How Tech Can Save Us During A Pandemic

How did you go bankrupt?
Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.

― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

Gradually, then suddenly. That’s how one of the biggest pandemics in history has spread. Only a few people/ countries took it seriously when the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, shattered China back in January. By the time I write this article, there are over 300,000 confirmed cases and many more (no one knows if we are failing to capture infections by a factor of 3 or 300) undetected… The pandemic is not just a physical health concern, it is multifaceted. There is the psychological aspect of social distancing and self quarantine, there is the economic aspect of businesses and even countries shutting down, and there is the technological aspect with increased telework / self isolation choices we have to make. I’ll tackle the last aspect briefly in this article.

1. Tackling Online Misinformation/ Spreading Fear

In times of uncertainty, fear and anxiety rise. When uncertainty hits, we become vulnerable against the online misinformation more than ever. Most of us rely on unofficial news sources through Facebook, Youtube, Twitter. And we’d believe in almost anything, without double checking, when it comes to a life/ death situation like this pandemic. For that matter, some of the big tech companies formed a coalition to fight online misinformation and fraud. Some of the measures taken are truly inspiring. For instance, WhatsApp – one of the most used methods of communication – announced a partnership with WHO for people all around the world to access accurate information on the pandemic.

2. Tech – Government Collaboration

President Trump announced the White House will join forces with major tech companies to pool supercomputing resources in the battle against the novel coronavirus.  Trump said the initiative — which will help researchers gain access to computing power far exceeding that of average consumer devices — could help experts “discover new treatments and vaccines.” –  The Washington Post

The pandemic brought private and public sector together for collaboration as it’s the biggest challenge of the wealthiest nations since the World War II. With regards to pooling supercomputer resources, IBM helped launch the “COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium,” and Amazon, Microsoft and Google also confirmed they would participate.

Other collaborations include Messenger offering free services to government health organizations, WHO launching a health alert& information service through WhatsApp, Facebook providing WHO with free ads as well as creating $100 million grant program to help small businesses impacted by COVID-19, Google donating $25 million ad credits to WHO…

3. Assisting Telework

The novel coronavirus is extremely contagious, even during the 14 day incubation period when the patient might not be showing any symptoms. Hence most, if not all, countries are suggesting/ and in some cases like in Italy and Spain making it obligatory to stay in. “Social distancing” and “flattening the curve” are all we hear these days. We need to stay inside and keep a certain distance between another human being in order to reduce the spread of the pandemic. This means no one should go out unless they have to, which forces both the private and public sector to opt in for teleworking. With the compulsory and fast move to telework, even the most non techy folks are becoming aware of most of the tech platforms for telework. Some examples, although it’s not an exhaustive list, are:

• Zoom or Google Hangouts for video conferencing (VC)
• Slack for team communication
• Google Drive or Dropbox for cloud storage
• Google Docs, Sheets for online docs and sheets
• WhatsApp, Messenger for online chat

4. Staying Sane During Self Isolation

Netflix is clearly the winner in this bucket, with the worldwide availability and local productions to attract non-English speakers. Moreover the company has a feature called Netflix Party which lets users sync with their friends for a movie date and watch it together. That said, with the increased demand on streaming which started disruptions on telework practices, the company, along with Youtube, is asked to slow down streaming in Europe “to keep the internet from breaking“.

                           Screenshot of Netflix Party

Other options to keep yourself busy at home are the online courses offered by Coursera, Linkedin Learning, edX, Udemy to name a few. While thinking about how to spend our time, we gotta think about how to make sure we don’t loose muscle mass much, meaning demand for online workout apps like Adidas  and Nike Training apps as well as a plethora of online yoga courses on Youtube.

In sum, I was able to touch on only a few areas – yet you got the idea about the impact of technological advances during one of the biggest pandemics in history. It’s a double edged sword really; on one hand the fast spread of the virus all around the world was due to the advances in global travel, on the other hand we are able to isolate ourselves without going insane thanks to tech and a good amount of the world population is able to keep their jobs during this process. There is a long list in the post-mortem for this crisis, but let’s try to keep a humane attitude while we judge the people who have been working insane hours to keep us alive.

P.S. The feature image is taken by the author.