If you watched our show on why 2021 will be a terrible year you might have got to the end
of that and felt a happiness-sapping sense of hopelessness, but don’t worry viewers, today we
are going to make things right. You’re going to hear about a lot of silver linings around a big,
black cloud. Some bad things went down in 2020, but that doesn’t have to mean 2021 will be another
year from hell. In fact, we think things are going to work out pretty well next year. Here’s how.
That thing called Covid-19 has hung over us like a storm that just won’t go away. Every time you
turned on the TV or fired up the computer the news was the same: sickness and death on repeat.
We are hoping those days will soon be over. We have every right to feel optimistic.
As we write this, the news is telling us that the American biotechnology firm called Moderna has a
vaccine for Covid-19 and the preliminary results after testing 30,000 people show it has a 94.5
percent efficacy rate. That was much better than anyone expected this early in the game, with the
U.S.’s leading infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci calling the vaccine “stunningly impressive.”
That’s music to the ears of anyone who’s currently locked down and praying for this virus to go away.
Ok, so getting large parts of populations vaccinated is not an easy task at all.
It will take time, but we believe that by the time 2021 rolls around there will be significantly less
fear and worry around the world. In fact, we are pretty sure that as Spring comes people
are going to be out in the streets celebrating as if a great war has been won and the winner
is humanity. That’s all of us together, every country, relieved and ready to build again.
There are those that predicted another Great Depression happening which doesn’t bode well for
2021, but there are also a lot of analysts talking about V-shaped recoveries in many countries. This
has become much more of a reality since those vaccines became the news of the day. As for the
economy, some people predict that people will spend big once lockdown and social distancing
restrictions have been lifted, but there are cautious voices, too, who predict that people
might now have a save-for-a-rainy-day mindset. It’s true that once the Great Depression was
over quite a lot of people lived for years after as if one might come again.
They stuck bundles of cash under the bed waiting for the worst to happen. Nonetheless, we didn’t
have another Great Depression and so we think the bounce back from Covid-19 will be, err, bouncy.
It’s guesswork if we ask when Covid will finally end in terms of it killing large swathes
of people, but even before the new vaccines were being tested some experts predicted that
normalcy would return to society in the Spring of ’21. People are going to be eating out more,
socializing more, generally just enjoying their freedom.
Just imagine the joy people will feel when all those social restrictions have been lifted.
We are going to go out on a limb here and say that by May 2021 there is going to be a lot of
happiness in the air and a lot of people being very friendly to each other. Regular life will
seem like a blessing after the horror of 2020. For a while you’re going to feel a
natural high every day…and then as the year passes you can go back to being grumpy.
We think masses of people will receive the vaccine in the Spring and Summer and
by the time September is here, herd immunity will be well on its way. The summer is going to
be just great, possibly the best summer you’ve ever had. As Bill Gates said in an interview,
Covid won’t just completely disappear, but you can bet in 2021 your life will return to normal again.
Another thing is we have learned a lot of valuable lessons. The vast majority of people
who got Covid-19 came out of the other side in one piece. That wasn’t everyone, unfortunately,
but most people survived without having any negative long-term health problems.
One thing we know now is we should take care of our bodies, so we have stronger
constitutions to help us through times of sickness. We believe that post-Covid there
will be a lot more people in the world that exercise and try to live a healthier lifestyle.
We’ve had our warning now and we are not going to ignore our health again. Trust us, gyms and
parks are going to be packed full in 2021. We are about to usher in a new normal of staying healthy.
An article published in the British Medical Journal in 2020 explained that doctors in
some areas saw something strange happen in 2020- cases of flu amongst children were down
significantly. One doctor said sure, kids not mingling at school made a difference,
but she also said people were much more serious about personal hygiene. She thinks that this is
part of the new normal: people just washing their hands more and not sneezing into other people’s
faces. Maybe Covid has made humanity cleaner. With so much less activity in the world,
the air got cleaner, too. In 2020, NASA satellites showed that in many big cities in the world
air pollution was dramatically reduced. Ok, so when people have the freedom again to move around
maybe that will go back to normal, but some experts think not. One environmental economist
at Stanford University predicted that this cleaner air will save thousands of lives.
Maybe when people understand this positive effect, they will be a lot more responsible
about burning oil. He said in this respect Covid has taught us to think about the future.
Now let’s talk about goodwill. You might not know this, but during the crisis,
a lot of very good people have been doing good things for others. In the UK, the government said
it needed National Health Service volunteers. The number of people that said they’d like to help was
more than 750,000. In lots of countries, people volunteered to go shopping for those who couldn’t
get out. We saw singing from balconies. We saw communities coming together. This can only be
good for the future. You and your neighbors might be closer than you’ve ever been before. It’s time
to light up the BBQ in 2021 and invite all those helpful neighbors around for a beer and a burger.
