[MUSIC]
[Paul Rand] The COVID 19 vaccine has opened the door to normalcy,
but what will this new normal look like?
We asked UChicago experts how the vaccine will impact our cities.
From our health care systems and businesses to our educational and cultural institutions.
[Laurie Zoloth] So the vaccine is a complex gift.
It both gives you a sense that you are protected but it ought not give you a sense that
you're free to do anything you want. The fact that you have the vaccine
means that you've accepted the gift and the gift comes with some strings attached.
It's a privilege to live in a city but it's a kind of privilege that carries with it,
of deep responsibility, a duty that's incumbent on each of us to make the city safe.
The nature of this pandemic is such that your personal choice affects the public realm.
So when you say I'm not going to get a vaccine but I want the right to continue to work,
I want the right to get on an airplane, or the right to go and hear the opera,
what you're doing is you're imposing that choice on me and on anyone in the community
who might be more vulnerable.
[Anup Malani] Even if people get vaccinated,
there's an issue of whether or not it's safe to go back to work.
Are the other people at work that you're dealing with vaccinated do they feel
comfortable that you're vaccinated that they'll interact with you.
What vaccine passports can do is eliminate that uncertainty and give people the confidence to
engage in activity as they get vaccinated. That is to say keep activity rising in
proportion to vaccination rates. In urban areas where a lot of the
economic activity hinges on people interacting with each other and where population density
really increases the risk of infection, I think community passports may play a more important role
in encouraging people as the vaccination campaign continues of encouraging people to actually engage
in economic activity.
[Brenda Battle] Civic leaders need to use their privilege to advocate for communities
that are have been marginalized and have suffered the disparities that we've seen
unveiled through this COVID 19 vaccine. The public health system has to be set up in such
a way that every citizen in every urban area in every state is a part of how care gets delivered
within our cities and states and not with the system of separatism and fragmentation
and two systems of health care health care for the poor and health care for the affluent.
We can't operate a public health system that way.
[Kathleen Cagney] The use of spatial data can
bring great insight into public health efforts and to deployment of the vaccine in particular.
We know for instance that low-income communities are at much greater risk both for coming down
with COVID-19 and for dying from COVID-19. If we can use the data, for instance from the
census, where we know if buildings are multi-dwelling, we know the density of
a particular neighborhood. Do they need to use
public transit to get to work. All of that information can be brought to
bear on characterizing the risk of a community and in understanding how we meet that risk in terms of
our public health efforts.
[Tanika Island-Childress] Education is not one size fits all.
And we had an opportunity to think about
how to support students who have a variety of needs, both academically but also socially.
And we were striving to meet those individual needs during the midst of this pandemic.
I don't want us to lose sight of that once we return to the schoolhouse.
The future of urban education needs to be centered on individualizing education, as much as possible
for our students through a variety of modalities and ensuring that we can meet students and
families wherever they are.
[Angel Ysaguirre] Right now in the performing arts
about 70-percent of our employees aren't working.
As we think about our world after the vaccine, we're thinking really carefully
about the smartest most impactful decisions that we can make to further our missions.
Arts organizations will not come back with the same speed that they had before.
So I think the artistic decisions that people make will think a lot more about the impact
of that work on our audiences and I think we'll think a lot less about entertainment.