A New World

One and a half months after the biggest health crisis of our lifetime, with extreme confinement measures around the world we still do not know how to deal with what’s coming, but we surely learnt a few things along the way.

1) Health system Struggles:

I often hear Europe has one of the best Health systems in the world, and this is partly true, when compared with most of the world, but we have seen a profound deterioration on most of them for years now, the confinement is mostly made to protect those health systems from collapsing, which in most cases did with few exceptions such as Germany.

This makes it clear that, for many European economies, crippled by years of austerity plans, and liberalist policies, their health systems have worsened substantially for the past years, and have weakened substantially.

Spain is a fine example:

The closing down of hospitals, health centers, offering precarious conditions to health employees, masked with cost efficiency reasons, but we could see we were moving fast into a shift towards liberalism and privatization, and me , being Spanish, with several family members working in the health sector can surely say our health systems which was one of the best in the world, has, pretty much gone to %$·t. We come out of the windows every day to clap those that are on the front line, which are often underpaid, or fired once they are not needed, maybe the sad part is, when this is over, they will be again underpaid, undervalued, and in the same precarious conditions that put us in this sittuation in the first place.

We must take this opportunity to recognize not just those on the health system but also those in industries that are critical for countries to be able to operate, to provide them with just conditions, and be treated as the heroes we now, faced with the harsh reality, temporarily call them.

2) We depend on China.

We all have heard or seen the conspiracy theories about the virus, truth is, most supplies the world desperately needed to handle this crisis, are sourced through China, have a check at your t-shirt, your shoes, jacket, mask, yeah most likely it was made there. This dependency shows the fragility of our economy, just wonder, what if China would be forced to stop their factories, shipping, etc,?

This would get much uglier.

3) Our leaders were not prepared

As my grandfather used to say, "the more I know about politics the less interested I am", and I’ve followed this logic for most of my life, without any special inclination towards right or left, I have not seen, in history a generation of so ill prepared leaders, where populism seems to be the new trend and most worringly voted by the majority we cannot be then horrified byt their speeches, opinions and statements which are many times absurd.

As a Doctor or an Engineer must complete their studies, thesis and projects, and spend several months learning from their peers, how is it possible politicians do not have the same requirements to be able to perform their duties.

This translates into wrong decision making, short sighted policies, and the lack of being able to deal with what’s happening logically, with a tendence to dismiss, hide under the carpet or simply look the other way.

3) Oh, My WHO! OMS!

If someone is coming out of this in bad shape, that’s the OMS/WHO its credibility has been put to the test with with the US lastest announcement to stop funding for this organization, and this as the biggest contributor worldwide sends a clear sign to the world.

They have not been the player the world needed and did not do what was expected of them, there is no doubt this organization needs to get their things in order like, months ago.

4) No one knows but everyone talks

I receive on average 20 - 30 pieces of content coronavirus related, from conspiracy theories to videos of people dancing, new reports, the curve, the confinement.

Quite frankly its bloody exhausting, we live on a hyperconnected world but this is way beyond that, mostly because to this day, no one knows for sure what is going on, and what will happen in the next two weeks ( apart from the fact that most likely we will stay home).

5) Economy as we know it is dead.

We barely made it in the last one, with devastating consequences, this one is going to be a freefall, and quite frankly I do not know what’s going to happen, all this stimulus packages, rescue loans, etc...

You know who is going to pay for those in the end right?

6) People move faster than governments

I lost count how many initiatives I have seen to help those in need, from Portuguese and Spanish professionals getting together to raise funds and provide solutions to the sourcing of material and purchasing breathings devices around the world, to citizens producing masks, breathing devices based in open source....

To a virtual meeting for professionals created in Spain by @Ecommercenews which put to the evidence that, we do not know when we will be able to come back to attending events again and therefore start creating platforms that fill the gap left by this confinement.

You can see an screenshot on the title of this event which was a very interesting exercise to prove the point that as we can work from home, we can also network from home.

There is also regular people, buying 3d printers to provide masks to local hospitals, like my best friend is doing here in Portugal , printing and delivering masks to doctors on a daily basis.

I hope that this same governments, recognizes all those people that during this time did their best to help, without any law, regulation or order thats told them so, but from their own inner beliefs, to all those, a big thank you, you are our TRUE LEADERS.

7) Capitalism and Liberalism

After this crisis we will have less capital and freedom than ever.

Truth is, most of us kind of know we cannot keep up with the way we were living as a whole, overusing resources, destroying nature, and living in a global economy.

This crisis will leave deep scars in consumers, we will buy more local, pay more attention to the products we buy, health will be on of the main purchase drivers, and the world will be less global than it ever was.

And maybe then, we will have our freedom back.

8) Digitalization and working from home

Not that we didn’t know that’s the future, but I think this crisis was the kick in the bullocks some organizations needed to finally move.

Nothing better as a motivator than a virus which only leaves one option for consumers and for companies.

This will no doubt be one of the winners, if not the only one, on the aftermath of this crisis.

10) The new world

For the past one and a half months I drove twice to the petrol station nearby, and I felt the same way when, more than 25 years ago i played Silent Hill on my PlayStation one walking into a strange world with masked scattered around, deserted streets and closed businesses and me feeling like a thug from just getting outside cause I needed to.

Things will never be the same will stick with us for a while, it will change our habbits, and the way we work, do business and communicate, and maybe it will turn us into the same types as Jack Nicholson on the movie "As good as it gets" I surely hope not, as it will be hard to walk around trying to avoid the cracks and lines on the tiles and have mountains of soap ready for a new hand wash... Ugh...

We can only hope it will be a better New World.