America in Late 2020 and Beyond.

There will be three types of fallout from the fight against COVID-19 in addition to the loss of life brought about by the disease.  First and foremost, will be the economic fallout.  The second will be the mental health fallout.  And third will be the fallout against the Communist Chinese Government.

The economic fallout will render the United States in depression more profound than that of the Great Depression, which lasted from October 29, 1929, until the beginning of World War II in 1939.  It will destroy businesses, communities, careers, and the families that depended on those things for income and social fabric.  It will bankrupt not only businesses and families but also towns, cities, and states.  We will be lucky if it doesn't bankrupt the United States as well.  It will rack up Government Debt that our children's, children's, children will still barely have begun to pay off. 

There will be two main groups of mental health fallout.  The first group of mental health fallout is the resultant alcohol abuse, drug abuse, spouse abuse, depression, and suicide from loss of employment and financial ruin.  The cost in lives over the subsequent years will be a higher cost than that of the lives lost to COVID-19.   The second group of mental health fallout will be the post-traumatic stress felt by healthcare professionals and first responders in areas that are walloped by COVID-19.  Something akin to the problems experienced by Veterans after returning from war will affect health professionals after their battles with COVID-19.  Twenty-two Veterans commit suicide each day.  I could see a similar fate befalling healthcare professionals if we fail to adequately address the impact of fighting the virus on those people who did the fighting.

The third type of fallout will be the international fallout against the Chinese Communist Party for not only their improper handling of the virus in the laboratory before the pandemic started but also their failure to warn the nations of the world after the virus escaped.  Millions will have died directly, and millions more will die from the fallout, not to mention the economic damage on the US and world economy.  I can see the day in the not too distant future where people look upon anything made in China with disdain.  I see a world where people post videos of themselves destroying stuff made in China.  Where public opinion forces industries to hurriedly break ties with China over public anger that American or European companies dare enrich themselves and the Chinese Communist Party by doing business in China.  The great exodus from China is coming.  Where the international community will look upon dependence on China for any material, subcomponent, item, or medicine even remotely tied to national security as an anathema, that last part is a good thing.

So, to sum up.  The world will enter a new depression that is more considerable than the Great Depression of the 1930s.  More death and destruction as a result of the economic fallout than from the disease itself.  Lastly, China becomes an international pariah.