Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and a love of all things tech. And when I'm
Speaker 1: not staring at my producer, who is steadily nodding off
Speaker 1: at her chair falling asleep as I speak into this microphone,
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you guys about tech and
Speaker 1: critical thinking, compassion and things that are really important to
Speaker 1: me and I hope are important to you. And I
Speaker 1: think it's past time that we have an episode about
Speaker 1: the coronavirus and the disease it causes. That would be
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. And I'm sure most of you are tired
Speaker 1: of hearing about this, but the effects of the pandemic
Speaker 1: are immense, and the tech industry is definitely not exempt
Speaker 1: from those effects. So today we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: the virus itself, the disease it causes, how that's impacting
Speaker 1: the tech industry and beyond. And there's some hopeful stuff
Speaker 1: in here too, as we look at how things are
Speaker 1: shaping up at the time of this recording, which I
Speaker 1: am doing on Friday, the thirteen March But let's start
Speaker 1: off with defining some terms, and will begin with the
Speaker 1: word virus, because heck, we've used that word to describe
Speaker 1: stuff like malware, right, computer viruses. What we call computer
Speaker 1: viruses computer viruses because of how the malware can spread
Speaker 1: in a way that's analoguess, it's not exactly the same,
Speaker 1: but analogous to how something like the coronavirus spreads in
Speaker 1: the flesh and blood world. So what the heck is
Speaker 1: a virus? Well, viruses are actually something of a of
Speaker 1: a puzzler. They are small and simple, and people often
Speaker 1: refer to them as infectious agents. I used to know
Speaker 1: an infectious agent. I won't reterm my calls now. But
Speaker 1: there was confusion over whether or not viruses qualify as
Speaker 1: life forms. It's an ongoing discussion in science, and that's
Speaker 1: largely because viruses are far more simple than most things
Speaker 1: that we would refer to as being alive. Uh. They
Speaker 1: require a host in order to multiply and to generate
Speaker 1: the energy that they need. In order to do this, like,
Speaker 1: they don't have that capability to do it on their own.
Speaker 1: They first have to infect host cells and then hijack
Speaker 1: the host cells of capabilities in order to make more viruses.
Speaker 1: So for some people that's enough to dismiss them as
Speaker 1: qualifying as a living thing. And no, it doesn't qualify
Speaker 1: because it's unable to replicate itself without this host cell structure.
Speaker 1: But other people argue that it's not really as clear
Speaker 1: as all that, And ultimately it also depends upon how
Speaker 1: we define the term life. As it turns out, some
Speaker 1: of these terms are a little trickier to define than others.
Speaker 1: But we can get past this. We can describe what
Speaker 1: viruses are in a more general sense, and viruses consist
Speaker 1: of a shell typically, and inside that shell is either
Speaker 1: DNA or RNA and some proteins. The DNA or RNA
Speaker 1: contained the genetic information unique to that particular strain of virus,
Speaker 1: and that DNA or RNA is also what will start
Speaker 1: synthesizing the protein or proteins that the virus contains. Once
Speaker 1: the virus infects a cell, so speaking of that virus
Speaker 1: is attached to living cells to act as a host,
Speaker 1: and then they essentially inject their innerds that nucleic acid
Speaker 1: and protein into the host cell. The nucleic acid of
Speaker 1: the virus hijacks the host cell dedicates the cell's normal
Speaker 1: functions towards synthesizing proteins and nucleic acids to make more
Speaker 1: of the virus, and it continues to spread that way.
Speaker 1: We typically divide viruses into those that can infect animals, bacteria,
Speaker 1: or plants, but within those classifications or viruses that have
Speaker 1: a limited range of potential hosts. So, for example, some
Speaker 1: viruses might be able to infect certain vertebrates but not others,
Speaker 1: so you can't necessarily have viruses transfer from one species
Speaker 1: to another. That doesn't always work. Viruses are one type
Speaker 1: of infecting agent, but they're not the only one. There's
Speaker 1: also bacterial agents, and those can infect humans and make
Speaker 1: them sick, and bacterial infections are the kind that you
Speaker 1: could treat with something like antibiotics. Those are designed to
Speaker 1: kill the bacteria, but antibiotics are not effective against viral infections. UH.
