Coronavirus is already changing the world as we know it

Global supply chains, especially in the manufacturing sector have experienced many different forms of disruption over the years – from earthquakes and tsunamis through to social unrest and even piracy in the Indian Ocean. Each disruption brings with it uncertainty in terms of how suppliers will be impacted and how long the disruption will last for.

However, with the coronavirus, or COVID-19 outbreak as it has become known, things couldn’t be more different. This is not a short term disruption, this could go on for many months and impact companies all around the world. In fact, Oxford economics estimates that this particular outbreak will cost the global economy $1.1 trillion and Dunn & Bradstreet take that one step further and are predicting that nearly 5 million businesses around the world could be impacted.

Manufacturers, especially in the automotive sector, rely on the timely delivery of parts to feed their just-in-time production systems. With so many automotive suppliers now being based in the Far East, it is inevitable that many western-based OEMs may have to shut down their production operations in the next few weeks. From high tech to retail, pharma to government, every single industry sector is going to be impacted in some way.

Most people are curious about Bitcoin, and many of them say, "Is this still the way to make a fortune?" It is nice to idly think about investing a few thousand dollars and watching the value grow enormously as happened with Bitcoin in 2017. Can you comprehend how fantastic it would be to watch an investment increase by 1,000's of percentage points per annum?

Executives around the world are accelerating the development of business continuity plans to ensure that companies can, as much as possible, function as normal during this disruptive period. Coronavirus will bring with it self-quarantine periods where employees self-isolate at home and this is where corporate IT infrastructures have to be flexible enough to support remote workers.

The rise of telemedicine.

The pandemic will shift the paradigm of where our healthcare delivery takes place. For years, telemedicine has lingered on the sidelines as a cost-controlling, high convenience system. Out of necessity, remote office visits could skyrocket in popularity as traditional-care settings are overwhelmed by the pandemic. There would also be containment-related benefits to this shift; staying home for a video call keeps you out of the transit system, out of the waiting room and, most importantly, away from patients who need critical care.

The rules we’ve lived by won’t all apply.

America’s response to coronavirus pandemic has revealed a simple truth: So many policies that our elected officials have long told us were impossible and impractical were eminently possible and practical all along. In 2011, when Occupy Wall Street activists demanded debt cancellation for student loans and medical debt, they were laughed at by many in the mainstream media. In the intervening years, we have continued to push the issue and have consistently been told our demands were unrealistic. Now, we know that the “rules” we have lived under were unnecessary, and simply made society more brittle and unequal.