Randomly, I have learnt two quite different things during the current lock down.

First, courtesy of the Netflix documentary ‘Tiger King’ featuring a character called Joe ‘Exotic’, there are apparently a greater number of Big Cats in captivity as pets, or held in private zoos in the US, than exist globally in the wild. More of that later.

Second, more relevantly, courtesy of Gillian Tett in the FT, Donald Trump tried to cut the budget of his own Centers for Disease Control (including the department that studies how infections jump from animals to humans) and disbanded the White House team that was created by President Obama to fight pandemics after the Ebola epidemic in 2014. Incredible.

It got me thinking, as Trump blusters and boasts his way through his daily coronavirus updates, surely things have got to change.

Let’s start with Trump. As he seeks to end the lock down, has he finally overstepped the mark with his aggressively, partisan daily coronavirus press briefings? Watching him boast about his brilliance whilst thousands of Americans die, and attacking the World Health Organisation mid-pandemic, is surely too much to stomach for all but the most die-hard Republicans. Biden’s re-emergence and subsequent clinching of the Democratic presidential nomination was certainly a surprise, but it is worth remembering that he unsettles Trump the most. Bland but empathetic with support across the South as well as the rust-belt states, Biden might just do it. Trump will not go into November with stock markets and employment on his side. And economic resources for a more centralised healthcare system will be a key issue, and not in a good way for Trump. A Trump defeat looks more likely than at any time since the start of his tenure.

Second, the EU has been overwhelmed by nationalism, as it has stood impotently on the sidelines watching the coronavirus rage. Each EU country has managed the pandemic in its own way and only national governments have had the legitimacy to marshal their health care systems through this crisis and lock down their own people. The EU has had to apologise to Italy for its slow initial response and cross border cooperation is only now starting to emerge. Individual aid packages have barely paid any lip service to EU economic strictures and dwarfed the reach of any EU initiatives. The EU may emerge as pointless and irrelevant, which is highly dangerous for its future. Macron highlighted this in an interview with the FT last week. Certainly, the threat to national sovereignty from its existence is now over. No more Brexit style debates anywhere for some time. Did I really write this?!

Third, economic efficiency based on global, ‘just in time’ supply chains will be distinctly out of favour. The inability to predict crises and how to manage them, so manifestly on show during this pandemic, will curtail globalisation in a way nationalist political leadership never could. There is some thoughtful commentary about how the nature of economic and business efficiency will change after this crisis is over and the responsible investment scrutiny companies will come under (reference Jericho Chambers’ excellent webinars: #jerichoconversations). Broader stakeholder-led capitalism and nationally resilient supply chains will come to the fore and traditional economic measures of efficiency will change. Preparedness for a future event, whether the stockpiling of supplies and/or in key sectors, maintaining excess capacity, will dominate economic planning.

Lastly, working practices from an employee perspective will change but not as much as forecast. Global travel will be viewed cautiously in the future and home working will become much more of the norm. The ease of electronic communication will transform business, healthcare delivery and also have a major impact on public transport infrastructure. But all this will be tempered by the desire to interact in person and the curiosity to explore cross-border cultures.

Lastly, back to Tiger King and Joe ‘Exotic’. If we all learn a little from a Netflix documentary and, indeed, from the dangers of ‘wet’ animal markets in China, that a laissez-faire approach to our relationship with wildlife and the threat it poses to the environment and our own survival is not a good thing, then it will be a highly welcome outcome. Several silver linings are appearing from this terrible crisis. We just need time and space to understand their longer-term consequences.