Across the world, the need for social distancing will remain in place until 2022, according to an American academic report which warned that the virus will not die out and that we all have to is adapt to the situation. This assessment seems realistic, since developing a vaccine needs at least a year and a cure remains elusive. The best-case scenario projections predict a break in the summer followed by resurgence in the fall.
Skepticism regarding the anticipated armistice remains, and the played- up myth of “herd immunity” might sink in the light of the cataclysm we are seeing in Europe and America. It may even turn out that the immunity of those infected is short-lived, and not a reliable natural vaccine.
For this reason, and in light of the economic collapses which will not spare anything or die out, the world is preparing to acclimate itself to living with the virus and going to work as its eradication is far off. The “invisible enemy” will be fought in two ways; primitive methods like “social distancing” and “face masks” will be combined with more advanced methods that make use of technological tools like application software and extremely active robots, especially since these methods have proven their reliability in Far Eastern countries like Singapore, China, and South Korea. After a prolonged period of neglect, large budgets will be allocated for scientific research, going to mathematicians and data scientists, chemists and physicists, and before them all, biologists, the majority of whom have abandoned their field due to the lack of job opportunities, ingratitude, and neglect.
However, if it weren’t for the pandemic, we wouldn’t have seen the French President go to Marseille to visit Raul, the researcher who prescribed Chloroquine as a treatment, get to know his research team, and ask about their ages, nationalities, and backgrounds, nor would we have seen the Lebanese Prime Minister reach out to the Lebanese students in this team after finding out that they are many, ask how they are doing, and book a place for Lebanon in their list of discoveries.
The United Nations realized that the issue today is science and innovation, not armed conflict, so it directed all its energy in this vein, holding video meetings with researchers, technologists and statisticians to discuss the compromises people need to make.
It seems that everyone has come to agree that online communication can solve, though partly, the disruptions created by quarantine. From distance education, which is still primitive despite all that is said about it, to medical cooperation across continents to develop new inventions that alleviate the scourge. Without the Internet, OPEC would not meet and the members of the European Union would not communicate or hold meetings to settle disputes. At a time when industrialists are returning to their factories with the help of volunteers as the crisis peaks and medical laboratory factories are thriving, traditional companies are laying employees off by the millions.
It may seem fleeting, but serious thinkers have realized that we may be faced with new viruses or another type of crisis in the near future, and everyone should be prepared for strengthening scientific responses from a distance.
A world of robots decontaminating streets and cars, drones watching over cities, applications tracking citizens and bracelets programmed to relay information will be vital to our partial return to life, but it is not enough to prevent the infection of thousands. Thus, the United Nations is working with everyone and anyone who has the talent needed to develop additional innovations in record speed. It is relying on the output of minds eager to innovate.
There is no need for a reminder that three-dimensional printing, with the humanitarian cooperation of companies that have relinquished their patent rights, has allowed thousands of youths in every country to make thousands of copies of ventilators to save those who have fallen sick. Because of technology, a small team can manufacture this device and laymen can manufacture the most complicated masks. What coronavirus has done is accelerate, in an unexpected manner, a technological leap that would have taken at least ten years.
These innovators have material incentives because major countries have allocated billions, after abandoning the projects that had a post-Second World War era flavor, to leap, along with their billions, into the era of digital innovation, which had been left for private companies. There are intangible motives as well, for innovators know that their inventions will save lives.
Nothing pushes us to evolve and develop our lives like a war.. It is ravaging banks and shaking financial empires, toppling stock markets and cultivating a new vision, one in which digitalization is the "hero" and "savior" for the next year at least, and during this period, man will develop new preferences.
Amid mutual accusations are being exchanged concerning the origin of the epidemic and the party responsible for its outbreak between China and America, the former is rushing to announce its victory over coronavirus, claiming that it has done so relying on the "fifth-generation" (5G) technology, stressing that had it not been for this technology, the construction of the Litsheenshen Hospital and its perfect provision of services would not have been possible. China has allocated five million dollars and thirty engineers to ensure that its exceptional technological needs are met.
Perhaps, with the weight that it carries, the pandemic has made people forget that American was so eager to undermine Huawei and the superior Chinese 5G project, which Britain and other US allies were forced to utilize, and that the new digital surge will make it a requisite for smarter life, distance treatment and precise automated control of life, no matter how much it is opposed.
Some do not like China, but what can we do if America needs at least three years, if we are being extremely optimistic, to develop an equivalent to 5G. Until then, states are free to choose between keeping up and giving some of their privacy, which would become exposed to the dragon, or to keep waiting, which is a very difficult choice.
