How Will Tech Help in a Time of Pandemic?

By all means, invest early. However, get out early too. Here's the problem with Zoom. Technical support can only do so much remotely. You're going to encounter software and hardware problems that you cannot fix remotely. In a prolonged emergency, a work-from-home system will break down eventually. Even if you have the expertise to troubleshoot problems, you'll eventually need a part you don't have at home. In the digital world, this might mean your laptop got a bad OS update and the machine went blue screen and died. You now don't have a computer to create a digital OS install image to get the computer back up and running. In the analog world, you might not have a physical thumb drive to install the image on anyway. Even if you did, the average employee has no idea how create and install a computer image anyway. Much less reinstall Zoom and connect to the company network. I guarantee you Zoom will become dysfunctional for most employees within a month or two. You'll be relying on phones and notepads mostly. If you have a smart phone, I'd make sure you have work email on there now.

A component of work from home is a stable, fast, affordable internet connection. People, like myself, living in rural parts of the country are not able to take part as well.

The author forgot about telemedicine as a technology that can help mitigate the crisis. You can visit a doctor online, receive advice and care without exposure to others.

It's sad, the shocking contrast between what Ms. Swisher knows that tech can potentially do to help and what we really can expect, which is the sort of incompetence we've seen in the Democratic caucuses. Decisions regularly get made by people who understand nothing about tech, while so many tech companies seem to be run by people who want to do everything on the cheap, meaning that their apps don't work properly and, hey, maybe they can get paid more for fixing them (what might be called the Boeing model).

A tech response from the people that helped bring us Russian messaging and Trump? Yeah, so Facebook might develop a better way to teleconference --maybe with a little VR built in -- but let's stay Big Picture a moment. I'd hate to think the people that gave us Trump will further enrich themselves while people are dying and we're left in the incompetent, bumbling, second-rate, science-less Trump administration. (Yes, Zuck, we're looking at you.)

Since when are there overnight flights from Washington to San Francisco?

Answer to your question (subtitle) is: maybe in 100 years, if humanity survives. Right now: Concentrate, Ms. Swisher, on 45 years of loss of whatever there was of public health in the USA, which has been systemically hacked away at during that entire span. Your generation knows nothing about the subject. Nor the NYT. There's a lot of helpful knowledge that would be useful now. It's been repressed with the help of neoliberal, self-righteous organs like NYT, which never hesitated to help the USA into horrible wars that made money for the rich in the USA, and still attacks the efforts of other governments to control the current crisis (a mere moment of the new normal that makes money for your employer, as did the election of Trump). If you think the USA could have attempted anything like what China did, you are delusional. Criticize all you like, but there is no public-health infrastructure in the USA, and your paper never covered the destruction of what there was. China gave the world three weeks to mobilize. Led by your paper (as it likes to say itself all the time), which is largely an amalgam of ignorance and prejudice, not news, the world did nothing. The NYT did no reporting to prepare the USA, nor did it investigate any lies about preparedness, which you have not even brought up. It just either didn't report, or reprinted lies.That's "all the news that's fit to print." What can you do is learn, before telling others what they'll learn. Clean your own house.

Judging by the Russian bot farm posts and ads placed in malice, and warmly welcomed by Fakebook among others, the answer to your question about how tech will help is "what on earth are you smoking?" Panic and conspiracy sells better than information.

By spreading lies and misinformation?

Twenty years ago people were working from home using technology. I fail to see the big deal about this company. It is built off of previous apps that people have been using for years. I would prefer a cure for this virus, a cure for cancer, a cure for dementia vs the many so called promised trails. However the IPO for these cures are always written up in the New England Medical and other medical journals Technology makes a big to do about creating this that and the other thing. How about a Meaningful applications to address climate change no one will fund something that is useful . President Obama had to demand that a fake ad be taken down, now how is technology helping me again. Oh I forgot the Russian loving Facebook CEO enjoys fake everything to destroy America that made him rich off of a stolen application from his friends. Technology is all about Wall Street and Wall Street is all about creating companies that dont hep the American people . However hedge fund managers can make a great deal of money from these companies who have such great ideas, like We Work a sofa in a business office.

Here's how tech will help. They'll whip up social media with rumors, misinformation and false fear mongering stories they will refuse to vet. They'll fill in the gaps with statements from the White House that have no basis in science.

Will electricity and tech services continue to be available? How will those employees work? Would they be exempt from quarantine? Would they,like hospitality and medical staff,be confined to work ??????

