COVID-19 Isn’t All Bad

Covid’s the topic of every hour. People are dying, businesses are failing, lives are wracked daily in ways we are far from used to. We all know the spiel, yada yada. COVID has forced society to shift and morph things previously thought untouchable, but some of those things I think are for the better: 
Perhaps the most obvious change most working-folks have felt is the reality that maybe we don’t all need to go into the office to work effectively. One of my best friends works in Boston; his commute from 15 miles away often takes two hours. He finds that he has worked just as productively from his home office as he did before, with hours less spent commuting. His life has improved in many ways; he doesn’t have to endure a soul-sucking drive, so waking up in the morning to work is substantially less dreadful. We here at the Herald have continued to put the paper together with much of the staff working from home (even though we would certainly appreciate pre-COVID levels of income…)
There has been much talk of stock shortages because of COVID; many business owners that I have spoken to say that they can’t get nearly the variety of merchandise that is typical. Walk into Marshall’s and you’ll see what I mean. Yet even in these stores with lower stock, variety is high. I was shopping for candy last week and realized that half of ShopRite’s candy aisle was picked clean, and initially I was annoyed at the selection. It took me only a second to realize that I still had to make a choice between 50 different candies; I just didn’t have to sift through 100 like I did before. We are so used to unbelievable variety that COVID has made me think: why? Why do we need a 20-foot candy aisle? Why do we require so many brands of identical flour? This speaks to a larger issue with the way I, and perhaps others, think about the role of “things” in our lives. We have all been forced to make do with less, but I speak for myself when I say that my quality of day-to-day life is largely similar with less variety. Do we need as many “things” as we are used to? In most circumstances, we aren’t forced to think about what is really a necessity. COVID has shown us that actually, we need a lot less than we think. 
Lastly, my grandfather has always lobbied for Cape May County to pivot towards a year-round economy; we have the second-smallest population in the state, and our melancholic winter slump certainly take a toll. When COVID began, we bemoaned New Yorkers and others for coming into our tight-knit community, virus in tow. They came to escape the burning urban concrete and compression of city-life, a life that meant an easier virus-spread, and I can hardly blame them. Hopefully their stays here, even if many saw these people as initially unwelcome, will spark a wider movement away from cities and towards our county; we have a lot to offer for city-goers, and a more diverse economy would certainly come with more residents. If workers continue to work from home after COVID, Cape May would make even more sense as a full-time residence. Cape May County could benefit greatly if it positions itself to catch the urban-drain that appears to be happening in the wake of COVID.