Speaker 1: This is also why it's important to pay attention to
Speaker 1: the type of stuff you're using. When you're trying to
Speaker 1: sanitize stuff. What you want is something that is labeled
Speaker 1: as antimicrobial or antiseptic, not just antibacterial, because antibacterial may
Speaker 1: not have the ingredients needed to get rid of things
Speaker 1: like a virus. So generally speaking, the rule for the
Speaker 1: coronavirus is, if you're buying hand sanitizer, you want stuff
Speaker 1: that has an alcohol content of at least sixty percent
Speaker 1: to act as an effective way to eliminate the coronavirus
Speaker 1: on surfaces or to clean your hands. That's also why
Speaker 1: there have been some alcohol companies that have mentioned that, hey,
Speaker 1: don't try and use our stuff to clean your hands
Speaker 1: or to clean surfaces, because our alcohol content isn't high
Speaker 1: enough to guarantee that it actually eliminates the coronavirus from
Speaker 1: those surfaces, and you'll be wasting alcohol and you'll be
Speaker 1: getting sick anyway. This is also a good point to
Speaker 1: say antibiotics because they are totally not effective against viruses.
Speaker 1: It's a terrible idea to request them or for doctors
Speaker 1: to prescribe them in the wake of a viral infection,
Speaker 1: because not only are they not effective, but the more
Speaker 1: we use antibiotics, the more likely we are to develop
Speaker 1: strains of bacteria that are resistant to those antibiotics. This
Speaker 1: leads to what we call superbugs. A superbug is a
Speaker 1: type of bacteria or bacterium I should say, that is
Speaker 1: resistant to many of the ways we treat bacterial infections,
Speaker 1: and thus if it were to infect someone, it would
Speaker 1: be very hard to eliminate that infection because the stuff
Speaker 1: we would usually use would be ineffective. That's why we
Speaker 1: want to limit our use of antibiotics and not go
Speaker 1: crazy with them. Now. As I mentioned earlier, the coronavirus
Speaker 1: actually refers to a family of viruses. It's not just
Speaker 1: the infamous one that causes COVID nineteen that's disrupting the
Speaker 1: world as I record this. That's the one that's now
Speaker 1: a pandemic. I'll define pandemic in just a moment. The
Speaker 1: virus family also includes stuff like SARS, another very scary virus,
Speaker 1: but it also has stuff like the common cold, which,
Speaker 1: while irritating, is not necessarily scary. It's more of an inconvenience.
Speaker 1: When we encounter a new virus belonging to this family
Speaker 1: of viruses, we would call it a novel coronavirus, meaning
Speaker 1: a new one one that is uh now found to
Speaker 1: be a human infecting virus that previously we had never
Speaker 1: really observed or identified. We've since given the name of
Speaker 1: this particular novel coronavirus as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus
Speaker 1: two or stars cove to cove would be capital C,
Speaker 1: lower case O capital V. Now I'm going to stick
Speaker 1: with novel coronavirus or just coronavirus or virus for this episode.
Speaker 1: Just know that when I'm using those terms, I'm referring
Speaker 1: to this specific viral strain, and people infected with this
Speaker 1: novel coronavirus develop a particular respiratory disease. That's what COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen is. COVID stands for coronavirus disease, and then the
Speaker 1: nineteen is for two thousand nineteen, because that's when it
Speaker 1: was first observed, right at the very tail end of
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen. And you might also hear another designation
Speaker 1: that means the same thing, which is two thousand nineteen
Speaker 1: dash in c o V. But these are all just
Speaker 1: ways of saying, we found a disease caused by a
Speaker 1: virus that we previously didn't know about. It infects humans,
Speaker 1: it affects us, and it's part of the coronavirus family
Speaker 1: of viruses, and also we found out about it back
Speaker 1: in two thousand nineteen. That's what that name really tells you.
Speaker 1: Doesn't tell you anything useful about the disease itself as
Speaker 1: far as symptoms or treatment. It just tells you what
Speaker 1: family it belongs to and when we discovered it. So
Speaker 1: if none of that gives you useful information as far
Speaker 1: as how infectious the disease is, or how dangerous it
Speaker 1: can be, or what you should do to avoid it,
Speaker 1: or what you should do if you suspect you have it,
Speaker 1: or anything like that, we got to look beyond that.