A lot of companies, mostly old line, that dabbled in telecommuting (because “Google does it”) are now turning back to “working from work today”. There is a missing sense of community and, importantly, accountability. That’s not to say it doesn’t work in some instances. New technology has made some hiring easier — we want someone to work in a certain city, we don’t want to pay for an office there, they can have a home office. But, if you are within proximity of the “brick and mortar” office, there is now a return to the expectation you show up there every day. Public schools (K-12) are not ready from what I’ve seen and read. It’s not just health issues, but also climate change affecting weather. Here is Houston, schools close for floods; in northern areas, schools close for snow. The potential increasing frequency of these types of storms mean that getting the “school year” in will dictate “education from home days”. I too worry about the lack of community as people are able to get deeper into their own shells and listen only to their own “cul-de-sacs”.

Other must-haves for self-quarantine in addition to remote work tech: * robots to handle/prep our McFood, instead of minimum wage workers with no sick leave * self-driving thingies/drones to deliver food * Universal Basic Income, for those whom remote work is not feasible and paychecks stopped

Mother Nature has not only sent an unmistakable message to the interconnected world with a new and untested virus, she is sending messages every day that our planet is in danger because of global warming.Those who have suffered through forest fires and floods and tornadoes can attest to how much their lives have changed.Science and wise planning is at a premium during this time.What do we have in the White House-science deniers and chaos which defies any attempt to plan.Trump and his administration are disastrous for the challenges of our time-no science and no planning!!

Maybe some "genius" (everyone gets a trophy) will take a break from making apps that put hats on cats and make an app that cures the coronavirus. Make it a video game so "influencers" can push it!

It's possible that reducing human contact will make future pandemics worse. Immunity isn't built through quarantine.

This coming pandemic will likely change the world in ways few have even thought of. Most of us knew the financial and medical systems would be stressed to the breaking point, and folks have warned of the weak links in supply chains in pharmaceuticals and other key things from China being a danger. But has anyone really walked through what happens to a country, or a civilization, when all of the systems fail at once? They say if 33% of people disappear things will grind to a halt. I’d say that could happen easily with corona virus. What happens when the checks don’t come in the mail, when banks, stores and pharmacies don’t open, when fresh food stops arriving in cities, the energy doesn’t come on? We’re talking about teleworking and cool new trends to play with when we haven’t even seen the bottom. With 2-3% fatality rate given the best of healthcare, there’s a lot of disaster yet to unfold. I’m hoping there’s an obscure government department somewhere where this has all been mapped out and the bases all covered. The cavalry will come to the rescue and magical AI and robots will take over from ailing humans. Maybe big tech has it all dialed in. We can dream, right? Whatever unfolds, it’s going to be a different world when this is all over.

A challenge for most educational institutions is to quantify pay for faculty and staff outside of the brick and mortar. Online instructors, mostly adjunct, are not paid well in comparison to their full-time peers. There is still a premium placed on office hours and face-time, despite the fact that faculty office hours are not heavily used by students. Community colleges, and some universities, get by with a host of adjuncts in order to save money and zoom is a major feature of many of the online courses. We are going to see colleges and universities have to utilize the platform more for the full-time faculty and perhaps increase pay for adjuncts who are often better equipped in the online world.

Arguably the most relentless megatrend of our era is weaker connections between humans. Email replaced phones, texts and emojis replaced email, social (and maybe one day VR etc.) replaced face to face, each narrowing our ability to truly and directly see, feel, and empathize with each other. Sociologists tell us we have fewer close friends than our parents did. Our voluntary organizations and shared institutions wither. Employers offer no loyalty and employees have learned to give them none. Lawyers are seeing more prenuptial agreements among people marrying for the first time. In short, millions of us are extremely well primed to replace in-person meetings with videoconferencing. That may get us through some of this. But it's a symptom of something deeper that isn't good.

Coronavirus isn't a digital nor a tech crisis. Coronavirus is a biological science crisis. Tech can't and won't help in 'a time of pandemic' because Silicon Valley isn't based nor focused on discovering and researching meaningful lasting human health and medical solutions. While big medical device and big pharma and big hospital medical practice are not in the humble humane empathetic not-for-profit philanthropy 'a time of pandemic' humanitarian business.

Fears that a coronavirus pandemic could tip the world economy into recession sent global stocks into a tailspin Friday, with markets on track for their worst week since the financial crisis. European indexes fell sharply, led by losses in the travel and resources sectors, continuing the slump in Asia earlier in the day. U.S. futures pointed to further losses on Wall Street at the open.

Have any of those in favor of digitization thought of the increased costs to be paid by those who have to use public transport when the travel companies want the same profits out of far fewer passengers?

