The COVID-19 Virus Was What the World Needed
By: Christian Todd
Tags: World, Coronavirus, Pandemic, Covid 19, Perspective

Exponential Growth in Technology

Think about it, how much of our lives have since moved to online compared to before the pandemic happened? Meetings, dates, lectures, they’ve all moved on to Zoom, or Skype. In fact, Zoom has more than doubled its users since the breakout of the COVID-19.

Fun fact: Most university even shifted their convocation programs to digital platforms.

Thanks to capitalism, when other companies see this growth, they also want a piece of this cake. Among themselves, they’re thinking: “How can we capture more consumers and maximize this pandemic?” “How can we monetize the fact that people are being forced to work from home?”

For example, Microsoft has created its own lecture/seminar virtual classroom software to pose as a competitor to Zoom and get customers to use their ecosystem. What happens then is that other smaller companies tend to follow the market and develop their own product that they think will do well in the market. Because of the pandemic, the goal is to have as little physical contact as possible, hence pushing the market towards building more sophisticated technological software and hardware.

In some cities like London, a huge number of vendors and store owners have transitioned into an entirely cashless payment system to avoid any physical contact. This puts pressure on the payment systems and tech products that support it. Because, if the payment systems don’t work, what is going to happen is that vendors will have no way of receiving payments or returning change to customers.

Most of us that are on the Internet can agree that we rely a tremendous part of our lives on tech products. Despite the infinitesimal chances of it happening, try asking yourself: What if the internet went down tomorrow? What are we, humans going to do? How are we going to communicate with each other?

The tech industry is not going to slow down, and it certainly is not going away.

From an economic perspective, the demand to build better technology is there; so when the demand is there, there will be a market participant who will eventually step in to fill the gaps. And when the competition gets more and more intense among these firms, consumers will be the ones who benefit the most.

A Lifestyle of Better Hygiene

This is probably one of the best things to ever happen to mankind. Do you remember how some guys don’t even wash their hands after they went to the toilet? Do you remember how some of us put our dirty palms all over our face? Do you remember how we loved to blow those candles, not knowing that the top part of the cake will be entirely covered with the person’s saliva?

Ew, that's disgusting.

Although many are still unaware of the importance of these personal hygiene issues, a huge part of the world has started to practise these good habits.

Some scientist even claimed that it is most probably because of our unhygienic way of living that the COVID-19 spread as fast as it did.

What if all of us paid attention to our hygiene and washed our hands every time we touch something? What if we were wearing masks all the time? What if everybody did that and held back on the urge to touch our faces? What are the odds of transmitting the COVID-19 then?

Hundreds of thousands of bacteria lay on that railing that we used to grab on to and that front door handle. Now, we’re way past that and there is no point looking back and thinking about what we could have done differently. Fortunately for the public, companies are recognizing that too. That we need to clean and sanitize public places as frequently as possible. So think of the COVID-19 as a wake-up call for us to place a heavy emphasis on hygiene.

Better Healthcare Systems

In the UK, the government was actually downsizing some medical facilities all over the country due to lack of funding. So when the coronavirus came, there wasn't enough ventilators or spaces for the NHS to take care of their patients.

This situation has taught us that we cannot take healthcare for granted and it is not solely for the rich. We don’t really know how fast or how deadly the next disease will come. All we know is that it will come, due to bioorganic reasons and history. On the business side, some may argue that an outbreak like this doesn't happen often and the cost of running the facility might be way higher if we left it running. However, it still does not justify our need for it during unprecedented times.

On another note, I have to say that despite being ill-prepared for this virus, the UK government has done a great job setting up temporary hospitals to accommodate for the insurgence of cases. And also, being swift to realize the urgency of acquiring medical ventilators in a short period of time.

The takeaway here for all of us is that we can’t wait for something to happen, then only find ways to mitigate it. Because as history has shown, pandemics are inevitable and it is possibly mother nature’s way of correcting our problems. So using that information, we need to be prepared for it. Similar to running a business, we need to be able to anticipate the problems that are inevitable.

Final thoughts:

With this ghastly virus spreading across the world, many countries have come together to find a solution to this problem. That itself is a beautiful thing as we realize we are not separated by boundaries. In spite of the unfortunate circumstance, this incident has actually brought the human race closer together.

There are positives and negatives to every situation we face. Yin and Yang. It is unfortunate that so many of our elderly have passed due to the circumstance. However, looking at this with an open mind, we, as humans, are much better equipped to battle the coming virus and diseases. The point is, that even in such a tragic event, there are always lessons that we can learn to better ourselves and push forward.