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But soon thereafter, in perhaps the greatest intellectual explosion of futures thinking in human history, governments, businesses, institutions, and individuals asked what this shift would mean for them. How would the SARS-CoV-2 virus reshape our society and our lives in the days, weeks, months, years, and even decades to come? With the benefit of four months of study and reflection, this analysis is an attempt to think systematically about how Covid has fundamentally changed major global trendlines out to This research was conducted through the analytic framework of the Seven Revolutions initiative , a macrotrends assessment that is continually updated with a year time horizon.

The net assessment is that Covid is highly disruptive in the near term and highly unpredictable in the medium to long terms across every macrotrend area analyzed in this paper.

It is at once an accelerant, an irritant, and a stress test. Its effects will ebb and flow and hit various nations and populations in different ways and on differing timescales.

While there is high confidence in the assessment of first-order outcomes from this crisis, the second-order outcomes of events just now unfolding can only begin to be anticipated. For example, while the authors of this brief made predictions in early April that Covid would likely accelerate global protest movements, it was never anticipated that by late May the United States would be the epicenter of a global protest movement and the focus of those protests would be police brutality and systemic racism.

Many future such surprises should be expected, but the identifiable changes underway should still be cataloged to the best possible extent. Covid marks the start of an era of continuous, rapid change. The virus infected the human population at a historic transition in its demographic structure. This year, for the first time ever, the number of people aged 60 years or older outnumbers people 5 years old or younger worldwide, with aging populations concentrated most heavily in high-income countries.

Unfortunately, the virus is uniquely dangerous to this growing elderly cohort. For example, more than half of Covid-related deaths in the United States have been among those over the age of 65, and around 85 percent in Italy have been among people aged 70 years and over. Eldercare facilities have proven especially vulnerable to outbreak clusters and high mortality. The higher risk posed to the elderly raises the question of what can be done to better ensure their health and safety not just in the course of this pandemic but in the event of likely future epidemics.

The pandemic has also highlighted the degree to which older citizens remain important contributors in the workforce as caregivers and as social lynchpins within families and communities. Over time, the true costs of this loss of human life will be absorbed and likely change the approach to eldercare, including increased biosecurity and use of technology to help keep the elderly safer and more connected. Pandemics have long changed cities. The advent of street cleaning, hospitals, water drainage systems, garbage disposal systems, and secular public health systems all arose from urban responses to past disease outbreaks.

Lasting changes to cities worldwide in the course of this pandemic are already underway. Urban planners are reorganizing public spaces to emphasize green spaces, outdoor recreation areas, and pedestrian zones.

And while public transportation usage has broadly plummeted in partial favor of cars as a result of Covid—for example, New York City public transit is down 62 percent since January while driving is up 16 percent —cities from New York to Paris to Bogota to Vilnius have taken steps to increase bike lanes and minimize vehicle traffic.

Urban communities are also increasing universal access to public services such as health care and electricity, without which some people could not comply with public health measures such as lockdown orders. Additionally, governments in places such as Kenya , Afghanistan , India , and South Africa are taking steps to authorize and upgrade informal settlements and slums and connecting new sanitation, electric, and health services to previously unserved areas in the process.

Elsewhere, governments in countries such as Colombia , Spain , Togo , and South Africa have stepped up emergency cash transfers and universal basic income measures, creating a new social safety net overnight. The pandemic also has driven home just how vulnerable high-density populations are to the spread of disease. The Covid pandemic likely originated in Wuhan, China, a megacity of 11 million people.

It then decimated the New York metropolitan area—another megacity. Public health and disease surveillance will be a critical consideration for cities of the future. Moreover, the very future of cities has been thrown open to question in some regions. Take, for example, the acceleration of the adoption of remote work. In the month of March , the number of Americans working remotely doubled to 62 percent.

Emerging research indicates that remote work could lead to significant productivity gains , and major companies such as Twitter have already announced plans to make remote work options permanent. This has opened to question the importance of workplace proximity , which could in turn decrease the importance of cities as job hubs, allowing white-collar services workers in particular to abandon high-cost urban hubs for less expensive destinations—an especially important consideration given a potentially slow economic recovery disrupting wage growth.

