Life after Corona — what could we improve?
By: Arniie Arnold
Tags: Corona, Improvements, Coronavirus, Virus, Pandemic

Photo by Yingchih on Unsplash

Luckily I, nor my family or friends, have had Coronavirus/Covid-19 yet, or at least, I don’t think we have. My heart goes out to everyone that has and will be affected by it.

We are, as a family, choosing to severely restrict our movements and self-isolate as much as possible. It does seem slightly strange to do so when our schools are still open, but hopefully our government are doing their best to keep the country running whilst ultimately minimising the number of deaths. It’s hard to know what is best. But I trust that governments, and those in charge, are doing their utmost to get everyone through it.

Right now — people have time to contemplate things, I’m sure we’ve all been thinking about things a lot more deeply. What is important, who we care for, what freedoms we have — the lot.

I’ve also been trying to imagine how we could improve things after this pandemic has hopefully passed so that we are better-prepared next time.

I think the Corona Virus is going to have a profound impact on the world, potentially even years from now. Given that I have some time, I thought I’d detail some of the topics that I’ve been pondering:

Digital

Video conferencing Voice controlled devices Biometric tracking

Non Digital

Availability of thermometers Handshaking, and social contact Shop protocols

Let’s start with digital. Before I do, I realise that living in the UK, we are blessed with Internet access. Whilst we don’t have 100% coverage in the UK, we are very lucky. Internet access of course means we get real-time information — and right now, in the middle of a world pandemic, this is not to be forgotten. Think about all the regions and people that don’t have access to the internet — they are more at risk because they lack the advice and information to protect themselves.

Video Conferencing

We’ve used Video Conferencing at our company since it was pretty much released to the world. At the agency I run, we have full-time remote staff that work around the world — so we use Google Meets most days. Before that we’ve used Skype and a variety of other video-conferencing platforms.

So Video conferencing is very much a standard weekly practice in my life. However, reading about people self-isolating in their homes and hearing about people recount having to video call their husbands/wives and children within the same house to ask for simple tasks, puts a whole new dimension on it.

Video-conferencing platforms, whilst fairly easy to use, can still be hugely improved. The ability to quickly create multiple calls quickly and easily, using voice commands, could be better. New devices that are well setup for room-to-room, house-to-house conferencing (e.g Google Home, and Alexa Show) could be dramatically improved.

Here’s an experiment for you … try initiating a video or voice call using only your voice (no touching the screen) between 2 voice enabled devices if you are lucky enough to have 2 or more. If not try calling another Alexa/Google Home.

Did it work?

Probably not — not without touching a screen or having to use an app, and if it did … it’s not as quick or as straight-forward as it could be, is it?

Voice controlled devices

II’m guessing the average person no longer takes for granted how viruses spread. If one more person says don’t forget to wash hands, I might lose my mind!

This pandemic has also made us all realise the number of people lost to the common flu (and other viruses) too. So, it’s made me realise, we need WAY more voice-controlled devices in our lives — and to limit the number of things we touch.

So, how about Voice-controlled:

Lifts

Doors

Windows

Cars?!

Because voice controlled lifts aren’t commonplace, have you seen the adapted lifts in China?!

In China, some lifts have been modified to enable travellers to select the floor they want without touching the keypad!

Biometric Tracking

Whilst we know all the stats and graphs we are seeing aren’t the full extent (only the reported data), it’s been impressive to see the plethora of open-source data being made available for analysis.

If I can move aside the privacy concerns for a moment (which obviously can’t be ignored), can you imagine how much better we’d have fared as a species if we’d be able to track everyone’s health in real-time. It would take some effort — but I believe the upsides would be enormous. It would help governments, hospitals plan and also organisations like the WHO to monitor things with quicker and more informed insight. Companies could monitor staff wellbeing, and individuals could be more self-conscious of their own health.

I’m sure there are a multitude of other ways digital could help us should the world ever face this type of thing again. Hopefully some new businesses are created or improved off the back of the disaster the world is facing. After all, adversity often leads to opportunity.

Some other topics I’d like to raise, that aren’t purely a digital play:

Availability of thermometers

I am shocked and appalled at the lack of digital thermometers available on the web to buy. Unless people have been panic buying, and that has lead to a shortage, trying to buy an ear or forehead thermometer (for under £30) has been a 2-day, unsuccessful mission. There are lots of cheap (£1-£2) ones out there, but the more I read the more I realised how inaccurate they are and not even worth the money (albeit cheap). Perhaps there is more to it than I am giving credence to, but I am shocked at how much a digital thermometer is these days. How much did those Glass Mercury ones we had in the 80s cost?! I realise they were very risky and potentially dangerous, but every house seemingly had one?

It’s rare to need one, but when you need the info, you need it. I hope the availability and price can come down.

2. Handshaking, and social contact

I’m sure I’m not the only person to be thinking about it, and without doubt not the first to advocate it, but I think it’s time we abolished handshakes, kisses on cheeks and general contact to greet one another. This might be over the top, and when there isn’t a pandemic on, why not go back to normal? Well I for one have realised just how many people don’t realise they need to wash their hands on a regular basis, and I also think we’ve been spreading viruses (non-fatal and fatal) without realising for so long … why not adapt and have non-contact greetings as standard … air high fives, special waves, feet dances — whatever works. Time to move on from the hand shake I say.

3. Shop protocols

To me, it took far, far too long for Shops to catch on that they should limit certain items to one per person (in the context of a pandemic). Days/weeks for some supermarkets. Surely when you see a rush of items, as a store manager, you can get ahead of this and limit purchasing? Better protocols and practices will hopefully be borne out of this — because whilst I agree it’s stupid that we had so many people panic buying toilet roll (which still slightly baffles me), the shops and supermarkets could have done so much better on this front.

Anyway, a few random thoughts from me on some things I think could be improved. What do you think we can do better, if there is next time?