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MARCH 2021 Download this Article
All systems that run our world are affected by COVID-19. As we prepare for a future crisis, it is essential to know which systems have been able to sustain or failed the pressure of this pandemic.
In this article, we are reviewing various systems that were running the world before and are running during the pandemic. So, which are those systems, which worked as if they were never impacted, and which ones just didn’t meet the expectation?
“The world” is an integration of numerous systems and sub-systems, which interplay uninterruptedly. In case one of the larger systems fails or is interrupted, the others too are impacted.
The scale of impact depends on the intensity and the expanse of the disruption. As it happened in the financial crisis of 2008, the global financial system was disrupted.
As a result, interconnected systems like the banking and the economic system turned red. It was considered a giant crisis never seen since the great wars.
Similarly, this is the time to introspect and evaluate the systems around us. Are the systems supporting the WORLD....credible?
The financial system, education system, medical system, medicine administration system, transportation system, Information Systems, agriculture system, public administration, Utility and finally Human System, are they living up to the expectation?
In the case of COVID-19, many of these systems are impacted. To name a few significant systems in distress include economics, financial, banking, housing, manufacturing, education, travel, farm and agriculture, retail and logistics, entertainment, medical and health care.
Even our ecological system is impacted, though in positive terms.
During these times of crisis, it is important to review which system stood up to the call of the hour and what are the lessons to be learnt for future preparedness.
As the COVID-19 crisis grew, from China into Europe and other parts of the world, systems either transformed themselves or upgraded themselves to meet the extraordinary demands of the time.
To define, it is not a brainer to classify the current situation as a global health crisis. It has translated into crisis in all other systems too. Isolating the crisis hot-spots or securing the healthy was the first step.
It has been the strategy followed by everyone. All systems were first led to shutting down and then restarted selectively, essential ones first.
In a few cases, purposes were redefined, and methods of execution were changed. Work from home as a system of employment and online communication became the new norm.
For example, passengers travelling across international, national and city borders became the first victim of CV-19 restrictions. A large portion of transportation that depended on the movement of people came to a grinding halt in a matter of days.
The system of movement of people got severely impacted. Passenger flights were grounded. Some were used to repatriate those citizens who were stuck in other lockdown countries.
Personal vehicles came off the road, and so did other means of movement like air and shipping. Private and public travel came to around 25% of its normal capacity in Europe.
With the movement of people restricted, so came the impact on their underlying economic system. The system was heading towards insignificant economic activity.
The technical components of transportation continued to be intact and fully functional, though. Hence, the transportation system continued to move goods and essential passengers.
The education system did face disruption but soon readjusted to the new ways. It used information technology to maximize its results.
Online classes started and may now become a steppingstone to the 21st century model of imparting education.
Information technology too rose to the occasion. It provided effective video and audio communication to one and all. The efficiency with which it started to meet the expectations have brought transformations in the social system.
The changes to societal behaviour in terms of usage of IT systems has been remarkable. With no training, the En-masse population adopted the new IT artefacts.
All credit goes to the IT system designer’s user-focused objective. The underlying economics and financial system had already taken care of itself. It ticked off all the boxes of JIT (Just-in-Time).
The health care system, too, was supposed to be at the top of the game. All other systems should have been their sub-systems. Instead, health care slipped to a new low.
It was turning the world into a Health Emergency. Even the health care of most developed economies failed.
Why did this happen?
Health care was supposed to be on top of the government’s agenda for the well-being of its population. Instead, it has become a sub-system to the financial system.
Profits had taken over its core function. Little did the people and governments realised in the past that health was a necessary condition to run the World.
No other system is as important as this. If the population of the country is alive and healthy, the country will work, and so will the world function.
A population may have less money in their pockets; still, they will survive, but life, on the other hand, is binary.
The very fact that health care had moved down the hierarchy of the systems when the crisis like this one came, the entire world was seen struggling behind lockdowns and restrictions.
Even the richest economies with the most efficient financial systems were on their knees.
Can we not say that the world had put the ladder on the wrong wall? The world will survive, but then at an extremely high cost of losing thousands of precious lives.
The richest economies are losing more of their population than the developing countries. The irony is with G7. It has taken the maximum hit and looked to be most ill-prepared.
The health care model of the west is now under scrutiny. It was designed to care for the elderly and the sick. Today, they are the ones who are most vulnerable and losing their life.
All through their working lives, it was these elderlies who had contributed financially and emotionally to ascertain their well-being at an old age. But, when the time came, the same health care system of the richest economies has failed them.
In this crisis, many, like the manufacturing and transportation system, have remodelled themselves to the need of the hour. It took just weeks for the automobile companies to start manufacturing ventilators.
Other sectors were able to manufacture sanitizers and PPE, even though their product line was different. The underlying engineering as science helped the efficient adaption.
Across the world, we are continuing to see how different sectors have used innovation and engineering to manufacture goods most needed in this crisis.
In these times of crisis, the other systems too have reoriented themselves to service the health care system.
Brutal, it would be to point out. The health care system is the one that has failed everyone. They have been considered the most sophisticated in their approach, guarding the medical science to only professionals.
Scientific research was the base of the modern medical system. During the peak of the pandemic, when the line of treatment came to rescue, it was the herb discovered in 1799 by the primitive doctors in the British Army.
The chloroquine was the saviour along with anti-viral drugs. So, where is 21st-century medical research with millions of hours invested in researching and publishing scientific papers?
While the manufacturing systems were able to deliver results in a matter of weeks, the medical system is still without a clue about treatment and is now depending heavily on the vaccine.
This is when people across the world are dying at a rate of 280 per hour. Something is not right with the medical system as followed today.
One reason for this disconnect is the positioning of the health care system in the hierarchy of the world. It is not at the top but had slipped below the financial system.
It is not run by the priority of preserving life but by the underlying financial system that will yield profit, either for the supplier or the insurance companies.
Statistically, there is a greater number of over-crowed hospitals than schools. The diseases are getting more complicated, and their treatment equally complex.
Common diseases getting cured have a low hit rate. Rather there is no cure for diseases like cancer, blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, and others. In fact, lifelong medication is the answer, which certainly cannot be categorized as a cure.
So, it is no surprise that the health care system has been clean bowled in its opening challenge of the 21st century.
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