The New Normal In Post-Covid World
The pandemic will pass, but will the world remain the same?
COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan has slowed down and is under control, but most countries around the world still suffer from it. People’s daily lives have also been deeply affected and may remain this way after the pandemic ends. Some media such as CNN TV, Forbes Magazine, The Guardian, and Harvard Business Review have been using the term “New Normal” to describe the world after COVID-19 pandemic.
Public Health and Tracking Technology
The global spread of infections puts everyone at risk. If one is potentially getting infected, it will affect people or groups around them. Therefore, the new normal must be based on public health and followed by economic and social aspects.
Starting from April this year, every passenger of public transportation in Taiwan must wear a mask. Even earlier than that, every person must take measurements of their body temperature or fill in personal information before entering buildings or stores. In the new daily life, we are no longer individuals, we follow the rules in order to protect public health.
Public health is undoubtedly the main focus today. Various anti-COVID-19 apps have been developed to track real-time pandemic status and confirmed cases.
Google and Apple have worked together to create an anonymous diagnosis based on user privacy and safety. The technology will be directly built into Apple and Android phones in the future to accurately identify people at high risk of infection anonymously, and assist the government and health institutions to lower the spreading risks.
In addition to the major technology leaders, Taiwan’s Executive Yuan has also teamed up with Taiwan Al Labs to develop an anonymous social distancing app, which uses Bluetooth to calculate the actual social distance between users’ and estimate the contacting status with high-risk people.
Working From Home is Something Common
Many companies have implemented or encouraged employees to work from home since March. In the United States, technology companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and others have announced that they will allow employees to work from home until the fourth quarter of 2020. Twitter even announced that except for employees whose jobs require them to come to the office in person, employees can keep working from home forever.
Since remote working has become the new normal, work-from-home skills, home office rules, video conference tools, collaboration platforms, and even digital sales channels have all become essential capabilities for enterprises.
Besides work from home, many industries are going digital due to this pandemic. For example, after students stopped going to school, they went to online classes, which greatly changed the way of teaching in the past.
Social Distancing
On March 17th, MIT Technology Review mentioned that to fight the pandemic and return to normal life as soon as possible, our lives, work, and social status must be fundamentally changed. However, these changes may not only last for a few weeks or months; some changes may not go back.
“Social distancing” can mitigate the virus spread. Schools, gyms, and stores are closed in order to minimize physical contact. This may not be temporary but a brand new lifestyle because once people let their guards down, the virus will explode again. MIT Technology Review pointed out that COVID-19 will be periodically eased and restarted, and people’s lives will be affected periodically. Therefore, the cycle of school closures will be about “two months on and one month off.” Social distancing is not only a short-term prevention, but a long-term change.
Everything Goes Virtual
As mentioned in Technology and Digital Growth under Coronavirus Outbreak, the most obvious phenomenon brought in is that digitization was accelerated. Whether it is work, education, or daily life, people try to do them through the Internet to avoid physical contacts, such as streaming, shopping apps, online communication platforms, and various digital services.
The demand for food delivery platforms in Asia has increased significantly as well, thus the industry came up with providing fresh food and grocery delivery besides ready-to-eat food. In Taiwan, the spread of food delivery platforms such as Foodpanda and Uber Eats has been thriving, “no-contact delivery” services have been launched as well. Delivery services are convenient and have various options, therefore became popular among consumers and F&B businesses.
Pandemic forced some businesses to turn the external events into virtual ones. Take the annual COMPUTEX Taipei as an example. The physical exhibition in 2020 will be postponed to the end of September due to the pandemic. However, Computex Online Talks are also held to provide informative technology knowledge and are more real-time and flexible.
Conclusion
The most obvious new normal brought by the pandemic is that people’s awareness of “public health” has increased significantly. Pandemic prevention technologies have been developed in response, people have paid more attention to social distancing, and the digital transformation of various industries has severely affected work patterns.
MIT Technology Review pointed out that the world will change again, and each of us must adapt to the new way of life, work, and interpersonal interaction to survive the impact of the pandemic together.
References：
Twitter Will Allow Employees To Work At Home Forever
We are not going back to normal — MIT Technology Review
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