Speaker 1: So let's get into some more details. And I promise
Speaker 1: I'm going to bring this around to tech, but I
Speaker 1: feel that as a person who has a platform that's
Speaker 1: capable of reaching people, I have a certain responsibility to
Speaker 1: share this information just in case you haven't encountered it
Speaker 1: on your own yet. So I apologize for those of
Speaker 1: you who have read up on this, or I've heard
Speaker 1: numerous other shows, or or you know, any other contact
Speaker 1: you've had that's had a about this. But I want
Speaker 1: to make sure everyone has the information they need to
Speaker 1: kind of understand what this is and how to deal
Speaker 1: with it. Now, I'm gonna start by talking about the
Speaker 1: symptoms of COVID nineteen and how infectious it is and
Speaker 1: what the risks are as I think that's what causes
Speaker 1: a lot of anxiety in general, so it's best to
Speaker 1: cover it first. Now, the two basic symptoms for people
Speaker 1: who get COVID nineteen are a dry cough and a fever.
Speaker 1: There's sometimes also a shortness of breath. That's the third
Speaker 1: one that's fairly common, and that's pretty consistent. Those are
Speaker 1: also symptoms that we tend to find in other diseases,
Speaker 1: so it makes it a little tricky to self diagnose.
Speaker 1: It turns out you might have the common flu, for example,
Speaker 1: and not COVID nineteen, so you can't necessarily be certain
Speaker 1: you've got one thing versus another when the symptoms are
Speaker 1: so similar to each other. COVID nineteen is a pretty
Speaker 1: contagious disease, and it is most easily transferred when someone
Speaker 1: with COVID nineteen is already really sick. And that's largely
Speaker 1: because the sick person tends to cough, and as they
Speaker 1: do so, they propel respiratory droplets into the environment, and
Speaker 1: the virus is inside those droplets. That being said, as
Speaker 1: I record this, we're still learning about this particular virus.
Speaker 1: Doctors estimate that the incubation period that would be the
Speaker 1: length of time between when a person is infected by
Speaker 1: the virus and when they actually start to exhibit symptoms
Speaker 1: of COVID nineteen can be anywhere between one to fourteen days,
Speaker 1: although most estimates focus on around being five days, so
Speaker 1: it's possible that someone can be a carrier for the
Speaker 1: virus but not yet exhibit symptoms for a couple of days.
Speaker 1: People in close proximity or those who come into contact
Speaker 1: with surfaces that get those droplets on them, are in
Speaker 1: danger of catching this disease. This is why you hear
Speaker 1: so much about washing your hands and using hand sanitizer
Speaker 1: and not standing or sitting too close to people in
Speaker 1: general as well. All is why you're told not to
Speaker 1: touch your face, you know, not to transfer this virus
Speaker 1: to say, your mouth, or your eyes or your nose.
Speaker 1: People tend to get infected after they touch surfaces that
Speaker 1: have these droplets on them, and then they end up
Speaker 1: transferring that to their face more often than not, so
Speaker 1: touching the face gives the virus the opportunity to infect
Speaker 1: a new person, and that just means that the virus
Speaker 1: can continue to perpetuate itself. Now that being said, if
Speaker 1: someone is sick, having them wear a mask can help
Speaker 1: them keep from spreading those respiratory droplets to surface around them.
