The 2020 DigiTalk

Life some say is not a bed of roses, possibly because roses are generally love and is a symbol of used to show love. But I disagree with that saying and say that life is indeed a bed of roses. Roses as we know do not only have those soft petals that we love but also comes with its leaves and thorns, and 2020 has had it turn with thorns.

courtesy: Wikipedia.org

In 1918, about a century ago, the Spanish flu was said to have infected about 500million people and killed about 17 to 20 million or more people. Now, we know technology then is a far cry from technology now. The health system as the time was not as robust as it is today, communication and transportation were not as developed either. Perhaps with more communication, more and better information might have been given to the people and more preventive measures would have been taken and lives saved, the health systems might have been able to save more if they were what they are today and with better transportation more people might have been able to reach the need hospitals on time.

Today, we have better technology in every aspect of life, communication, with mobile phones and the Internet, transportation, with fast trains, cruise ships and planes, and health with its varied information technology systems. Have these technologies helped us cope better with a pandemic than in 1918? In some way it has especially with fast development of a vaccine for covid-19. However, we should also note that technology has helped the Coronavirus spread even wider than the Spanish flu of 1918. Covid-19 spread very fast mainly because of ease of transportation across the world. With people flying or on a cruise ship, the transmission became very fast and practically shut the world’s economies down unlike the Spanish flu which did not transmit as much nor was the entire world affected.

So what has advances in technology brought us? A fast spread of a virus and a fast development of vaccines to combat the virus.