Life After COVID 19

By Dr. Amit Kumar Jain and Surbhi Jain

The event on Covid19 has proved one thing for sure – Covid19 is the most global, secular, non-discriminatory, fair living being on the earth. It has made no distinction between rich and poor, developed and underdeveloped, rulers and ruled, believers and non-believers. One of the most apt Whatsapp message we came across during this period of lockdown is a prayer to god- “Dear God, please uninstall and reinstall 2020. It has a virus’. Alas, this is infeasible though we are hopeful that this havoc of Covid 19 is going to be over soon!. Man as usual will emerge as victorious in this fight against the tiny but ‘mighty’ virus. But life will never be the same again. This is an event which will change the course of evolution of human beings. As succinctly described by Yuval Noah Harari, author of international best seller ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, ‘ in one interview - covid19 event has potential to divide history of homo-sapiens in BC and AC eras i.e., Before Covid19 and After Covid19.  

 We were perhaps running at a fast pace, oblivious of what our actions are having on our co-habitants and maybe needed an application of powerful brakes to bring us to a grinding halt. We have been locked down, forced to take a long pause, ponder over our lives, look around and reflect upon. We distinctly remember one lesson told by our trek instructor while starting a Trek to Himalayas in Uttarakhand in 2003 ‘Do not miss the beauty of the route while focussing on the destination’.  In the race of our lives, we are so obsessed by the end of the journey that we tend to miss the beauty of the things around us. We start taking things available to us as granted and aspire for more and more which may be bigger house, luxury cars, international holidays. During the lockdown, the thought of these luxuries did not even cross our minds. We are only concerned about essential items like food, medicine, grocery etc. 

This event is the biggest shock for mankind in recent history. We think last such event which changed the course of life at this scale was World War II.  This may just be the new-age World War III – against a common enemy! Every such event throws open new opportunities and path-breaking inventions. The first real computer was invented during the World War II only which lead to IT revolution subsequently. This event is also likely to spur various transformative changes in the course of life of human beings and life will never be the same again

Automation and Robotics

Advancements in technology have led to an increasing connectivity between people across borders. This has, actually proved to be a boon in the spread of the virus as it is spreading primarily through  human to human interaction. The best remedy against the virus as recommended by specialists is social distancing. Human to human transmission, in future, can be controlled by more and more automation and use of robotics in factories, workplaces. Robots, autonomous cars, drones are already being used by China, US and other countries for delivering essential goods, medicines to customers to avoid physical contact. In one Chinese hospital, patients hand over trash and bedsheets to robots. In the US, one patient in the state of Washington is being treated by a robot named Vici, through which he communicates with his care team.

Complete lockdown enforced by governments to prevent its spread is likely to cause substantial loss of businesses. The world economy is likely to contract by around 5 % for the first time after the great recession in 1930s when world GDP shrunk by 15%. Impact of virus spread and consequent lockdown could have been minimised in an automated world run by machines. 

Around 30 million devices[1] across the world are estimated to be connected through Internet of Things (IoT) across the world. The number is likely to rise to 75 million by 2025. These IoT machines can be controlled remotely using mobile phones, computers through internet without any need of physical touch. IoT with its inherent advantages of remote operations would get a major boost in post covid era.

Automation is already slated to replace 30-40% of the jobs by 2030. This event will further encourage decision makers to opt for complete automation to prevent such eventualities and more budgets will be allotted to boost automation. Post covid era will witness renewed thrust for automation, artificial intelligence and robotics. One of the fallouts of automation would be non availability of jobs for human beings. The world community is already debating on prospects of minimum basic income for all. During covid19 outbreak, many countries have to resort to minimum wages for daily wage earners. Post covid19 will further fuel this debate in favour of minimum basic income in the era of automation.

Work from Home (WfM)

Working from home is not a new concept. Many progressive companies have already adopted it as a matter of employee friendly policies. But still less than 1% employees across the world work from home. This event has shown how work from home is feasible in many industries with some minimum infrastructure like a computer, internet connection using video conferencing.  Supreme Court of India has set a good example by hearing cases through video conferencing during the outbreak of the virus. Since the wife of Canadian Prime Minister tested positive for coronavirus, he was under self-quarantine and undertook tele-governance to perform his administrative responsibilities. WfM is the future, as it will help to save costly office space, reduce transport expenditures and increase employee productivity. Post Covid19, many companies are likely to include varied proportions of work from home as Business Continuity Plan (BCP). Software giants will come up with licensed versions of WfM tool kits, mobile apps to help companies to adopt WfM in a big way.

Contactless technology

The virus can be spread from surfaces like biometric attendance system, elevator buttons, stair railings, doorknobs, switches etc. The government and many private companies in India have suspended contact-based biometric time and attendance systems. Touching surfaces can be avoided by using contactless technology like voice commands to operate electrical devices or face recognition for attendance. Thermal cameras can be integrated with facial recognition based attendance system to prevent entry of sick employee in the office. 