Speaker 1: So masks are really great for people who are already sick,
Speaker 1: but they have a limited usefulness for people who are
Speaker 1: not infected. If you are healthy, wearing a mask does
Speaker 1: not guarantee that you will stay healthy. It doesn't limit
Speaker 1: your exposure to the things that can cause the COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen disease. Uh. It might discourage you from touching your face,
Speaker 1: which is a big part of it that actually, so
Speaker 1: it may help in that way directly. The mask itself
Speaker 1: isn't really providing super protection for you. It may just
Speaker 1: discourage you from doing things that could easily uh cause
Speaker 1: you to transfer the virus to your face. But it
Speaker 1: might also provide a bit of psychological comfort. And while
Speaker 1: it may not serve any real shield purpose for keeping
Speaker 1: you well, psychological comfort can go a long way too.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of us are feeling a lot
Speaker 1: of anxiety, and we're seeking out comfort wherever we can
Speaker 1: get it. As long as we're doing it in a
Speaker 1: way that is not increasing our odds of getting sick,
Speaker 1: I'm generally in favor of that. If it does increase
Speaker 1: your odds of getting sick, not only are you not
Speaker 1: really helping yourself, you're putting yourself more at risk. So
Speaker 1: the disease spreads quickly. But then how deadly is it? Well,
Speaker 1: it's a respiratory illness, and it's more dangerous for the
Speaker 1: elderly and for those with respiratory problems or for those
Speaker 1: who have compromised immune systems. If you are younger and
Speaker 1: generally healthy, catching COVID nineteen would likely be unpleasant, but
Speaker 1: potentially you could treat it through self care at home,
Speaker 1: essentially staying home, staying hydrated, and waiting for the disease
Speaker 1: to run its course, for your immune system to fight
Speaker 1: off the virus. But ideally a medical professional would make
Speaker 1: the determination that you actually have the disease, that you
Speaker 1: have a testing kit of some sort, and that they're
Speaker 1: able to determine whether or not you have it. I
Speaker 1: don't recommend people just decide that they should do any
Speaker 1: sort of self care routine on their own without consulting
Speaker 1: a doctor or nurse or saying, oh, it's probably not
Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen. I should be fine. Getting tested is
Speaker 1: the most important part, and that's something that the United States,
Speaker 1: as I'm recording this is currently trying to get a
Speaker 1: handle on because they were We were woefully unprepared, despite
Speaker 1: the fact that we had a little bit of a
Speaker 1: heads up in this virus as it was breaking out.
Speaker 1: Now that being said, the World Health Organization currently estimates
Speaker 1: the mortality rate for COVID nineteen to be three point
Speaker 1: four percent. That means three point four percent of the
Speaker 1: people who have been diagnosed with COVID nineteen have subsequently died.
Speaker 1: By comparison, the seasonal flu typically has a mortality rate
Speaker 1: of around one percent. So that tells you that COVID nineteen,
Speaker 1: based upon this estimate from the World Health Organization, is
Speaker 1: much more deadly. But that estimate doesn't necessarily reflect reality
Speaker 1: because we don't actually know how many cases of the
Speaker 1: disease there really are out in the world, and without
Speaker 1: knowing that, you can't really draw a conclusion about how
Speaker 1: deadly it is. Because if the disease is far more
Speaker 1: widespread than we thought, and the numbers of those who
Speaker 1: died are still you know, what we believe them to
Speaker 1: be now, it actually means the mortality rate is lower, right,
Speaker 1: because more people have the disease, but fewer people have
Speaker 1: died up from it. So we can't really make a
Speaker 1: definitive conclusion. Now, more than eight percent of those who
Speaker 1: have passed away from this disease where sixty years or older,
Speaker 1: and more than of those who have passed away had
Speaker 1: other health conditions like heart disease that likely played a
Speaker 1: part as well. So it is a very serious disease,
Speaker 1: but it tends to be deadly for people who are
Speaker 1: older or who have these underlying health conditions that can
Speaker 1: also play a role. And as you've likely heard, this
Speaker 1: particular virus was first discovered in Wuhan, China in December nineteen.
Speaker 1: I'll talk more about that process in just a moment,
Speaker 1: but first let's take a quick break. Doctors in Wuhan,
Speaker 1: China noticed an increase in the number of patients who
Speaker 1: are seeking treatment for a respiratory ailment that was similar
Speaker 1: to pneumonia at the very end of and the Chinese
Speaker 1: government confirmed those reports on December thirty one, two thousand nineteen.
Speaker 1: A few days later, Chinese scientists announced they had identified
Speaker 1: a previously unknown virus as the cause of the disease,
Speaker 1: and that they believed the outbreak originated at a fish
Speaker 1: and poultry market in Wuhan. The Chinese media first reported
Speaker 1: on a death caused by this disease on January eleven.
