Life after the COVID-19 vaccine: Envisioning the ‘new normal’
UChicago experts examine impact of vaccine on our cities—and how we live, learn and work
Since the COVID-19 virus was discovered, the world has waited for a vaccine that would help our lives return to some level of normalcy. Now that vaccine distribution has begun, what will this “new normal” look like?
In “Life After the Vaccine,” from the producers of the Big Brains podcast, University of Chicago experts explore what the vaccine rollout has revealed about our cities, and how it will impact our lives within them—from our health care systems and businesses, to our educational and cultural institutions.
Read the full article from UChicago News.
How vaccine passports could help businesses reopen
Anup Malani, the Lee and Brena Freeman Professor of Law; Professor at the Pritzker School of Medicine
“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, keeping activity rising in proportion to vaccination rates. In urban areas, where a lot of economic activity hinges on people interacting with each other, and where population density really increases the risk of infection, I think immunity passports may play a more important role in encouraging people as the vaccination campaign continues, of encouraging people to actually engage in economic activity.”