And after the pandemic?

What will the "day after" this pandemic look like? What will change in our countries and in our lives?     

It's still too early to make predictions. However, some signs already indicate that, contrary to what the song says, we will not live like our parents.

Why was China able to contain the epidemic in a relatively short time, considering that, in a population exceeding 1 billion people, it is not easy to exercise such efficient control? And it is precisely this word – control – that indicates that, now, the fiction of George Orwell, in the novel "1984", has become reality.   

Our fragile democratic institutions are under threat. China managed to contain the coronavirus because, through cell phones, it kept every citizen under surveillance. It was even able to map where the infected cell phone user had been in the last two weeks. The world is now tending to transform into a gigantic Big Brother house, where everyone knows what everyone else is doing, especially those who control the algorithms.

The requirement to stay at home demonstrates that it is possible to keep society functioning without forcing thousands of people to commute daily from home to their workplace. This would bring many advantages to capitalism: not needing to maintain so many buildings with offices and other workspaces, nor employees to take care of cleaning, meals, maintenance, energy, furniture, etc.      

Many will be like domestic workers before the 2015 law that guarantees them rights: without formal employment contracts, labor laws, union affiliations, and complaints in the hallways. All sleeping at work, with no set hours, forced to buy their own food, without the right to weekend rest, and forced to turn their domestic space into a workplace, which will certainly affect family relationships. We will all be service providers, gig economy-like through the atomization of labor relations.
      

Another possibility for democratic erosion is if the authorities, out of mere authoritarian whim, decide to frequently impose curfews on us. "Stay at home" becomes routine, and our mobility is controlled by the police. And the borders of our countries can be periodically closed, which would make us experience what it means to live in North Korea.
   

   However, some things arrive by train, as they say in Minas Gerais. The pandemic has discredited the neoliberal discourse of free market efficiency. As in previous crises, the interventionist role of the State has been called upon once again. Countries that have privatized their healthcare systems, such as the USA, face more difficulty in containing the virus than countries with public healthcare systems. Perhaps this will prompt caution regarding privatization proposals, and may even encourage renationalization.
     

 A positive factor is that, amidst the crisis, we are strengthening bonds of solidarity, sharing resources, caring for the vulnerable, rediscovering old games to entertain children, and above all, discovering that we can be happy enjoying family time without many activities outside the home.
      

The word crisis derives from the verb "acrisolar," which means to refine or perfect. Because it teaches us many lessons. If in just a few days it was possible to transform stadiums, like Pacaembu in São Paulo, and pavilions, like Riocentro in Rio, into hospitals equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, why isn't it possible to adopt similar measures to reduce the housing deficit in Brazil?

However, there are those who learn nothing from the crisis, such as those who, contrary to ethics and the most universal religious principles, consider it more important to save the profits of banks and companies than lives. They suffer from a myopia that prevents them from seeing that the coronavirus makes no distinction of class. Therefore, they are mistaken in assuming that the epidemic will only kill the elderly (relieving the burden on Social Security), those with other illnesses (reducing the waiting list for the public health system), the homeless (sanitizing the cities), and slum dwellers (reducing spending on social programs).

      This perverse ideology is, in itself, a serious case of political ills that requires urgent preventative measures.