Covid-19 crisis: why we remain hopeful

Kenyatta University students present a locally-made ventilator, at Chandaria Business And Incubation Centre on April 11, 2020. PHOTO | SILA KIPLAGAT | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • We are bound together by the power of the internet, even when the coronavirus keeps us physically apart.
  • Compared to the previous pandemics, in 2020, we should expect to bounce back and rebuild our lives faster after a festering health problem.

Pandemics and pandemic-like events leave us with imperishable memories.

Covid-19 has opened a page from the past when epidemics were seemingly insoluble dangers. The difference between past health emergencies and the current one is the groundswell of talent and technology.

Health emergencies have been occasional visitors. The “swine flu” (H1N1) of 2009 was the last pandemic that the world battled.

Thanks to the advancement in technology, vaccine trials were underway within five months of the outbreak. The work on a swine flu vaccine started much faster compared to the severe cute respiratory syndrome (Sars) of 2002.

Since these two pandemics occurred, the world has advanced technologically in leaps and bounds. In 2002 when the formidable Sars was doing its rounds, only about 400 million people had access to the internet globally.

As the world wrestled H1N1, 1.8 billion people (110 million in Africa) had access to the internet. Today, two-thirds (4.5 billion) of the world population are active internet users.

In the case of Covid-19, a host of pharmaceutical companies and research bodies are now at work in search of a vaccine.

There is hope that the vaccine will be available in a much shorter time than it took to make vaccines for the previous flu pandemics.

INNOVATIONS

What do these changes mean? Teachers deliver lessons remotely to homebound classes. Meetings and conferences, including global-level summits, have gone virtual.

Telehealth has been a significant boost to mitigation efforts against the coronavirus. Online banking and e-commerce persist, just as 3D printing and many more business continuity strategies.

We now enjoy a real-time exchange of unmetered information. We are bound together by the power of the internet, even when the coronavirus keeps us physically apart.

In just weeks, innovators and scientists can charge full steam and produce ventilators, develop test kits, and make masks and other essentials to combat the virus.

We are now on the cusp of experiencing the alchemy of a 5G communication platform billed to be 50 times faster than 4G.

These developments remarkably boost artificial intelligence and e-commerce, and create a powerhouse of useful information to direct the searchlight of science and development.

WELL ENDOWED

Unlike in the previous pandemics, today, technology offers us fertile ground to plant ideas and to innovate. It gives us a much larger canvas on which to paint.

We can be hopeful that even when faced with the coronavirus, we are leading far better lives than our great grandparents and grandparents who confronted the deadly 1918 Spanish flu, Sars and H1N1.

Make no mistake: the dust is far from settled in the Covid-19 crisis that has enveloped the world. But technology creates a bulwark against a complete economic and social breakdown.

Compared to the previous pandemics, in 2020, we should expect to bounce back and rebuild our lives faster after a festering health problem.

Mr Wambugu is an informatician; [email protected]; Twitter: @samwambugu2