Speaker 1: This was right around a really large holiday in China
Speaker 1: in which lots of people travel, and that gave the
Speaker 1: virus a ton of opportunity to spread to new hosts
Speaker 1: in the process. And I'll talk about how this virus
Speaker 1: spreads further in a bit. By January twenty, we started
Speaker 1: seeing confirmed cases of COVID nineteen outside of China. The
Speaker 1: first places to report their own cases where South Korea, Japan,
Speaker 1: and Thailand. On January twenty one, doctors diagnosed a man
Speaker 1: in Washington State in the United States as having COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: The man had recently returned from Wuhan, China. On January
Speaker 1: twenty three, the Chinese government began to take some pretty
Speaker 1: extreme measures in an effort to contain the spread of
Speaker 1: the coronavirus. The government shut down all traffic going in
Speaker 1: and out of Wuhan and suspended all mass transportation within
Speaker 1: the region. The World Health Organization declared a public health
Speaker 1: emergency of International concern on January as reports of the
Speaker 1: spread of the virus were on the rise. A couple
Speaker 1: of days later, on February second, a forty four year
Speaker 1: old man in the Philippines died after being infected by
Speaker 1: the coronavirus, becoming the first person outside of China to
Speaker 1: die after being infected. One story that got a lot
Speaker 1: of press, understandably so, focused on the Diamond Princess cruise ship,
Speaker 1: which was returning to Japan after a two week trip
Speaker 1: in Southeast Asia. The Jevities government required the passengers, of
Speaker 1: which there were more than thirty six hundred, to go
Speaker 1: into quarantine. A week later, the number of people who
Speaker 1: tested positive for COVID nineteen on that ship were in
Speaker 1: the number of two hundred eighteen people. That made the
Speaker 1: Diamond Princess the largest site of infection outside of China itself.
Speaker 1: Kind of incredible to think that the two leading places
Speaker 1: where people were sick with COVID nineteen where China and
Speaker 1: this cruise ship. On February, the number of deaths in
Speaker 1: China due to COVID nineteen surpassed the number of people
Speaker 1: who had died in the two thousand two and two
Speaker 1: thousand three Stars epidemic. The country had more than forty
Speaker 1: thousand confirmed cases of infection by that point. On February,
Speaker 1: the Chinese government announced that the probable source of the
Speaker 1: virus outbreak came from the pernicious habit of eating wildlife.
Speaker 1: That's a quote from Chinese media. The initial outbreaks all
Speaker 1: seemed to stem from that fish and poultry market in Wuhan.
Speaker 1: On Ferry twenty feet, Iran announced that they there were
Speaker 1: two confirmed cases of people with COVID nineteen in that country.
Speaker 1: Later that same day, the government announced that those two
Speaker 1: patients had passed away, and the outbreak in Iran would
Speaker 1: later become one of the worst that we've seen outside
Speaker 1: of China. Another place that had a really severe outbreak
Speaker 1: and continues to be dealing with that is Italy. In
Speaker 1: mid February, Italy had five confirmed cases, but by February
Speaker 1: the number had grown to one fifty, so it was
Speaker 1: growing super fast, super early. By the end of February,
Speaker 1: cases in Europe were spiking as people were traveling from
Speaker 1: areas of infection back home, spreading the virus as they
Speaker 1: did so. On February twenty nine, the US media reported
Speaker 1: on the first death in America following infection, and the
Speaker 1: global number of cases had reached around eight seven thousand.
Speaker 1: The virus continue to spread rapidly, and on March twelve,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, the World Health Organization proclaimed COVID nineteen a pandemic.
Speaker 1: So what does that actually mean. Well, an epidemic is
Speaker 1: when you have a lot of cases of a specific
Speaker 1: infectious disease in a particular place during a particular time frame.
Speaker 1: So if a massive number of people caught the flu
Speaker 1: in New York City at the same general time, like
Speaker 1: let's say it's in uh, you know, January, then you
Speaker 1: would say there's a flu epidemic in New York City.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a way to describe the severity of
Speaker 1: an outbreak. A pandemic is when you have epidemics of
Speaker 1: the same infectious disease, but they spread across countries or
Speaker 1: even continents. It's a way of classifying the scope and
Speaker 1: scale of the threat. And there's something else I need
Speaker 1: to talk about. So the spread of COVID nineteen is
Speaker 1: a huge problem. For one thing, it poses a real
Speaker 1: threat to the elderly and to those with other medical conditions.
