Pandemic perks: 13 ways life has changed for the better

The scale of the losses experienced by hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of people in this country as a result of the pandemic that we are hopefully seeing the back of is impossible to quantify.

Covid-19 has claimed the lives of more than 6,000 people, and forced many thousands more to mourn and grieve alone. Hundreds of thousands of people saw their personal finances left in tatters while countless jobs were lost – some in the short term and some for much longer than that. Weddings and parties have been cancelled, school days lost and holidays abandoned. And that is just for starters.

The world of work has changed for ever, and many people will be considerably better off as a result

While the losses have been terrible, there have been some bright spots and some positive changes to the way we live that are worth acknowledging – even celebrating – not least because many of those changes have saved many people money, made our world a healthier place and fostered a sense of community and support for local businesses. Some things we took for granted as a necessary evil in pre-pandemic times have also been exposed as being as pointless as they are stupid.

Working away

There will be a lot of talk in the days ahead about the return to the workplace. There will be employees who are very keen to get back to an office, and employees who would be happy if they never darkened the doors of such a place again. Likewise there will be employers and managers who will try to get everyone back, and others who won’t be overly concerned as long as the work that needs to get done gets done.

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It does seem clear, however, that no matter what happens next, the world of work has changed for ever, and many people will be considerably better off as a result. We know there are pros and cons to remote working, and what suits one person will not suit another, but speaking in purely financial terms, it is hard to overstate the benefits of working from home.

In a normal year, the average motorist can expect to drive 16,000km. The average price of petrol right now is €1.70 a litre, so driving the average family car, which does 12.4km per litre, an average driver spends about €2,122 on fuel annually.

The cost of commuting is not the only way people who have to go to and from their office each working day spend money

Now, obviously, not all of that driving is to and from work, but if a person lives 10km from their workplace and they drive each working day of the year, they will cover a pretty hefty 4,600km when commuting each year. All told, that will cost €630. It will also negatively impact their carbon footprint but we will leave that aside for now.

Someone who uses public transport could potentially save even more by working remotely. A monthly rail ticket for a Dublin commuter covering trains and the Luas costs just under €200 which, spread over the cost of a year, comes in at just over €2,000. Obviously someone who would have commuted longer distances in pre-pandemic times can save much more by not doing it, particularly if they use motorways. Over the course of a year, a person who goes under an M50 toll bridge twice per working day will spend almost €1,000.

The cost of commuting is not the only way people who have to go to and from their office each working day spend money. There are also the incidentals, such as tea and coffee on the go and lunches eaten al desko. If we allow €10 a day, five days a week for 46 weeks a year, than the cost of those incidentals and lunches climbs to €2,300. Now, obviously anyone working from home will have to have lunch, and maybe the odd cup of coffee, but we can’t imagine anyone spending close to €2,300 on lunches at home each year.

On your bike

Another glimmer of light from the pandemic is how it forced the powers that be to do some things they had been dragging their heels on for years. The cycling infrastructure across Ireland used to be woeful. Cycle lanes were few and far between and some of the ones in place were almost comically dangerous and treated by too many motorists as a handy bit of extra road space.

But after March 2020, local authorities were suddenly falling over themselves to install more and better cycle lanes all over the place to encourage people out of buses and to facilitate social distancing. As recently as last week, Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan confirmed that the National Transport Authority (NTA) had allocated funds to Ireland's local authorities with a view to spending €289 million on walking and cycling infrastructure in 2022.

Projects to be delivered this year include the Clontarf to city centre route in Dublin, MacCurtain Street in Cork, O'Connell Street in Limerick, the Salmon Weir Bridge in Galway, as well as connection of the Waterford Greenway from Bilberry into the city centre. Ryan said the projects as well as others coming down the, um, tracks will "make our urban centres more attractive places to live, work and visit. It is good for public health and the environment and promotes the most economic and efficient transport system." Hard to argue with that.

Park life

Over the past two years, many people have become far more reliant and the parks and green spaces near their homes. That has led to many positive developments, too many to mention. We will mention the move to get many of the cars of times past out of the Phoenix Park. The jewel in Ireland's crown is all the better for it, and we suspect the wildlife that make the park their home would agree with us on that score.

