*Updated March 11, 2021*
Boy, did I call this one wrong… I suppose the people most likely to make new babies are the ones that couldn’t get together due to the pandemic? But the fall in the birth rate completely caught me off guard.
*End March 11, 2021 Update*
Every time people are prevented from doing what they normally do and have to find their own entertainment at home (blackouts being a prime example of this), 9 months later we inevitably have a bump in births because… well.. people.
So, I am calling it now, we will definitely see not only a bump but a veritable “hump” in the birth rate come November/December 2020.
The only real question, given the unprecedented and global nature of the the stay-at-home quarantines, is HOW big.
With absolutely zero scientific data behind it, I am going to go out on a limb and predict that, not only will the increase in birth rate overcome the tragic increase in the base death rate due to Covid-19, but I suspect that people will be eager enough to end up with a net increase in the world population by the end of 2020 over and above what we naturally would see with normal population growth.
Whether this is a good thing remains to be seen, but I expect that it will be a hopeful thing for those involved…