Speaker 1: So while a relatively healthy person like myself might be
Speaker 1: able to weather getting sick and then make a full recovery,
Speaker 1: I would pose a threat to others if I were
Speaker 1: to try and go about my normal routine. While I'm infected,
Speaker 1: my activities could lead to some vulnerable person becoming infected,
Speaker 1: whether directly from me or perhaps someone else I encounter,
Speaker 1: So I have a responsibility to do all I can
Speaker 1: to make sure that doesn't happen. And the other thing
Speaker 1: to keep in mind is that the economic impact of
Speaker 1: the outbreak has been really dramatic on communities all the
Speaker 1: way up to on the global scale. This disease is
Speaker 1: disrupting businesses all down the line, from giant corporations to
Speaker 1: independent small businesses. So it's not an overstatement to say
Speaker 1: that the COVID nineteen pandemic is going to cause many
Speaker 1: businesses to shut down. That's something we can't really ignore either.
Speaker 1: One way to mitigate the spread of this disease is
Speaker 1: through what everyone now calls social distancing. Sometimes they jokingly
Speaker 1: talk about social distancing essentially means that what it sounds like,
Speaker 1: you don't hang out super close to other people, and
Speaker 1: if it's possible, you don't really go into large shared
Speaker 1: public spaces with a lot of folks, like you don't
Speaker 1: go to a lot of big gatherings of people. And
Speaker 1: this removes people from areas where the virus can easily
Speaker 1: spread from person to person. It decreases the length of
Speaker 1: the outbreak as a result, because the virus won't have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to spread person to person if people aren't
Speaker 1: gathering together. And that's what we've seen in China. The
Speaker 1: government imposed some pretty extreme restrictions in an effort to
Speaker 1: reverse the trajectory of this disease, and it worked. It
Speaker 1: was really extreme, but at worked. We started seeing the
Speaker 1: number of new cases of COVID nineteen in China go
Speaker 1: down day to day as opposed to increase. So while
Speaker 1: there were still people who are catching the disease or
Speaker 1: exhibiting the symptoms of COVID nineteen are being diagnosed as
Speaker 1: having COVID nineteen, that number was decreasing day by day.
Speaker 1: That's what you want to see, you want to That's
Speaker 1: why they talk about flattening the curve. You want to
Speaker 1: get away from having a larger number the next day
Speaker 1: than you had the day before. And that brings us
Speaker 1: to the concept of teleworking, which plays very directly into tech.
Speaker 1: Tech is one of the things that enables the possibility
Speaker 1: of teleworking for people. There's been a lot of companies
Speaker 1: that are offering at least some employees the option to
Speaker 1: tell a work. Some companies are mandating that employees stay
Speaker 1: home and tell a work. I think anyone who can
Speaker 1: tell a work should do it. Not just so that
Speaker 1: these teleworkers can avoid getting sick, but that is really important.
Speaker 1: I don't want anyone to get sick. But also there
Speaker 1: are millions of people who will not have this luxury.
Speaker 1: They will not have the option to tell work. They
Speaker 1: there are companies that might not offer them the opportunity.
Speaker 1: They may not offer paid sickly, they may not allow
Speaker 1: workers to stay home and still collect a paycheck. And
Speaker 1: so the economic realities mean that many of these people
Speaker 1: can't afford to not go into work. If they don't
Speaker 1: go into work, they don't get paid. If they don't
Speaker 1: get paid, they can't pay their bills. A lot of
Speaker 1: people are in this position. So for those of us
Speaker 1: who can tell a work, we absolutely should do that.
Speaker 1: In part to protect all the who don't have this option,
Speaker 1: we should reduce the chance that an already vulnerable population
Speaker 1: gets exposed to this virus. Stopping the spread of the
Speaker 1: disease is a collective effort. So those of us privileged
Speaker 1: with options have a responsibility to take those options on
Speaker 1: behalf of the people who don't have that choice. All
Speaker 1: right now, now I'm done being on my soapbox. Let's
Speaker 1: turn specifically to tech. Meanwhile, there are chief information officers
Speaker 1: and chief technology officers and companies all around the world
Speaker 1: who are scrambling and working very hard to try and
Speaker 1: create solutions for employees so that one they can stay
Speaker 1: safe and too that the company can remain in business.
