Page 146 - COVID-19: The Great Reset

by the lockdowns. Among them are many sectors that add up to a
very significant proportion of total economic activity and

employment: travel and tourism, leisure, sport, events and
entertainment. For months and possibly years, they will be forced
to operate at reduced capacity, hit by the double whammy of fears
about the virus restraining consumption and the imposition of

regulations aimed at countering these fears by creating more
physical space between consumers. Public pressure for physical
distancing will endure until a vaccine is developed and
commercialized at scale (which, again, according to most experts,

is most unlikely to happen before the first or second quarter of
2021 at the earliest). In the intervening period, it is likely that
people may travel much less for both vacation and/or business,
they may go less frequently to restaurants, cinemas and theatres,

and may decide that it is safer to buy online rather than physically
go to the shops. For these fundamental reasons, the industries hit
the hardest by the pandemic will also be the slowest to recover.
Hotels, restaurants, airlines, shops and cultural venues in

particular will be forced to make expensive alterations in the way
they deliver their offerings in order to adapt to a post-pandemic
new normal that will demand the implementation of drastic
changes involving introducing extra space, regular cleaning,

protections for staff and technology that limits customers’
interactions with workers.

In many of these industries, but particularly in hospitality and
retail, small businesses will suffer disproportionately, having to

walk a very fine line between surviving the closures imposed by
the lockdowns (or sharply reduced business) and bankruptcy.
Operating at reduced capacity with even tighter margins means
that many will not survive. The fallout from their failure will have
hard-felt ramifications both for national economies and local

communities. Small businesses are the main engine of
employment growth and account in most advanced economies for
half of all private-sector jobs. If significant numbers of them go to

the wall, if there are fewer shops, restaurants and bars in a
particular neighbourhood, the whole community will be impacted
as unemployment rises and demand dries up, setting in motion a

145