Life in the age of coronavirus

Life in the age of coronavirus

This week, we’re looking at how businesses are evolving to meet the challenges posed by coronavirus.

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How the business community is responding to coronavirus
As the novel coronavirus’ (SARS-CoV-2) global spread continues (as of this week, it’s been detected in over 100 countries), panic has gripped global markets, multinational companies and individuals. In New York, coronavirus-induced panic buying has cleaned grocery and drug stores out of frozen foods, canned goods, hand sanitizer and more.

While we are clearly not public health experts able to advise you on how best to stay safe in these trying times, we wanted to relay how a number of companies are working to help treat patients, devise cures, and facilitate remote work, to try to make the best of a terrible situation. We’ve also included some valuable resources to help you plan your own responses, if necessary.

Additionally, we’re learning about Google’s release of open-source software that’ll make it easier to build quantum machine-learning applications, Goodyear’s development of a tire that retreads itself, and ultra-fast genome sequencing’s lifesaving potential for infants with unexplained illnesses.

We hope you’ve been enjoying this newsletter and would love any feedback (erica@nycmedialab.org). We wish you and your community safety, calm and solidarity as we support each other throughout this unfolding situation.

All best,
Erica

The novel coronavirus’ (SARS-CoV-2) international spread is spooking markets, employers and consumers alike. In response to this public health crisis, many universities have moved to remote classes, employers have implemented remote work contingency plans and government officials are considering economic stimulus measures to mitigate the virus’s impact on the economy. The impact of COVID-19 on our everyday lives is becoming increasingly pronounced.

While we don’t have the scientific expertise or information to offer new news on the coronavirus itself (for a good source of information, we recommend FlattenTheCurve, a resource compiled by Oregon State University public health professor and rare disease geneticist Julie McMurry, MPH), we are taking this week as an opportune time to discuss some of the ways in which businesses — and particularly the tech industry — are responding to the business challenges raised by COVID-19.

GROCERY DELIVERY SERVICES RISE TO THE CHALLENGE

In China, COVID-19 has forced millions to adapt their lifestyles. Families in self-imposed quarantines are taking advantage of fresh grocery delivery at hitherto unprecedented rates, putting tremendous strain on grocers’ supply chain, logistics, and distribution operations.

According to Prophet, the fresh grocery e-commerce industry in China (and possibly beyond) is poised for significant coronavirus-induced transformation. While the logistics challenges of sharp demand increases can’t be overstated, the novel coronavirus has also driven consumer acquisition costs to near zero and suddenly made user retention a non-issue. For fresh grocery e-commerce delivery services that rise to meet the moment, this change in user habits is an opportunity to establish customer relationships with an influx of new shoppers, at least some of whom are likely to stick around even after coronavirus’ immediate challenge ends.

THE BIGGEST-EVER REMOTE WORK EXPERIMENT

Across the globe, COVID-19 has forced companies to enact the world’s largest-ever remote work experiment. In China, tens of millions of workers across a broad swathe of industries have been working from home since the virus’ outbreak. Similarly, in the U.S., millions of workers have moved to remote work as their employers seek to minimize their employees’ exposure to the novel coronavirus. Since the outbreak’s spread across the U.S., many companies, including Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Twitter, Biogen, Eli Lilly, Takeda and Square have moved to remote work for many of their employees.

While workers’ reactions to working from home are mixed, it’s likely that more workers will seek work-from-home opportunities (or at least occasional flexibility to work from home) even after the coronavirus’ immediate threat passes. Workers who are torn between caring for children, work, elder care obligations and caring for their personal well-being may find that the flexibility offered by remote work helps them balance their competing priorities; and they may not want to give this advantage up after COVID-19’s immediate threat passes.

However, it’s important to recognize that many workers don’t have the option of working remotely. Hourly, retail, health care, and manufacturing workers only a few examples of employees who generally don’t have the ability to work from home. In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only about 29% of American employees actually worked remotely in 2018; and the remote workforce is generally better-educated and wealthier (according to BLS data, about 47% of workers with a bachelor’s degree of higher worked from home sometimes, while only 3% of workers with only high school diplomas did the same). In this sense, this is yet another way in which the novel coronavirus outbreak is underscoring inherent inequalities in the U.S. economy.

At the enterprise level, the novel coronavirus is forcing enterprises, academic institutions, municipalities, and even whole nations to put emergency plans to the test. Moving to remote work and virtual classrooms has pushed companies and schools to radically rethink the natures of both work and learning; meanwhile, enforcing social distancing and quarantining whole swaths of their populations have challenged governments’ logistical capabilities and contingency plans for ensuring that their citizens remain fed, sheltered and able to access essential services in extreme crisis situations.

For those workers whose employers are allowing it, remote work presents both challenges and opportunities. To enable their workers to work remotely, many companies are implementing video-conferencing software (such as Zoom) where it didn’t previously exist, rolling out tools (such as Challo) that support external collaboration, and hastening previously-planned shifts to remote work. However, with increasingly larger numbers of workers logging in to work from home networks, there are concerns that some companies’ networks will be exposed to cyberattackers attempting to take advantage of an influx of employees working from home and accessing sensitive materials and cloud computing programs from insecure home connections.