There are limited indications such a trend may already be underway, with 27 percent of home searchers looking to move to another metropolitan area in April and May according to Redfin, a real estate broker. Areas previously struggling with growth may also see new opportunity. For example, some smaller U. Last year, the United Nations reported that the global migrant population had increased How, when, and if these new restrictions to global migration are reversed is unclear, but even their short-term imposition is reshaping the future in many ways.

Pandemic-induced labor shortages in countries dependent on migrant labor will likely accelerate automation and technological innovation. Lasting macroeconomic consequences are also intensifying by the day. Developed economies may lose out not only on labor but also in terms of entrepreneurship often brought by recent immigrants. Furthermore, developing economies and migrant communities are losing remittances at a massive scale.

The World Bank already estimates a 20 percent decline in global remittances, which are vital to the economies of countries such as India and Nigeria. The loss of remittances will increase the risks of political instability and degradation of governance in many regions. Migration flows may also increase in the Global South as developed countries sustain border and immigration restrictions after the immediate health crisis passes. The pandemic brought immediate, seismic disruption to energy markets as broad swathes of the global economy shut down overnight.

Public transportation demand is down about 70 percent in San Francisco and Seattle and 62 percent in London. In Italy and France, demand declined by more than 80 percent across all major cities between mid-March and early May but then steadily increased over recent months as the countries started recovering from the pandemic.

In Washington, D. Additionally, declining global goods trade—on track to decrease by 20 percent in —has reduced energy-intensive shipping. Globally, energy demand saw its steepest decline in 70 years , and continued reduction in demand may prove durable if changes in overall energy usage driven by factors such as continued remote work persist.

Energy market price fluctuations, exacerbated by global oversupply and a breakdown in OPEC-Russia relations, may also have long-term consequences. For instance, low petroleum prices incentivize fossil fuel use and could delay the deployment of electric vehicles.

Lower demand and investment provide space for renewable energy technologies and cost-efficiency to catch up and capture a greater share of returning investment.

Additionally, a major wildcard is that governments and institutions are considering sustainable, green economic recovery policies that could dramatically reshape energy markets. Wildlife and livestock already serve as the source of 60 percent of viruses infecting humans, and of all emerging infectious diseases, 75 percent originate in animals. Key triggers for epidemic zoonoses include climate variability, flooding, and other extreme weather events linked to climate change.

Climate change has also increased the geographic area in which a number of currently active zoonotic diseases regularly infect humans. Despite the clear and present dangers highlighted by this pandemic, steps to combat climate change and implement more sustainable agricultural practices have stalled.

The pandemic has absorbed international media and policymaker attention for months, distracting from the urgent need for climate action. In May, despite dramatic decreases in energy usage due to economic shutdowns, the world still saw its highest carbon dioxide levels in human history.

In November, some countries were to follow up their Paris Agreement commitments and release new individual plans to reduce carbon emissions. Instead, the COP26 global climate conference has been postponed. Meanwhile, the grassroots climate activism that rocked the world over the past few years has retreated to its digital roots during the pandemic, with climate activist Greta Thunberg encouraging activists to take up their work online. Statistics for in the not too distant future Look-up Popularity.

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It could take two to three months for learners to expand their skills in product development and data and AI. While a four-month learning programme could help people move into roles in cloud and engineering. Such figures suggest that although learning a new skill set is increasingly accessible through digital technologies, individuals will also need the time and funding to be able to pursue new opportunities, the report notes.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum. Researchers have discovered that the brain doesn't differentiate between different languages in conversations between bilingual speakers.

In the United States, workers quitting their jobs increased by almost , in the past year, meaning companies need to rethink their talent strategies. I accept. Professor Klaus Schwab says technological innovation can be leveraged to unleash human potential. Take action on UpLink. Forum in focus. Read more about this project. Explore context.