Digital payments using contactless credit/debit cards, UPI, PayTM and other electronic mediums are likely to be preferred over currency notes which may be a carrier of the virus.  The contactless technology will get a major boost post covid19.

De-globalisation- Self sufficiency

Thomas Friedman, the award-winning New York Times columnist in his famous book ‘The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century’ published in 2006 has presented a picture of globalised world in a free trade era where countries are interdependent on each other for supply of goods and services from the most efficient producer. The spread of virus has shown how such a global world falls flat when international boundaries are sealed to control a pandemic. Today many countries are dependent on others even for essential commodities and life saving drugs. Post covid19, the countries will like to prefer self sufficiency in essential items over gospels of a ‘Flat World’.

International travel

As per World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) report[2] 2018, the worldwide travel and tourism with growth rate of 3.9% is the second-fastest growing sector in the world and behind only manufacturing, which was up by 4 percent. With such large scale international travel, it is not surprising that the virus has spread with lightning speed to over 200 countries within 3 months of the reporting of first case. As a result, by end of March 2020, international travel had to be almost suspended to contain the spread.

 International business travel is being replaced by virtual meetings, video conferencing and industry is realising the saving involved in cutting down international travel. For business persons also, international travel beyond a point is not a pleasure due to hurdles like obtaining Visa, jetlag, waiting at security/emigration, staying away from family, not getting food of choice etc.  Post covid19 is likely to witness curtailment in business travel in a big way. Indeed, companies will have to devise contingency plans to continue business in scenarios where international travel is not possible. This may turn out to be a healthy practice for climate also given the fact that international travel is one of the top five contributors of green house gases emissions.

Family bonding

Many of the countries have adopted lockdown strategy to contain the spread of the virus. During the lockdown period, people are forced to spend more time with family. In the fast-paced life we were living, for many this is for the first time that they were spending so much time with families. The lockdown has helped in strengthening family bonds, understanding each other and valuing the relationships. The spread of virus has shown how important the support of family and the comfort of home is for an individual. Post Covid19, the family bondings are likely to again become relevant and stronger.

·Vegetarianism

Joachim Ng, a champion for interfaith harmony’ in his article[3] titled ‘ Ancient vaccine for Covid-19’ published in The Sun Daily Malaysia on 03 March 2020 has praised vegetarianism as most viruses originate from wildlife and livestock.’. It is fact that vegetarianism is the best vaccine against such viruses and is likely to be promoted as a way of life in the Post Covid19 era. Indeed, Shenzhen[4] has become the first Chinese city to ban the sale and consumption of dog and cat meat in March 2020. It came after the coronavirus outbreak was linked to wildlife meat, prompting Chinese authorities to ban the trade and consumption of wild animals.

·      Defence to healthcare

India’s defence allocation[5] 2019-2020 is Rs 2,82,733 crore and health allocation is Rs 63,538 crore. The defence budget is 4.8 times the health budget. Similar is the story in many other countries where defence budget is much more than the health budget. The need of adequate defence budget is dependent upon the geopolitical situation of each country. However, the uncontrolled spread of virus  and the emergence of the health professionals as the warriors at this time has shown that the spending of public money needs to be reviewed and more funds needed for healthcare. 

In many countries, the practice of training young generation for war is being followed. We are living in the most peaceful era in the history of humankind. A better strategy for the countries would be to train youth as paramedics to face pandemic like situations.

·Way of Life

 Japan is one of the countries where the spread of virus has been rather slow and steady. One of the reasons cited for this slow spread is that the protocol of sanitisers, covering face with masks and washing hands is already a part of life of Japanese since 2003 when Japan was hit by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Sanitisers are available at reception of most of the buildings in Japan. People in Japan have been wearing face masks when ill or having allergy for years, so this natural tendency may have prevented the quick spread of covid19 in Japan.

COVID19 is likely to change the way of life world over. Sanitisers, wearing masks, maintaining distance, thermal screening, hand washing etc would be the new ‘normal’.  Handshake will be replaced by folding hands (Indian Namaste) or bowing down ( Japanese way) or any other similar gesture avoiding physical contact.

The way sex education received paramount importance after advent of AIDS virus, education on measures to prevent spread of Covid19 like viruses and maintain hygiene would be included in the mandatory curriculum of schools and children will be trained to take required precautions from early stage in life.

 Right to Privacy

South Korea is one of the few countries which could successfully contain the spread of the virus without resorting to lockdown.  The success[6] of South Korea is attributed to a large scale, well-organized testing program combined with extensive efforts towards isolation, tracing contacts and quarantine. Lessons learnt from outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2015 helped South Korea to take immediate steps to contain Corona. 

Legislation enforced, since then, authorised the public authorities to collect mobile phone, credit card, and other data from those who test positive and trace their recent whereabouts. This information after masking personal identifiers, is shared on social media apps that allow others to determine whether they may have crossed paths with an infected person. This has also been followed by China by extensive use of AI to trace the movements of people.