If you’re a business owner, executive-level decision maker, or HR professional looking for guidance to help steer your business at this time, Eden Health has compiled a helpful series of decision-making frameworks for employers seeking resources to help navigate their companies in the age of COVID-19. HASTENING THE MEDICAL ROBOT REVOLUTION Between concerns about spreading the virus to medical staff through contact with infected persons and personnel shortages, the novel coronavirus is making the value of medical robots more apparent than ever. An entirely new robot-run medical ward opened in Wuhan, China — the original epicenter of the outbreak — on March 7. The robots deliver food, drinks, and medication to the patients on the ward; they also clean the ward to keep it hygienic.

Source: Interesting Engineering Elsewhere, robots are being used to supplement human medical personnel. Hospitals around the world are deploying robots to monitor patients, enable telehealth applications, and ensure hospitals’ cleanliness. Disinfection robots are also being deployed widely in hospitals, airports (JFK, LAX, and SFO are all deploying GermFalcon robots from LA-based Dimer UVC Innovations to keep fliers safe as they traverse their terminals), and other public settings.

In Shenzhen, drones from the catering industry have been repurposed for use in the hospital industry. Other companies have built drones for transporting medical samples and conducting thermal imaging. The Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com is using self-driving robots to deliver goods to medical workers in Wuhan, thereby cutting humans out of the equation for the last 600 meters from the street to the hospital and reducing transmission risks for both consumers and delivery personnel. TECH-ENABLED SOCIAL DISTANCING Lest you think that robots are the only means by which social distancing is being enacted — or that China is the only place where tech companies are taking steps to enable it — consider the rollout of “no-contact” deliveries across a range of delivery services. Over the past few days, Instacart, Postmates and Doordash have all added options to request no-contact delivery via their apps. AI IN FOCUS As we wrote recently (check out the issue on AI’s use in drug development), AI is being used in the effort to discover a cure or vaccine for the novel coronavirus. However, drug discovery isn’t the only area in which AI is being used to combat SARS-CoV-2.

Researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital are using machine learning to monitor social posts, news reports, data from official public health channels, and information supplied by doctors for warning signs that the novel coronavirus is showing up in new areas. “There’s incredible data that’s locked away in various tools like online news sites, social media, crowdsourcing, data sources, that you wouldn’t think of that would be used for public health,” Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital, explains, “But actually they have incredible amounts of information that you wouldn’t find in any sort of traditional government systems… Whether it’s social media, online news reports, blogs, chat rooms — we’re looking for clues about symptoms, reports of disease, that tell us something unique is happening.”

As long as the novel coronavirus continues to pose a threat to global health, it’s sure to spur continued innovation across the economy. While the current public health crisis is undeniable, it’s important to keep the tremendous efforts that have been mobilized to fight it in mind and persist in the belief that human ingenuity, scientific innovation, and resilience will prevail.
Google is making it easier to develop quantum machine-learning apps In a bid to make quantum machine-learning more accessible, Google is revealing free open-source software, TensorFlow Quantum, as an add-on to its TensorFlow toolkit. 2 min read Goodyear’s Concept Tire Regenerates Burned-Off Rubber If Goodyear scientists have anything to say about it, replacing entire tires every year or two due to rubber wearing off the top few millimeters may become a thing of the past. This week, Goodyear unveiled reCharge, a new concept for a tire that automatically generates its own treads by continuously replacing rubber as it sloughs off from daily use. 3 min read Ultra-Fast Genome Sequencing Could Save the Lives of Newborns

Ultra-fast genome sequencing, which returns results in three or fewer days (versus about seven days for typical rapid sequencing), could save the lives of newborn infants who are critically ill for unknown reasons. In July 2019, Blue Shield of California became the first U.S. insurer to cover rapid and ultra-rapid sequencing of babies and children with life-threatening and unexplained medical conditions, marking the beginning of ultra-rapid sequencing’s move from an investigational tool to a standard of care. However, there are valid questions surrounding the wisdom of expanding ultra-fast genome sequencing’s use; some experts caution that broader use of genome sequencing in babies is “premature,” as there’s insufficient evidence that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks of heightened confusion or anxiety over ambiguous — or even misleading — results.

10 min read The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies

Snap tops Fast Company’s list of the world’s most innovative companies on the strength of its innovative AR “lenses” and premium content business. The company’s comeback kid story — it experienced an existential crisis at the end of 2018, leading Forbes to call it a “trainwreck” before an Android app redesign and simplification of ad buying tools led to 65% year-over-year revenue growth, the addition of 31 million daily users last year and a nearly 250% increase in stock price — is compelling, too.

19 min read This Week in Business History

March 15, 2003: Members of India’s lower parliament scream raucously for over four straight hours to protest the finance minister’s proposal to raise fertilizer prices

Finance Minister Jaswant Singh had proposed a marginal increase in the price of some fertilizers, arguing that it would help the government limit increases of fertilizer subsidies. However, lawmakers seeking to appease rural voters argued that price increases would hurt farmers.

Some especially impassioned lawmakers continued shouting even after Singh withdrew his proposal.

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