The outbreak of the pandemic posed some serious challenges to the world that required the concentration of many people’s efforts and the use of the latest technologies. This has led to powerful technological breakthroughs, particularly in medicine. HSE University researchers Leonid Grinin, Anton Grinin, and Andrey Korotayev published a paper in which they assessed the impact of COVID-19 on social development. The authors concluded that the pandemic will considerably accelerate humanity’s transition to a new stage of development, but can also cause significant social strain.