The tsunami-like impact of a global pandemic has a way of drowning out foresight. Right now, it feels impossible to predict what the world will look like next week, let alone next year. Yet behavioral science and the broad sweep of history suggest that COVID-19 will transform our daily lives in the long run.
The changes in progress — some predictable, others still hard to fathom — started brewing as soon as case counts began to escalate. An ongoing University of Southern California study published its first round of results in March, reporting that the coronavirus had already created significant shifts in people’s behavior. Among the top findings: 85 percent of people reported washing their hands or using sanitizer more often than before, and 61 percent reported following social distancing guidelines. Twenty-two percent reported stockpiling essentials like food or water.
Behavioral changes like these may be fear-driven to some extent, ...
