Everyone has an excuse for breaking the rules. The refrain goes something like this – “We are doing it because they are doing it, and somebody else started it.”

This kind of talk will bubble up more and more as people chafe under pandemic lockdown restrictions and lose their livelihoods. It’ll be hard to open up the economy and then close it again if there’s a second surge infection. Prolonged lockdown periods will see the rebirth of prohibition speakeasy gatherings, secret meetups, and civil disobedience as people seek to trade, barter, and make a living.

Before we have a vaccine, the informal economy will be the underground economy, powered the young and immune.

Photo by David Straight on Unsplash