Striving for a Pandemic-Free Future

Arriving at a Future

Past + Present = Future

The future results from what we take from the past, and what we do or think in the present, put together.

Our Pandemic Present in 2020

Since the first quarter of 2020, much of the world has been in a "lockdown". Some countries have worked hard to avoid a complete lockdown, but, universally, travel, events, gatherings have been cancelled. Entertainment outside of home has been shut. Entire industries, principally airlines, hospitality, events and sports, have come to a grinding halt.

We have been practicing social distancing. Most people in desk jobs have been working from home. Children have been learning online, at home, where tech access allows.

Never before in memory of living generations around the world, has humanity, seen such disruption, as the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020.

How did we get to our Present?

We are more connected as of 2020, than ever before in history, mainly with air transportation. Tourism, for all purposes, by 2019, had reached an all time high. Much of this can be attributed to trade and industry having become truly borderless, with distance no bar. When something is infectious or contagious, it now, in such a world, has the propensity to travel rapidly, before it is detected or identified. Which is what happened with Covid-19.

Scientific research is now not conclusive, on the exact origin of animal to human transmission, but it is more probable than not, that the first transmission to human beings of Covid-19, resulted from a wildlife source, with the main candidates being bats, pangolins, racoon dogs and civets. All of these creatures, were brought into human proximity, for purposes of wildlife harvesting, by profit minded individuals or groups in China, where the first human infections have been attributed. The animal to human infection has bee the cause of pandemic situation that humanity has faced in the 21st century yet. Within 2020 years, history has repeated itself often enough as such, where pandemics are concerned.

How are we Responding?

At present most of us are painting pictures of masked up futures. We are painting pictures of social distancing. We are painting pictures of 4-hour airport processes, from arrival airport entrances to boarding. And then another 4-process from disembarkation to exit to the taxi stands. These are important short-term scenarios, to minimise the spread, but scenarios that at the same time would be dangerous, if embraced as long-term options.

A masked up future is not going to necessarily be virus-free. Humanity has extensively masked up for months and yet new infection cases continue to emerge daily, worldwide. And law and order will become a massive challenge, whether in fighting crime or terrorism.

Dealing with any pandemic over a long-term, by means of keeping people at home, and masked up, with travel limited to critical situations, will leave the world in a prolonged economic depression, where terrorists will have free reign recruit and organise captive audiences isolated from the wider community (and activity), where organised crime outfits will exploit the situation very profitably and much of humanity will become prone to mental or psychological issues, if not to viruses.

We have yet to initiate actions to completely plug the spread of Covid-19 forever. It is a matter of time, before the virus rebounds and worse, mutates, to either become harder to detect, more deadly, or both. New symptoms are after all being identified everyday. And we also need to prevent further pandemics from occuring, possibly rather soon, and possibly, far more damaging, than Covid-19. The mistakes that lead to the Covid-19 pandemic, if repeated, pose that danger.

In places where the number of infections identified are dropping, it could just be a case of the infected, not being tested yet. And until they get tested, they may continue to go about spreading it. It is a vicious cycle, that may never end, with mere social distancing and staying at home.

We NEED to Strive for a "PANDEMIC-FREE" Future

Grinding Activity to a Halt = Not the Solution

It is a necessary evil, to ground flights, ban tourism and shut businesses. In the immediate present, to safeguard lives, it needs to be done. These cannot be options, every time a new virus spreads, and reaches pandemic level. It is not sustainable. The more intelligent solution, is prevention of pandemics.

We may never completely get there, to "Pandemic-Free". More likely than not, after Covid-19, another pandemic in the human future is an imminent eventuality. Yet, striving for a pandemic-free world, at least could mean, diminishing the propensity, frequency and impacts, by all measures, of future pandemics.

Setting a New Direction for Medical Futures

Medtech. Biotech. Bio-science. Pharmatech. Pharmacology. Immunology. Medical Science. Across all of these, a war needs to be fought, to leapfrogging development of technology, to help uncover new knowledge and applications, with more multi-fold increase in investments, manpower and efforts, globally, towards prevention, rather than treatement.

The industry approaches need to evolve, to allow more open, transparent, free-flow of information/knowledge sharing. More efforts and money need to be poured into Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing research, to accelerate processes, for laboratory research across medicine, pharmacology and related fields.

The world needs to unite, to develop processes, to develop test kits faster, that would be affordable to the poorest, and that would test for infections instantly. The world needs to unite, to develop new methods of responding with vaccines faster. Ultimately, with Covid-19, a vaccine is going to be needed, to end the current crisis. In the short-term, the world needs to unite, and concentrate resources, to roll out a workable vaccine, to immunize 7.7 billion people against just that. And then it needs to develop capabilities to develop and roll out vaccines in large proportions faster, in repeat situations, when new viruses, like Covid-19 or worse, subsequently emerge. And it cannot stop there.

The Future of Medicine needs to be looked at as something far more, than booking apps for doctors, as it is frivolously being looked at today . We need to start looking at the Future of Medicine as being about preventing diseases to begin with. It is time work on solutions to alter human cells and immune systems, to permanently enhance our immunity against viruses like Covid-19 to begin with. And if we still remain vulnerable to a new yet unknown virus ahead in our human story, then, we should have rapid solutions in the forms of tests and vaccines.

Changing our interactions with animal life

As mentioned earlier, and this will be hard for detractors to debate: every pandemic of the 21st century has emerged from an animal source. And on each occasion, it was a human being bringing the source into human proximity, that allowed the jump. We need to stop activities, that bring animal life otherwise kept apart or away from human habitation, into human proximity, for whatever purposes.

Another impossible debate for detractors here, would be that much of the human-wildlife interactions that has lead to pandemics of the 21st century thus far, has been taste for animals on the plate, a long-time human dietary practice that in the contemporary world is the primary driver of climate change, in itself, an existential threat to the human species far greater than a pandemic like that of Covid-19.

To reverse climate change, a species level dietary shift is warranted, with an ever diminishing room for scientific arguments against such a shift. A secondary gain of such a shift would mean, a decline in such demands, that lead to transmissions of viruses from animals to humans, that can spark pandemics to begin with.

Harish Shah is Singapore's first local born Professional Futurist and a Management Strategy Consultant. He runs Stratserv Consultancy. His areas of consulting and Keynote Topics include EmTech, Industry 4.0, HR, Digital Transformation, Product Development, X Reality, Marketing, Strategic Foresight, Systems Thinking and Organisational Future Proofing. In an Open Letter in 2019, Harish has called on fellow Futurists around the world to emphasize in their course of work, on the need for Environmental Salvation.