as the covid-19 pandemic settled in last spring, the national post and pollster john wright, executive vice president of maru public opinion, compiled “a day in the life” , a schedule of the average canadian’s day in newly familiar lockdown.
now, as covid-19 seems to be abating and canada looks with hope and trepidation to the future, half-expecting it to be just the way we left it, the post and wright have compiled “a week in the after-life,” a schedule of the average canadian’s week post-pandemic, based on their expectations today, one year later.
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monday means getting back to work, and the survey suggests the average canadian intends to do just that, which is not to say they actually plan to go anywhere.
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tuesday is a good day for errands and appointments, but not by public transit, which nearly 40 per cent intend to take less. more than one in four canadians intend to use telehealth more often for medical appointments, a share that rises to well over one in three for millennials. the same goes for mobile banking, in which a solid 37 per cent of canadians intend to “seriously set money aside for potential future emergencies,” rising to more then 50 per cent among only millennials.
wednesday is often the busiest day work-wise, but that will likely not involve business trips. 36 per cent of people intend to travel less for work, and 47 per cent say they will go to conferences less.
canadians seem keen to keep up their physical activities, according to the survey, so thursday might involve playing some sports outdoors, which a modest 15 per cent of canadians expect to do more of, but 34 per cent expect to play less indoor sports like squash, basketball and bowling. fewer than one canadian in ten says they will go to the gym more. on the balance, the pandemic walk looks set to outlast the pandemic itself.
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friday is for night life, but the numbers suggest this is not going to involve seeing a movie in a theatre, a large sporting event, a play or a musical performance, which about one-third of canadians say they will do less of.
saturday will present interesting contrasts when friends and families get together again. for example, 23 per cent of canadians intend to do more hugging and hand-shaking with their friends, perhaps to make up for lost opportunities, but 39 per cent intend to do less, which could create awkward and anxious situations.
sunday is traditionally for rest and reflection. wright said the pandemic has made some people more spiritual, while forcing others to abandon a church-going routine they were used to. one quarter of canadians say they will attend church less, but 10 per cent say they will do it more, which jumps to 16 per cent among only millennials.
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there is also a generational split, with millennials consistently outstripping the general population in how much more they want to do things, from online shopping and saving for emergencies, to church and outdoor sports. they are the “ascendant marketplace,” as wright puts it, and they are impatient. new york magazine devoted its current cover to a story on the return of fomo , or fear of missing out, which “might have gone into hibernation for a while, but we may now be on the way to a new golden age as we try to make up for the year we lost by doing more than ever.”
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as the world moves toward re-opening, there is a newly prominent strand of thought that mocks those who are reluctant to emerge from lockdown, as if they are indulging in some over-emotional frippery by clinging to their artificial isolation, finding themselves changed by it, even sometimes for the better. an american psychiatrist went so far as to medicalize it with the diagnosis of “ cave syndrome ,” as if people were literally sick in the head.
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