Scenarios are not meant to be predictions, but should enable the reader to explore how possible actions play out under different circumstances.
What’s your plan for survival in the scenarios described below?
1. Command and control (best case scenario)
Iterative vaccine development against a few mutations are increasingly succsesful. “Lock downs” are effective, and only few local outbreaks occur, but are quickly isolated due to wide spread testing. Efforts for vaccine distribution speed up race towards national and regional herd immunity.
My verdict: High probability of normality by early 2023.
2. Growing differently (“could have been worse” case scenario)
Continuous low pressure spread with several mutations. Better vaccines and pandemic-resistant innovation change most industries. Advanced local 3D-production technology and local travel, entertainment and attractions grow. Minor grudge among the unemployed who were unable to adopt to new skill sets and changing industrial paradigms.
My verdict: Medium probability of an updated and better normal by 2025.
WARNING: Horror follows after image.
3. The new “locked down” normal (bad case scenario)
Average age of populations across western countries drop 20 percent and lots of pension funds are stolen again. Seasonal vaccination, some more expensive and effective than others, are common among survivors. Most countries impose strict martial law and require permits for leaving your residency. The western world remain in different degrees of soft “lock downs”, while a few militant anti-”lock down” groups cause political and social unrest.
My verdict: Low probability of something that don’t resemble normal by 2030.
4. Mutated reality (worst case scenario)
Most people are dead and permanent mutations make vaccine development futile. States that still exist have permanent martial law while new virii thrive in their exhausted health care facilities. Global anti-”lock down” movements overthrow governments and patchworked neo-oligarchies emerge. Economic and social anarchy leads to a permanent change of demography and geographic distribution of populations.
My verdict: Very low probability of no normality in sight.
Background:
Check out these pre-covid scenarios:
2006: The macroeconomic effects of a pandemic in Europe – A model-based assessment – European Commission (PDF)
The macroeconomic costs of a pandemic, that is the cost in terms of production lost due to illness and death measured as reductions in GDP growth and/or declines in the level of GDP, are quantified in various pandemic scenarios.
2007: Talking about a flu pandemic worst-case scenario – CIDRAP
How unlikely? We don’t know. In the 1918 pandemic, guesstimates are that 30%+ of the world population got the flu and 2.5%+ of those who got the flu died. That was the worst flu pandemic in recorded history. So if you judge by history, a flu pandemic as bad as 1918 is very unlikely, and a flu pandemic worse than 1918, as far as we know, has never happened. On the other hand, the H5N1 virus has already launched the worst bird flu outbreak in the recorded history of the poultry industry. And as political scientist Scott Sagan has said, things that have never happened before happen all the time.
2010: Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development – Rockefeller / GBN (PDF)
The pandemic blanketed the planet—though disproportionate numbers died in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central America, where the virus spread like wildfire in the absence of official containment protocols. But even in developed countries, containment was a challenge. The United States’s initial policy of “strongly discouraging” citizens from flying proved deadly in its leniency, accelerating the spread of the virus not just within the U.S. but across borders. However, a few countries did fare better—China in particular. The Chinese government’s quick imposition and enforcement of mandatory quarantine for all citizens, as well as its instant and near-hermetic sealing off of all borders, saved millions of lives, stopping the spread of the virus far earlier than in other countries and enabling a swifter postpandemic recovery.
2015: Assessment of human influenza pandemic scenarios in Europe – Eurosurveillance
The panel of experts was of the opinion that some of the parameters collected through the literature review were more relevant for mathematical modelling than for public health purposes, and others were considered less relevant for defining scenarios; consequently, all these were excluded: R0; age-specific CAR; communicability/generation interval; modes of transmission; incubation period; timing and duration of pandemic.
2015: Global Challenges: 12 risks that threaten human civilisation – SINTEF (PDF)
Unlike events such as nuclear wars, pandemics would not damage the world’s infrastructure, and initial survivors would likely be resistant to the infection. And there would probably be survivors, if only in isolated locations. Hence the risk of a civilisation collapse would come from the ripple efect of the fatalities and the policy responses. These would include political and agricultural disruption as well as economic dislocation and damage to the world’s trade network (including the food trade).
2016: Global Pandemic Megadisaster—Are You Prepared? – AIR
Learn more about “Insurable Life Insurance Loss”
2016: Extreme Scenarios for Pandemic Risk – Gordon Woo / University of London (PDF)
The spread of an epidemic depends on national societal factors such as public education, the preservation of public order, reporting and isolation of cases, compliance with quarantine and movement restrictions and funeral ordinances.
2017: SPARS Pandemic Scenario – John Hopkins (PDF)
The Center’s SPARS Pandemic exercise narrative comprises a futuristic scenario that illustrates communication dilemmas concerning medical countermeasures (MCMs) that could plausibly emerge in the not-so-distant future. Its purpose is to prompt users, both individually and in discussion with others, to imagine the dynamic and oftentimes conflicted circumstances in which communication around emergency MCM development, distribution, and uptake takes place.
2018: The Characteristics of Pandemic Pathogens – John Hopkins (PDF)
2018: Pandemic risk: how large are the expected losses? – WHO (PDF)
Given the uncertain nature of an influenza pandemic, in terms of both when it may occur and how large the mortality risks will be, we applied an expected-loss framework that accounts for the uncertainty over a long period of time. An expected-loss framework incorporates information on the risk of an uncertain event, e.g. a pandemic, with information on the severity or value of that event, e.g. the increase in mortality. Although it has been estimated that the 2013–2016 Ebola virus disease outbreak led to about 11300 deaths, the death toll from a severe influenza pandemic might be 2500 times higher than this.
Norwegian pandemic scenarios:
2019: Analyser av krisescenarioer 2019 – Direktoratet for samfunnssikkerhet og beredskap – DSB (Norwegian)
2021: Fremtidsscenarioer for pandemien, Helse- og omsorgsdepartementet. (NRK)
International post-outbreak (2020->) COVID-19 scenarios:
How the pandemic might play out in 2021 and beyond – Nature.
COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios – CDC.
Global macroeconomic scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic – Brookings Inst.
COVID-19 scenarios for the United States – MedRxiv.
COVID-19: Implications for business an executive briefing published July 30, 2020 by McKinsey.
Future pandemics: A growing existential risk by Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies.