How QR codes are finally enabling innovation in 2020

QR codes, once believed to be a long-dead relic of the early 2010s, have found a new lease of life in the coronavirus pandemic. How are they being used for innovation in 2020, and could they stand a better chance of succeeding this time?
Even those who have been predicting a marketing comeback for the beleaguered QR code (at least beleaguered in the west - elsewhere, it's a different story) would hardly have thought that this might come about as the result of a global pandemic propelling contactless technology into the spotlight.
But then again, who could have foreseen the vast majority of what has happened this year?
Just eight months ago, I included the prediction that QR codes would be the future of marketing at the top of a roundup of 'Seven technology and marketing predictions from the 2010s that aged badly', calling them "probably the most memorable and most-ridiculed fad of the early 2010s, and the one that will go down in marketing history as a spectacular flop".
I've covered QR codes at various points over the years since I began writing for a B2B marketing audience, and at one time I also anticipated a comeback - but by the end of 2019, with no sign of the promised revival in sight, I felt confident enough to write, "We probably won't see QR codes making a sudden comeback at any time in the 2020s."