Peter Cochrane: Coronavirus as a change agent

Could the coronavirus outbreak instigate a broader change for the better in society? Professor Peter Cochrane believes it could

Only two weeks ago politicians were actively denying experts and doubting scientific knowledge. Suddenly, populations are turning to medical experts, scientists and mathematicians demanding verifiable facts, explanations and accurate numbers. How come? They want to live. They want to survive the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, and realise that fake news and conspiracy theories are worthless.

Might this just be a turning point for Western cultures celebrating ignorance and fools? Might it be the epoch where education, expertise, deep thought and informed debate eclipse ignorance and political jingoism?

We face major challenges beyond COVID-19 in managing finite resources while controlling global warming and climate change

It would be nice to think so! To say the least, recent societal trajectories did not bode well for our future.

We face major challenges beyond COVID-19 in managing finite resources while controlling global warming and climate change. And realising sustainability will not be achieved on the basis of instinct and feel good measures. It needs solutions that only mathematics, science and engineering can provide.

All we can say with some degree of confidence at this point is that some things have definitely changed for the better and we won't be returning to the old ways any time soon. For example:

• The naysayers of social networking and purveyors of misinformation have suddenly gone quiet or been sidelined as the populous at large have discovered for themselves the value of a more connected society;
• With social separation and lockdowns now the norm, online sales of food, commodities, medicines and hardware have gone through the roof with ‘direct-to your door' services often hitting the limit. This increase in ‘e-trading' has amplified online banking and a further accelerated the demise of cash;
• In short order, telecare and telemedicine have arisen, with patients actively dissuaded from visiting surgeries and hospitals. Self-determination is becoming the norm, with online help and support making the whole system far more efficient and effective;
• Tele-education of one form of another has been resisted, criticised and rejected for 30 years, but in less than two weeks it has become the norm. Universities, colleges and schools have magically transformed their operations with academic administrators and students suddenly discovering how effective and economical this can be;
• While many of us have worked from home for decades, many companies have vehemently resisted. Control-freak managers who have to see the people at their desk so they can watch every move are the main culprits. But, again, in less than two weeks working from home has been adopted across the nation and again is another new norm;
• Travelling across the planet, country and cities has stopped almost entirely, usurped by Skype, Zoom, Teams, Slack, Blue Jeans and so on; and,
• Perhaps the biggest challenge has seen IT departments to step up to the plate to provide the applications and support to make to make all this work. For me this has been most impressive!

If there has been a failure, it is has to be one of national infrastructure. Poor broadband and mobile nets have seen bottlenecks to connectivity and bandwidth. Cloud computing has stalled and a deal of packet loss and drop outs have been experienced on conference calls. Ridiculously poor quality interviews on daily TV News have served to further highlight this.

From this small sample we might validly observe that in some respects society has changed more in the past two weeks in the past 20 years. And whilst some will no doubt revert to the old ways, the end of the COVID-19 in three-to-six months will see a proportion adopting the new ways and not looking back.

So here are my key predictions from this second week of lockdown:

• The demise of the High Street will accelerate;
• Travelling across the board will decline;
• Education and health systems will finally grow up;
• Society will become more resilient and resourceful; and,
• A very small step toward sustainability might just have been taken.

Professor Peter Cochrane OBE is the former CTO of BT, who now works as a consultant focusing on solving problems and improving the world through the application of technology. He is also a professor at the University of Suffolk's School of Science, Technology and Engineering