Vocational, Economic and Life Care Planning in the Era of COVID-19

The year 2020 was unprecedented for many reasons. Few events in the past century have been more novel and far-reaching than the emergence and rapid spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). This pandemic caused significant changes in the ways we socialize, work and communicate. It also created economic strain in many sectors and, by extension, reshaped and reconfigured the workplace. Many employers have drastically altered their operations while others were forced out of business. The overall impact of job losses cannot be understated. With mass COVID-19 vaccinations underway, there remain many questions about the long-term implications of the global pandemic. This paper examines data from the pandemic of 1918, the impacts of economic recessions, contemporary data on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and attempts to extrapolate implications for future vocational, economic and life care planning analyses.