Speaker 1: I don't want to suggest that all companies are in
Speaker 1: their hearts, you know, deeply concerned about the fate of
Speaker 1: their employees. I'm sure many of them are, but I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's some companies that are mostly concerned with how
Speaker 1: can we make sure this has the smallest economic impact
Speaker 1: on our business as possible, And that's how they're framing it.
Speaker 1: Either way, there are a lot of smart people out
Speaker 1: there trying to come up with solutions to let people
Speaker 1: work from home and not be around everybody else. So
Speaker 1: how has the spread of COVID nineteen impacted the tech
Speaker 1: world in particular? Well, it's been pretty dramatic. I guess
Speaker 1: I could say there's some effects that are definitely very
Speaker 1: very visible, such as large conferences and festivals canceling or
Speaker 1: postponing until later in the year. But that's just part
Speaker 1: of it. We're going to start with that though, because
Speaker 1: they are high profile examples of how the coronavirus is
Speaker 1: disrupting the tech industry. And keep in mind, a lot
Speaker 1: of this is going to apply to industries as a rule,
Speaker 1: not just the tech world. Lots of industries have canceled events,
Speaker 1: and we're seeing it go well beyond that now. Obviously,
Speaker 1: sporting events have been canceled, Musical festivals have been canceled,
Speaker 1: so this goes well beyond just the tech world. But
Speaker 1: one of the earliest events to get the acts was
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty Mobile World Congress or m w C.
Speaker 1: The organizers announced that their decision in early February, at
Speaker 1: a time when some parts of the world, particularly parts
Speaker 1: of the United States, you had people wondering what the
Speaker 1: big deal was. You had folks saying like, I don't
Speaker 1: see how risky this is to me. It seems weird
Speaker 1: that you would cancel this event. It was supposed to
Speaker 1: take place between February and February in Barcelona, Spain, but uh,
Speaker 1: it didn't got canceled. In The Mobile World Congress is
Speaker 1: a trade show that focuses on the mobile communications industry,
Speaker 1: so stuff like smartphones, which I would argue makes it
Speaker 1: really really imperative to not hold that event. People handling
Speaker 1: a smartphone could end up passing the virus from one
Speaker 1: person to the next, or till lots of people because
Speaker 1: these smartphones would be handed around like craziest people are
Speaker 1: taking looks at the newest and latest and greatest technologies.
Speaker 1: That also reminds me that when you're cleaning your hands
Speaker 1: and stuff, you also want to occasionally really clean your smartphone,
Speaker 1: like really use an antiseptic cleaner to to clean that screen,
Speaker 1: because that is a magnet for um for for bad stuff. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the g s m A, which is the organization that
Speaker 1: organizes the Mobile World Congress, called it off no pun
Speaker 1: intended after several high profile companies had already pulled out
Speaker 1: the event out of concern regarding the virus. So in
Speaker 1: some ways you could say the g s m A
Speaker 1: was being really proactive, and otherwise you might say that
Speaker 1: they didn't have much of a choice because some very big,
Speaker 1: big companies had already said that they weren't going to attend.
Speaker 1: And at some point you have have to ask yourself,
Speaker 1: do I have enough exhibitors here to hold an event.
Speaker 1: Either way, they made the decision to cancel. It's not
Speaker 1: an easy one to make. We saw the same thing
Speaker 1: happen to E three. That's a trade show that was
Speaker 1: supposed to happen later this year and now has been canceled.