Keep it local

Almost as soon as the pandemic started, people started to change the way they shopped. With huge numbers of people working outside large town and city centres and told not to stray too far from their homes, many discovered their local bakers, butchers, vegetable shops and the rest. Shopping locally became an act of social solidarity rather than the relentless pursuit of more stuff. For the first time since the 1960s, supermarkets were not the only place the vast majority of us did our grocery shopping.

A little respect

Speaking of respect, it has been heartening to see how frontline workers across the retail sector kept the show on the road for so many of us for so long – particularly in the first, nerve-racking phase of the crisis. In March 2020, panicked shoppers stripped shelves but the staff stayed calm and carried on. The panic subsided and we didn’t run out of toilet paper.

Pivot, pivot, pivot

The word was everywhere early on in the pandemic as retailers and restaurants and pubs sought to keep themselves afloat by doing whatever they could to get their products into the hands of customers. The local shops played their part in the retail shift, too, and quickly recognised they had to do things differently, with many developing an online presence almost overnight and offering delivery services and click-and-collect. The move online, which started in 2020, continued all the way through 2021. A total of 62,198 new domains ending in .ie were registered last year, compared with1 50,167 in 2019, while the first six months of last year was the best half-year period on record for new .ie domain registrations, according to the .IE Domain Profile report published last week.

Al fresco

Hospitality was hit incredibly hard by the pandemic but it has shown remarkable resilience in the face of adversity and managed to develop all manner of new dining options while dealing with almost unimaginable restrictions. Fancy takeaway and cocktail kits were suddenly on the menu and tables started appearing outside restaurants. Diners showed a degree of resilience too by being more than willing to sit at those tables despite the sometimes less than pleasant weather. While there is little to be said for trying to have your dinner in the driving rain, there is a lot to be said for the dramatic increase in outdoor dining options that Covid gave us. Apart from anything else, more restaurant tables on streets in places that would previous have been occupied by parked cars, bins and rubbish is definitely to be welcomed.

The end of cash

One of the last articles that appeared on the Pricewatch page before the start of the public health crisis was a piece outlining how cash was on the way out – although not any time soon. Covid has hastened the end of physical money. The banks lifted the limit on contactless transactions from €30 to €50 in the early days of the crisis to reduce the need for people to use potentially virus-ridden touchpads, and they rolled out improved apps to allow people use Apple and Google Pay. Fintech upstarts Revolut and N26 won customers by the truckload. Over the course of the pandemic the number of ATM transactions fell by about 50 per cent, while the number of contactless transactions soared. That change is unlikely to be reversed.

Sick days

Over the past two years, the sound of someone coughing has been enough to see heads turn. The trauma we have all been through has really reinforced the need for everyone to keep themselves to themselves if they are hacking and sneezing. The good and/or bad thing about realising it is better to take a sick day in a remote-working world means that although you may not be well enough to go into the office, you might be well enough to work from your home, so the changed world might spell the end of the indulgent sick day.

Ex-sneeze me

Speaking of coughing, surely the pandemic will have seen the end of people just coughing and sneezing without taking measures to reduce the spread of germs that might otherwise be flying about the place. If we have learned nothing else over the past 24 months we have learned the value of sneezing into our arms. Oh, and at the risk of enraging a small cohort, we have also learned the value of face masks.

Baby Zoomers

There was a time when the only things we associated the word "zoom" were the Fat Larry Band (ask your parents, kids) and the sound racing cars made in comics. But then along came Covid and suddenly we were all over Zoom. In the first phase of the pandemic, it was all about Zoom bingo and Zoom quizzes and Zoom piss-ups and all the rest, but then we settled down and were allowed to meet other people, but Zoom has really found its groove. It makes meetings so much easier than they would have been in times past. Everyone logs on, knowledge is exchanged and then everyone logs off – there is none of that pointless travelling to and from the meetings or the extended goodbyes that eat into the rest of your day.

Beauty spots

Two years of staycations as well as watching the resolve shown by people in the hospitality and entertainment sectors sector should make us appreciate all that Ireland has to offer and the effort that goes into making it one of the best tourist destinations in the world. Although enjoying the wonders of an Irish summer was made much easier in 2021 thanks to that wondrous heatwave.

Telehealth

Hand up if you found yourself texting or mailing or WhatsApping a picture of a troubling looking rash or some such to a doctor’s surgery at the height of the crisis? Or maybe you just rang the surgery and were able to talk through your issues before getting a diagnosis? Necessity meant that we all adapted to the realities and hopefully frontline medicine will be more tech savvy, which will benefit both patients and doctors.