Impact of Corona Virus

This was published on Linked In on 23rd March by me and since many said that they faced issues in being able to access/read, posting it here also.

In early 2001 when I made my first visit to USA, I was fascinated by everything I saw. I was surprised to see people drop money correctly into toll booths. There was an openness and honesty that frankly unnerved me.

Taking a wrong turn in Washington DC we ended up at a no go in the Pentagon and were shooed off politely. Finding no parking we see this empty place and happily park. Just to be sure I went up to a gent and asked if we could park. He said – this is the senators parking lot so if your car gets towed away don’t be surprised, but hey it’s a holiday, hopefully the cops will be in a good mood. We find slow traffic near the White House and typical Indian style I jump out, take a picture and run back into the car even as the cops looked on amusedly.

That evening having to catch a flight from Dulles airport I was delayed and reached the airport literally minutes before departure time. Confused I asked some security or such chap for help. They helped me run through the airport, cut across places, get into a funny looking bus that took me close to the boarding gate and literally ran into the aircraft as they were planning to close the doors.

A few months later in Bengaluru as my American colleagues were boarding a flight back to USA, I got a call saying that a plane had crashed into a building in New York. Sharing this news with my colleagues, one of them said – must be one of those commuter planes but what was that chap doing amidst the buildings. As they left and I came home, I saw the 2nd WTC tower being hit by a plane and soon after the two towers collapsing. 2 more crashes including one on the Pentagon and It was tough to sleep that night.

Next year I was again back in USA – the change was unbelievable and nobody trusting anybody, nobody willing to cut corners, no more running in airports and almost strip searched. Grim looking cops everywhere. Standing on the roadside in Chicago leaning against some car as I waited for a colleague to come pick me up, I was shooed away by a bunch of cops who looked like they were ready to shoot me.

The world had changed forever. 9/11 had changed the world in a million ways. The world had been affected by one incident, in one city – New York. Soon after, the war against terror began in Afghanistan and quickly spread to the middle east and today 19 years later the war isn’t over. If any it has increased and become a business, a normal. Terrorist incidents have happened globally, with 26/11 being one of the worst in Mumbai. But life has continued and as we say in India – please adjust – the whole world adjusted.

In between we had other global crisis like the 2008 financial collapse. It was clear we were truly globalised. It needed just one country to sneeze and somebody somewhere caught a cold. But in every case the area and populace affected was limited geographically and you always had the benefit of someone somewhere else being able to chip in, help, share the burden. Globalisation did work as a team extending a helping hand.

2020 changed that. The Corona Virus outbreak has hit practically everybody across the world. Nobody has been spared. Unlike earlier when crisis in one part was always supported by somebody else, today there is nobody to help. Countries have sealed borders, states have sealed borders, cities have sealed borders. Neighbours avoid neighbours, Airlines, Trains, Buses have stopped plying.

True you will see pictures, videos of citizens in India and elsewhere mingling, in crowds etc. But these are initial days yet, the shock is yet to hit the global human populace. But it will. Already you find govt and police officials making new rules to ensure that people follow safe practices and the most common one is – social distancing. From a stage where PDA and hugging family, friend, children were common, we are being told to stay away. One celeb has posted that her son is in self isolation and food/clothes are given to him through a door and they speak on the phone. Reminds you of solitary confinement for a dangerous criminal, except here that criminal, a virus could be lurking within us and each of us can get locked down.

Predictions of death are staggering - 2 million. The Prime Minister of Italy was lamenting about lack of space to bury the dead. It is unlikely that any of us will be untouched by the consequences. As people try to survive, incongruous incidents like fights over toilet paper will start to become real. Not to sound alarmist, humans basically care for each other especially so in India. These kinds of incidents will be far and few, but they will get blown up beyond proportion and unnerve the populace. Right now, nobody can predict the course of events that will follow. Every govt every person will just have to react as the situation unfolds.

But the aftermath is what will be interesting. Will this halt globalisation? Will this change depending upon China as the global manufacturing hub? Will this halt free movement of people across borders, visa notwithstanding? This is 9/11 or 26/11 on a global scale where each one is on his own and there is nobody coming to help. Every country will have to take care of their own for whatever they need – hospital beds, ventilators, medicines, sanitisers, food and there will be no relief material flying in from anywhere in the world to anywhere. Selfishness will be a virtue.

While predicting what will happen next is tough, I foresee the following and some are India specific, while others are general global consequences. In every crisis there lies two opportunities – one that gets created due to natural outcomes, the other created by influential business lobbies who seize the moment and play on the fears of the people and governments.

1. Countries will start becoming more inward looking and talk of self-dependence a lot more. The global manufacturing and supply chains while continuing, will get tempered down and people will want to be self-sufficient. The Indian slogan of Swadeshi can suddenly become a fashion statement.
2. Given that China was the epicentre of this pandemic countries will seek to set up alternative manufacturing locations globally including in their own countries. India can have a huge opportunity in this to attract investments and jobs.
3. Healthcare in India has always been given the short shrift and this could spur its development in a more aggressive manner and the Swachh Bharat program can get more teeth.
4. Industry globally, including India could start to look at manufacturing locally all those stuff till now considered below their worth, like toilet paper for example and this can create investments and jobs. Further the demand for healthcare will also spur investments and jobs.
5. Cross border movement of people will continue but could get more complex at least in the near term. Just as airport scanners, searches became the norm we may well see some health checks becoming the norm.
6. Export of food items especially from the eastern world will likely get hit badly. The fear of infections would make people especially in the western world become vary of eating such food.
7. Possibly vegetarian diets or vegan diets can get traction over meat.
8. The work from home concept will become more mainstream and suddenly companies could find that they save huge costs in the process. Work life as we know it can change dramatically.
9. With social distancing, work from home, travel curbs, etc the interaction between humans as we know it can change in ways that we don’t know yet. But change there will be. One negative consequence would be that the teamwork that is always touted could face challenges with people wanting social distancing. 
10. There will be a huge economic impact globally and the less fortunate will suffer more but socialistic governments can gain huge traction for their philosophy because of what they talk and do.
11. Just so that the capitalistic political system does not collapse we may just see the change one has always sought – Capitalism with a human face.
12. The impact in China as already being seen would be lower than other smaller countries and so the authoritarian and strong leadership kind of government can find favour and many countries which enact short term laws may well continue to live with them. Democracy may reduce in a manner of speaking.
13. Liberal thought can get hurt and conservatism may gain strength.
14. Pollution and carbon emission may reduce at least in the short term.

12 to 18 months is what I see as the period before we see normalcy returning to the globe and be able to measure the impact, the changes and the consequences.