As for inside the house, ok so some folks were driven up the wall by their families during
lockdowns, but many people reported getting closer to their families. When the virus is finally gone,
maybe you’ll find you have a better relationship with all those around you. Not only that,
many people said during lockdown they learned to cook better. Others got into gardening and
some folks spent time fixing up their house. If anything, your house is going to be a better
place to live in 2021. In 2020, we struggled but we learned to get along. In 2021, we will see
the fruits of our understanding and kindness. As for work, there was a hell of a lot of bad
news in 2020. Lots of people lost their job during the pandemic. Nonetheless,
some people were able to carry on working at home. Remote work will only become more popular in 2021.
Maybe some of you like going to the office, but it can also get very expensive paying for gasoline or
public transport. On top of that, there are those commuting hours in the morning that you’d rather
spend in bed. Fewer cars on the streets also mean less pollution, so it’s a win-win for everyone.
We found reports that told us during the pandemic a lot of people started learning new skills so
they could work from home. Forbes called this new trend “more than fleeting”, explaining that
the number of people Googling phrases such as “free online course” and “online courses” has
never been so high in the history of the Internet. People are not lying down and accepting defeat.
In 2020, they got online and started learning new things. In 2021, we imagine there will be
a lot of people out there earning cash from their new skills. In the UK, one survey found
that a whopping 24 percent of respondents were currently learning something new online.
One guy that Forbes interviewed said he learned website design and development
and it helped him to launch a second company. Not everyone locked down spent all their time
watching Netflix and disaster news. From what we can see, lockdown helped a lot of people.
The “World Economic Forum 2018 Future of Jobs Report” told us 54 percent of all employees would
need new skills by 2022. Well, it couldn’t have predicted that many of those people were locked
down in 2020 and they learned those skills. Tech companies have also come up with new apps
to help people work remotely and stay connected online. These tools are here to stay and will only
get better in 2021. What this also means of course is that next year you might find yourself applying
for a job in a city or town far from where you live. Just look online at the moment and look
at who’s hiring for remote positions. It’s very possible right now to work in expensive New York
and live in a small community on the other side of the country. Some companies have been forced to do
this but they’ve found that it actually works. It’s likely that a lot of companies won’t go
back to how they did things pre-pandemic. The world, people, is now your oyster.
Some people have said that this will have another benefit for many people. That is,
if businesses are no longer using large office spaces then property prices around those spaces
might come down. High-paid employees often drive up prices when they move into town, but that will
become less of a problem in the coming years. At the same time, if students spend less time
on campus perhaps educational institutions won’t have to spend as much on infrastructure.
There’s a good chance that formal online learning will bring the cost of education down.
And what if you don’t feel like staying in your country? Well, there are a growing number
of people in the world today that call themselves digital nomads. In the past, the option of working
in another country might have been alien to you, but right now it’s more of a possibility. Not only
will 2021 be the year when we see more remote workers than ever before, but we expect more of
those workers to work and travel at the same time. You might not have seen this, but quite a few
countries now offer long-term visas for remote workers. One of the best things is some of those
countries don’t have a high cost of living. Costa Rica has such a visa, although you’ll have to show
you earn at least $2,500 a month. Portugal and Mexico both make it fairly easy for someone to
stay awhile and work, and Croatia is in the process of creating a new digital nomad visa.
Imagine spending next year on a beach in a foreign country using your newly learned skills to support
yourself. This doesn’t have to be a dream, it’s more possible than ever, well, once borders open,
which we think they will next year. Part of the new normal is sustainable travel,
which includes people staying longer at the places they visit. A lot of people are already planning,
too. In August of 2020, the website Skyscanner said it was seeing a 368 percent increase in
searches. Other surveys showed that lots of people were interested in traveling
as 2020 crawled along, and many of those people had the first few months of 2021
in mind for a leaving date. That’s you, on vacation, in 2021. That’s not so bad, is it?
Then there are all the activities you missed that are more than likely all coming back. You’ll be
able to go see a movie at a theater again. You’ll be able to go watch your favorite sports team in a
stadium. Festivals and concerts should come back, as should street festivals. Just imagine how good
they will feel after being banned for so long. Even a Justin Beiber concert will feel divine.
June 2d, San Diego, mark it in your calendar. 2020 has been a great big wart on the history
of mankind, but let’s be glad that right now most of the world isn’t
at war. Let’s remember that we’ve come a long way in terms of how we treat each other.
Economic inequality is still a big problem, but a century ago things were much worse. You might
now be thinking about learning a digital skill and moving to a European country with amazing beaches
when a century ago if you weren’t born into the right family your options were pretty dire.
So, there you go. In 2021 you might feel closer to your family. You might live in a world that
cares more than ever about hygiene, health, and fitness. You might live in communities that are
tighter than ever before. You might have learned new skills and are using them in 2021 to earn
a living in a beautiful foreign country. Your skies might be cleaner, and your roads might be
less congested. What’s not to like about 2021? And don’t forget the big news we told you in
the other, less optimistic, 2021 show, Keeping Up With The Kardashians will at last have its final
season. What an amazing year it’s going to be. Now you should hear how we predicted 2020, in,
“Why 2020 Will Be The Best Year Ever.” Or, have a look at this...