Looking Ahead

Looking Ahead

Posted on April 15, 2020 by Blake Leath

Say it isn’t so, Harvard; say it isn’t so!

(Care to predict the street price of each respective first-to-market vaccine and antiviral drug once FDA-approved? In the voice of Billy Crudup: PRICELESS.)

Here’s the latest on that front: https://time.com/5819965/coronavirus-treatments-research/ 

I’m convinced the “restarting/reopening the US” reality is somewhere between May 1 optimism and 2022 pessimism. After all, necessity is the mother of invention. Humankind, entrepreneurship, our collective global economy, and science won’t abide recurring waves of social distancing through 2022, but the mental image of full 60,000-persons-plus US football stadiums 120 days from now beggars belief.

I would LOVE immediate restoration at the snap of a cosmic finger, but I suspect we’re in for a slow, slogging, sputtering summer of fits and starts succeeded by an autumn of intermittent postponements, outright cancellations, and en vogue venue restrictions (a smaller, limited number of event seats available only at premium prices, or to premier ticket holders, or perhaps by lottery where supply and demand feels elitist and becomes another casualty of #cancel culture).

I think legal liability (real and perceived) will continue to have a chilling effect on many large hosting entities, e.g., the NFL, Ticketmaster, convention centers and the like. And then, one day, some weeks or months hence, enough individuals and outlier organizations arguing their freedoms have been trounced upon by pursuits in the name of the greater good will become a chorus, and we shall see where, exactly, interests tip: toward commerce, free markets, the pursuit of happiness, and individualism/individual liberties, or public health. (A real, live prisoner’s dilemma, Sophie’s choice, Gordian knot if ever there was one.)

That tension feels front and center every day, from China to South Korea to Europe to WH press briefings to state governors’ pacts and others’ discord, to a swelling number of recent lawsuits brought against government.

What a time to...be. Alive.

And to see.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-14/harvard-researchers-say-some-distancing-may-be-needed-into-2022?fbclid=IwAR1_WlwV6XTGS0kZKH7pENMB4p3a_NhY0CtILSm7CiTiScZD2FnTHIT2FL4