Reports from China indicate that the most used applications for conferencing, messaging are becoming overloaded, eroding or failing in performance due to the unprecedented number of people stranded at home, not out of their own choice but due to the pandemic. How much excess capacity have these companies allocated for quantum leaps in number of users?

Just how will "working from home" grow your food, get it to the market, and then to you? How will it do the mining, transform the, minerals, manufacture, and get you the gadgets with which to work from home? Will everyone working from home get your toilet fixed? Meanwhile, health insurance, including single-payer universal insurance, is of no use if there are no doctors available, and no candidate, let alone Trump, is talking about that reality, which exists in many parts of our country. For instance, an article in the Albuquerque Journal awhile back noted that the largest health care system in New Mexico did not have a single primary care doctor accepting new patients. Lest you on the coasts simply dismiss this as the price one pays for living in flyover America, I would note the same article stated that in Massachusetts, with the highest doctor to population ration, the average wait for a patient to see a new primary care doctor was fifty-seven days. For those who think free medical school would solve the problem, I would note that most doctors (and most readers, I would bet), when starting out, want to go to a place that they view as cosmopolitan, safe, and with good schools for their kids, not rural and poor urban communities. Again, no candidate is talking about this, making universal insurance a largely empty promise even if fulfilled.

Robust digital communications apps are already in their second generation, "software as a service" or SaaS which has made them dramatically simpler to access and use. These digital communication vendors are ready for the challenge and will make a difference. Paris-based SaaS conferencing company Livestorm has already been through its own "WFH" stress test earlier this winter, during the Paris transportation strikes. To the naysayers, I say it's a glass half full, not a glass half empty.

Telework Combats pandemics Combats climate change Combats gender inequities Combats operational risk due to weather/ disaster emergencies Combats respiratory illnesses Combats single parent, caregiver fatigue by saving commuting hours Why aren't we demanding more of it? Is it because it just makes so much sense!

Remember that quaint phrase: the digital divide? There is a large part of society which cannot telecommute or work from home. The working class has to take buses and trains to low-paying jobs to earn this week’s paycheck to make ends meet. Let us not forget about them in our rush to digital nirvana. I am all for technology: I never forget my iPhone, use it incessantly, and can not imagine being without it, but I still remember life before flip phones, a reality still real for a large part of our society.

“Will there be robust teleconferences to replace the real-life ones that are canceled”. We use WebEx. It works very well. If their platform is scalable it should work fine.

I can also see a mini-industry boom in WFH accessory kits: a roll-up background, much like the old projection slide screens--hide all the detritus of modern apt living--and some nice easy to use soft lighting, a good quality microphone and most importantly a non-wide-angle lens attachment so we don't all look like goldfish!

Now is the time to band together, to forget about petty differences and to unite to find a medical solution to this virus NOW, before it gets out of hand. Whether we work from home or not, we need to ensure we work together on what is important; that is our collective good health and well being.

What happens to people in jobs that can't work from home, like a laboratory or manufacturing? Someone has to do the medical testing and someone has to make the face masks!

I don’t understand why telework isn’t being promoted for an even bigger crisis: climate change. The difference between commute traffic and weekend traffic shows how much driving to work is still clogging the roads—and filling the atmosphere with carbon emissions. Some people of course need to be physically present at their jobs. But for the rest of us, think of how much traffic, smog, AND carbon emissions would be reduced if we could work at home at the same productivity levels.

Living in NYC, I know countless people who get on a crowded subway everyday to go to enormous skyscraper to work in an office full people - and a lot of these folks know that they could be doing the same work, without losing any productivity, from the comfort of their own home (I'm fortunate to not have to do the office dog-and-pony show). Much of the business world insists on holding on this increasingly anachronistic model. Now, I understand that in many cases one does have to be at the office, but for a lot of white collar types, I bet it's not really all that necessary. Imagine what a world where remote work was the norm. Imagine what it would do to congestion in Manhattan or on the subways (or to highways for those of you in car-dominant parts of the world). Imagine the liveliness of your neighborhoods during the day. Or the increased time to spend with your kids. All while getting your work done. I know it sounds fantastical, and it probably is. It would be a nice silver-lining to this developing global pandemic if it made a few large organizations realize that there is a better way to work.

To me the fact that most companies who can have many work from home employees don't have work from home employees is because they want to prop up the oil industry. Fly over there and face time when you can video conference. It is just one big subsidization of the industries that are killing the planet. Why does the federal government have office buildings when bureaucracy is always a desk job and a desk can sit anywhere now. So that the oil companies continue to get rich and the airlines still exist. Welfare pure and simple.