The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic is putting all aspects of human society into a stress test. Here are some of my fragmented thoughts on this situation. As a person who has not contracted the virus yet and living in the lock-down with family, I don’t have the first-hand experience of the physical hardship this virus could bring to one’s body, nor the mental trauma caused by loneliness. This gives me the undeserved privilege of looking at the current scenario through the lens of a mere observer.
As a millennial who spent the childhood at the phase of social transformation through the benefits of the third industrial revolution and who started working at the dawn of the industrial revolution 4.0, this generation has seen the repercussions posed by this unprecedented pace of technological growth and it has been looming as the sword of Damocles. Also seen the social consciousness of sustainability going mainstream over the last couple of decades delaying the fall of this sword. Finally, it has happened. A taste of what is on its way; a pandemic that spread globally through the mechanisms that enabled globalisation. When globalisation makes the world a village, a pandemic outbreak can spread across the global village in no time. Limiting a microscopic virus within the boundaries of a province or nation is not viable at all in this era. It is definitely a first of its kind experience for my generation. It is an undisputed fact that compared to other global shocks the current crisis has its own uniqueness. The most prominent one is that it is not a directly human-created situation. Be it Y2K, 9/11 or the economic meltdown of 2008, behind all other hitherto considered world disasters had human agency in the play. Secondly, the impacts of the aforementioned impasses were more or less localised either geographically or with regard to the affected sections and aspects. Whereas this pandemic is geographically global and affects the day-to-day dynamics of everyone in the world. While the impact could be different, all classes of people are affected by this pandemic.
I live in Scotland, to where I migrated a decade back for my higher education and currently working in medical device development R&D. Achieving effective social distance is challenging when one lives in areas where the population density is high especially in cities, as in cities like New York and London. However, living in a suburban town there is a sufficient opportunity for me and my family to achieve a viable social distancing. Although the characteristics of my job allow me to work from home since it is primarily based on cognitive functions, I have never exercised this possibility until the lock-down kicked in. The method of communications that enabled a global collaborative work culture has scaled up to enable all those who could work from home to do so. Families with kids, it is a slightly different scenario where they would have to juggle between childminding and work. British culture generally keeps family and work as two separate entities. This unprecedented circumstance is now blurring that line for many.
As an expat, using video calls as a means of connecting with family back home is a part of life for me. Such tools came handy in the days of lockdown. Even my two-year daughter is capable of using this as a natural form of communication. In that sense, the world was getting prepared to be in a state of lock-down for a while. While these forms of communications provide means of social connection, the notion of being physically confined to a limited space is a new experience. An opportunity to reflect upon priorities of life and understand what matters in life. Certain aspects of life we take for granted such as being able to travel (be it a short trip or a long trip) seems much valuable now.
It is also interesting to see how various parts of the world responded to this pandemic. One surprising aspect for me is how lightly western society took this issue in the beginning especially considering the fact that they are normally paranoid about many things. The way Kerala responded to this issue is in contrast to this. It shows how responsible intervention by the government, keeping humanitarian considerations at the highest priority could yield positive results. The short-sighted view on the impact on the economy delayed the decision for lock-down for countries like the UK. Effectively that approach would result in more damage to the economy in the long run. Politically, this could be a correction factor to bring back the balance for the world order which has been tipping towards far-right over the last few years. I hope politics based on humanitarian principles and sustainability could get more backing once the world comes out of the current situation.
It gives hope to see that the immediate response of mankind to this epidemic was to rely on science and technology for a solution. The knowledge mankind has acquired is putting into good use to fight a common enemy that threatens the existence of mankind. This could improve the penetration of scientific temper into the human psyche. Also makes the society reflect on the priorities for the topics of science and technology research. The current situation shows that even with all the progress we made in the field of health science and medical technology, a pandemic of this sort is sufficient to stress the system beyond its capacity. This experience could change the perception of governments across the world towards investment in healthcare and medical research which could reflect in the change in policies in preparations to other challenges waiting for us in future.
This period provides some valuable insights from a social experiment point of view also. Being a global challenge, getting the Covid-19 under control requires global collaboration. So far we have seen the world coming together to address this issue single-handedly if we ignore a few outlier behaviours. In one sense this triggers a social mutation for the society to adapt to 21st-century challenges using the rapid knowledge gain and technology advancements humans made over the last few decades. The behaviour so far suggests that this could be a mutation for a better and sustainable society.
(The author is a scientist in medical device R&D. He is currently working as Engineering Manager- Systems at Optos- in Nikon company in Scotland). This is a note published by Centre for Socio-economic & Environmental Studies, Kochi on their FB Page.
