The last year and the previous months have been challenging to say the least. Since early 2020, a majority of the world has been dealing with the Covid-19 virus. Businesses have closed down, people have lost jobs, industries were changed dramatically, but most harrowingly – many lives have been lost.
It’s been over a year since the World Health Organization declared a state of pandemic globally. While things have changed a lot since the declaration, there were certainly a lot of lessons learned along the way as well. These lessons resulted in major changes in industries that are bound to stay even after the pandemic.
Currently, some countries are slowly going back to normal. With the emergence of new more deadly or more infectious variants, the future remains uncertain once again. For the most part, Covid-19 has changed the world in more ways than one. Here are some of the biggest ways the virus has changed the world.
Business Operations Amid The Pandemic
During the early months of the pandemic, businesses had to be halted immediately in most parts of the world. This resulted in small business owners losing a lot of money and people losing jobs. The main goal of the restricted business operations was to help curb the spread of the virus.
Eventually, governments realized that it wasn’t right to stop businesses entirely. It can result in major complications for the economy later on. Now, aside from operating to some degree, businesses are often required to take certain steps to ensure the safety not just of their customers, but also of their employees as well.
Part of the changes imposed to help businesses move forward is stricter PCR testing. Just recently, the UK government has begun to put more emphasis on the importance of PCR testing. This affects businesses as well because in most cases, it would be best if business owners know the health conditions of their employees before they are made to work.
In this light, the UK government has begun imposing tighter regulations when it comes to testing. Prenetics CEO Avi Lasarow has commented that the government should closely monitor these regulations. It could impede the progress of the testing industry and in effect – could also impede business operations as they look to help their employees get better access to testing.
Online Shopping – The New Norm?
People eventually became more cautious with the virus. There were doubts about the fatality and the consequences of the virus at first but people saw that it was a costly disease to cure and its possible repercussions are often life-threatening. To protect themselves and their family, people try to limit their time outside as much as possible.
This meant things like shopping and groceries should be limited as well. The good news was that online shopping and online groceries were there to help people with their essential and leisure needs.
E-commerce grew exponentially during the pandemic. This was actually good as retailers, couriers, and even small business owners had the means to make sales even with the regulations of the pandemic in check. The thing is, however, experts think that this rise in online shopping is more than just a temporary trend.
They believe that this will become the norm even after the pandemic. With improvements in customer service and delivery times only becoming better, people are bound to support the convenience that comes with online shopping even more.
Virtual Classes And Offices
Contrary to what was expected, people weren’t less productive when working or learning online. This is good news as in the future, schools and business establishments could continue offering remote setups for select people as it’s more convenient.
Many people have adjusted to this kind of set up and they’ve also seen the benefit to it as well. People work more comfortably in environments they are used to. When working at home, people tend not just to be faster but they also to get better results, studies have found.
These remote setups benefit not just the people, but also the institutions themselves as well. It’s more cost-efficient for them to operate with a mixed remote and location-based setup.
People Value Sanitation Even More
The virus could be spread in various ways. It also doesn’t help that the virus can stay on surfaces for a long time. WHO suggests sanitizing surfaces and taking the right self-care measures to prevent people from getting infected. This recommendation by experts helped people see the importance of staying clean.
Even after the pandemic is done, experts are expecting the public to take more caution when it comes to their health. Once the pandemic is over, they expect people to still carry alcohol or hand sanitizers. Aside from that, people are also going to be more cautious when it comes to contact they make with others.
It’s not just for themselves, people are expected to be more mindful of how clean their house, personal properties, and even their cars are. We can never be too safe when it comes to our health nowadays. The pandemic has taught us that prevention is always going to be the better cure.
Poorer Than Ever
Not all the changes made by the Covid-19 pandemic are good. Sadly, aside from the deaths, we also have to worry about the number of low-income households too. The number of poor people grew a lot over the pandemic and this economic impact is expected to last a long time.
This in itself results in more repercussions too. For starters, there are going to be more starving children and even more children without access to a decent education. Governments must take the necessary steps to make sure that the economic impact of the pandemic is lessened.
Everyone is making efforts to ensure that the pandemic is dealt with no sooner than later. The good news is that the virus is certainly less impactful than it was years ago. However, what remains certain is that the world is a lot more different than it was before Covid-19. Whether good or bad, these changes are there to stay.
