty strong introvert according to the various "tests", I am not Howard Hughes.
I don't like clutter and having lots of stuff to store and keep track of, but there are some things that I'm considering laying in a strategic supply of.
I agree with Sclass that sadly one of the most obvious takeaways for ordinary people, being to shore up their personal finance situations, will probably be ignored if not outright discouraged. When LBYM < FOMO + YOLO in terms of importance, the result is usually a brittle leveraged situation.
I think about this a lot and will continue to do so. The above is just a snapshot of where my thinking has been lately.