I sincerely hope something good can come out of all of this, but I understand what you mean. I hope that the developed countries can see the wisdom of a UBI during crises, and that the economic models will shift in some ways allowing for more guaranteed jobs. If they can see the benefits of some kinds of artificial intelligence and also see that the environment is in trouble, maybe they can begin to shift towards economies where the environment and people's basic needs become more serious priorities.
I think that's the plan. The problem is that as more AI and robotics can do the work, and if you're worried about carbon footprints, then people become nothing more than useless consumers, consuming the resources simply to stay alive, and adding to the pollution problems at the same time. Especially if they are reproducing and the population is growing.
Ergo to reduce carbon emissions, reduce the drain on resources, reduce energy requirements, reduce the strain on nature, all you need to do is reduce the number of people.
I fully expect that "an unexpected side effect" of the vaccines will be a) serious illness and death, and/or b) infertility.
With (b) you can reduce the human population by stopping future generations from even being conceived, which means you don't need to have actual blood on your hands, only virtual blood.
So I expect (b) will be the probable outcome.