Post Covid 19, countries are likely to introduce similar legislative reforms to track and trace the whereabouts of people infected with communicable diseases which will result in surrendering right to privacy in the larger public interest. 

Covid19 has further shown that a strong central government unlike federal structure of USA is better placed to deal with such pandemics as central government is able to take tough decisions and enforce them. Post Covid19, we may witness some consolidation in power at central level even in federal structure to deal effectively with disasters.

Telemedicine

One of the lessons learnt from covid19 is that medical staff are rather more susceptible to catching virus while treating infected patients. In Italy around[7] 8% of the total infected patients are health workers. At the time of such outbreaks, it is very important to protect health workers else situation will go out of control. To protect the health workers from coming in direct contact with the patients, telemedicine can be adopted as first line of treatment at least for age group of 18-50 years who are stronger to fight such diseases. Moreover, telemedicine is able to handle large number of patients without crowding at the hospitals which may be a source virus spread.   This technology is being used by large hospitals across the US to safely screen and treat patients from remote places. The Rush University Medical Center in Chicago recently set up a virtual medical line to help screen patients for coronavirus.

Post Covid19, governments shall devise a strategy to develop required infrastructure for telemedicine as contingency plan to fight outbreak of pandemic.

Disaster Management Plan (DMP)

The disaster management plan of a nation is determined by the probability of occurrences of types of disasters. DMP of Japan is focussed on earthquakes, India is more concerned about terrorist attacks, cyclones, floods. Although outbreak of pandemic is part of disaster management plans, but it is rarely tested. India took a proactive step of announcing a statutory lockdown under its Disaster Management Act. The spread of Covid19 across the world will bring pandemic as a disaster in the focus and force governments to have detailed DMP to deal with such disasters. We are likely to witness mock-drills of complete lock downs/curfews on weekends once in a year to test the efficacy of DMPs.

·Climate Change

After remaining confined to my house continuously for seven days, we decided to go to nearest grocery shop to grab some of the essentials. We were welcomed by clean air, brighter sunshine, chattering of birds which we have never experienced in Delhi.

The worldwide lockdowns aimed at controlling the spread of Covid-19, and hopefully reducing the death toll, has also led to some unexpected consequences. The Air Quality Index, a measure of air pollution has witnessed significant dip across the country. [8a]. As industries, transport networks and businesses have closed down, it has brought a sudden drop in carbon emissions. Compared with this time last year, levels of pollution[8] in New York have reduced by nearly 50% because of measures to contain the virus.In China[9], emissions fell 25% at the start of the year as people were instructed to stay at home, factories were shut and coal use fell by 40% at China’s six largest power plants since the last quarter of 2019.

Post Covid19, impact of closing down some activities on emissions will be analysed in greater details by researchers. Some of the nonessential activities like travel may be replaced with Work from Home. 

Education

Education sector cannot remain untouched by the cruel waves of Covid19. All schools and colleges are closed during the lockdown and in every likelihood educational institutes are likely be to be the last ones to be allowed to open. Online classes through video conferencing have already been started by many of the educational institutes to fill up the gap. The lockdown has come as on opportunity to assess the efficacy of online learning.  Many online education portals are offering free online classes or offering substantial discounts to leverage the opportunity. Students are also realising the benefits of online education like option of recording the session, no need to write everything, attending the classes with comfort of home, saving in commuting time etc. E-learning can also be made interactive and more interesting using many technological tools as compared to conventional classroom teaching. Covid19 may result into adoption of e-learning over conventional classroom education over a period of time.

Conclusions

Every disaster has potential to be turned into an opportunity. The lessons learnt during the outbreak of Covid19 will go a long way for course correction of evolution of human beings. In an intertwined world, this virus will leave a stubborn stain.  We will have to make relentless efforts to cope up with the misery brought by this event and remove this stain. All of us will have to tighten our belts to bring the world back on track and prepare ourselves for such eventualities in future.

References:

[1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/471264/iot-number-of-connected-devices-worldwide/

[2]https://www.travelagentcentral.com/running-your-business/stats-travel-industry-second-fastest-growing-sector-world

[3]https://www.thesundaily.my/opinion/ancient-vaccine-for-covid-19-YA2075818

[4]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-52131940

[5]https://thewire.in/health/indias-defence-budget-is-nearly-five-times-the-health-budget

[6]https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/coronavirus-cases-have-dropped-sharply-south-korea-whats-secret-its-success

[7]https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/rising-number-medical-staff-infected-coronavirus-italy-200318183939314.html

[8]https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200326-covid-19-the-impact-of-coronavirus-on-the-environment

[9]https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200326-covid-19-the-impact-of-coronavirus-on-the-environment

[8a] https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/economy/policy/coronavirus-impact-air-quality-improves-in-india-but-will-it-prevent-climate-change-5067011.html

by Authors of 'Exploring Life@2050'. Views are personal.