Caves of Steel/Gate into Women’s [Covid’s] County: With apologies to Asimov and Tepper

Asimov’s vision in the Caves of Steel was a future where social distancing had grown to become a near universal phobia of close personal contact.  Communication and physical infrastructure, including robots, was designed to facilitate life without other human beings around.  Sheri S. Tepper’s Gate into Women’s Country posited a segregation of the sexes with limited contact and a strict set of rules as to how the two groups interacted.  

Before the advent of Covid-19 vaccines, I saw a future where the human race has been divided into two groups; those who have had the virus and recovered, and those who have had no exposure to it.   The gate between the two groups is in the barriers between the two groups.  It could be a physical wall or a behavioral separation.  The separation could take many forms and the sizes of the two populations could vary dependent on circumstances.  The scenarios would be many. A small business might have two parts of their operations where employees come and go by different doors and never interact.  Schools, restaurants, sports venues, churches, all might have two separate groups of participants; patrons and workers.  Whole communities, even states, could be established.  The gate is only opened when someone new is infected and recovers.

Now, we have many vaccines, and many Covid variants, and many levels of immunity and susceptibility to the disease.  We also have the politically (and religiously) motivated refuseniks who are likely guaranteeing a continuous supply of "new" variants.  This may require many separated groups (everybody gets their own cave?).  As always, things are way more complicated than anyone could imagine.

The majority of people expect this pandemic and its effects to be temporary; but maybe it won’t be.  If the pandemic rages on; there just may never be a solution to it.  Remember,  the "pan" in pandemic means everywhere, maybe also every time, like "forever".