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There isn’t a person who is not excited about the deep fall-off in COVID-19 cases, an almost complete end to mask mandates and other requirements and a chance for us all to get back to “normal.”

While we all deserve to revel in that feeling, it’s important to remember that we will never return to exactly the normal we knew at the start of 2020.

The repercussions on the economy, particularly inflation, is something we’ll likely be dealing with for a long time. The massive, albeit necessary, borrowing for pandemic relief saved many businesses large and small, as well as families, from crippling financial losses.

But that increased spending, on top of decades of deficit spending to cover federal tax cuts and other spending, means inflation will continue to affect every portion of the economy.

The pandemic also forever changed workplace cultures and traditional ideas of office work.

Businesses across the country have already committed to permanent plans to allow employees to work from home all the time, or in a hybrid model. They understand it improves employee morale and doesn’t affect productivity. And there is a bonus to many firms who realize they don’t need massive office buildings to heat, air condition and pay annual costs on.

But it will also have a long term negative impact on commercial landlords.

It’s still unclear how restaurants will fare and operate in a post-pandemic society, but the last two years have made operators rethink a lot of what they do.

Business travel of the past has become a victim of the pandemic as businesses realized Zoom meetings provide an efficient, low cost way to do what needs to be done. That’s good for many businesses that will save money and a big hit to airlines and hotels and others that catered to the business traveler.

At the start of the pandemic most predicted we’d return to normal in maybe six months, certainly in less than a year.

While it’s taken so much longer, we’re finally at a new normal. That’s something to be cheered about. In many regards, not returning to what we thought of as normal will provide benefits to all of us, even as some of the pains, particularly in the economy, will linger.

—  Mankato Free Press, March 21