Speaker 1: That video game trade show is the one that takes
Speaker 1: place in Los Angeles, California, each year, and that conference
Speaker 1: was already struggling after some changes to its format. There
Speaker 1: was a data breach scandal in which thousands of attendees,
Speaker 1: including developers and journalists, had their personal information leaked on
Speaker 1: the internet. Some of those people ended up having to
Speaker 1: change their phone numbers and get new email addresses as
Speaker 1: a result of that because they were getting harassed, and
Speaker 1: essentially it was equivalent to getting docked. It was terrible,
Speaker 1: and there was also a general trend of companies declining
Speaker 1: to participate in E three in favor of holding their
Speaker 1: own events, either in person or online. So the coronavirus
Speaker 1: was another blow to E three, and there was a
Speaker 1: lot of talk in the that, you know, the companies
Speaker 1: that were still planning on attending, we're starting to think
Speaker 1: about withdrawing. And so the e s A, the organization
Speaker 1: that throws Z three that organizes it, made the decision
Speaker 1: to cancel the conference entirely this year. That's actually led
Speaker 1: to a lot of folks in the games industry and
Speaker 1: the game's journalism industry to wonder if E three will
Speaker 1: be able to recover from this, because again, it was
Speaker 1: already the subject of controversy and scrutiny leading up to
Speaker 1: the cancelation, So there's some people wondering will it come
Speaker 1: back for one or is this the nail in the
Speaker 1: coffin Sticking with games, companies like Sony and Facebook and
Speaker 1: a few others pulled out of the Game Developers Conference
Speaker 1: or g d C, and as that name implies, this
Speaker 1: is an annual conference that brings together game developers from
Speaker 1: around the world. The g d C event typically includes
Speaker 1: an award show, some networking events, and some workshops where
Speaker 1: developers can learn new skills and share their expertise. The
Speaker 1: organizers decided to cancel the planned in person g DC
Speaker 1: event for and instead pivot into a virtual conference where
Speaker 1: developers will be able to connect in online sessions. Then
Speaker 1: they later announced that they planned to hold an in
Speaker 1: person event in August in San Francisco as a sort
Speaker 1: of makeup date for the original g d C. Speaking
Speaker 1: of developer conferences, Apple has also canceled their in person
Speaker 1: Worldwide Developer Conference or w w d e C. That's
Speaker 1: one of the big events that Apple holds each year. Now. Ostensibly,
Speaker 1: the w w DC is meant to give developers hands
Speaker 1: on time with Apple technologies so that developers can go
Speaker 1: on to make the next generation of OS and iOS apps,
Speaker 1: and that definitely happens, and it is a big deal.
Speaker 1: But Apple also uses the w w d C to
Speaker 1: unveil cool new products and features and technologies, so there
Speaker 1: is a big pr element to this event as well.
Speaker 1: But then it's Apple. And besides, everyone does this now
Speaker 1: to some extent, so I can't really, you know, throw
Speaker 1: shaded Apple, because plenty of other companies like Google do
Speaker 1: the same thing. Like the g d C, Apple has
Speaker 1: moved its plans to an all online format. All the
Speaker 1: way that they pitch it sounds like that was the
Speaker 1: plan all along. It wasn't, but that's how it's coming
Speaker 1: across in some of the the press releases. The Apple
Speaker 1: event doesn't happen until June, which when you think about
Speaker 1: that that this is an event that wasn't even scheduled
Speaker 1: to happen until June. You can realize that this is
Speaker 1: a nod to the fact that we really don't know
Speaker 1: how long it's gonna take for us to get a
Speaker 1: handle on this coronavirus outbreak, which is a sobering thought,
Speaker 1: you know, the possibility that we could still be dealing
Speaker 1: with it as late as June. Of One enormous event
Speaker 1: that got the axe was south By Southwest in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 1: This ten day festival is famous for bringing in thousands
Speaker 1: of people into the city and has tracks of programming
Speaker 1: for the tech sector, for filmmakers, and for music, and
Speaker 1: the organizers had to make this tough decision to cancel
Speaker 1: the whole thing. And this was an enormous blow to
Speaker 1: Austin and to the folks who were banking on south By,
Speaker 1: as the cool kids say, as a way of getting
Speaker 1: attention and investments. South buys where Twitter got its first
Speaker 1: serious attention, you know, before anyone knew what it was.
Speaker 1: It kind of got a splash at a south By.
Speaker 1: Numerous apps, some of them are worth billion of dollars today.
Speaker 1: We're first really unveiled at a previous South Buy and
Speaker 1: filmmakers compete to have their works screened at this festival,
Speaker 1: and that's a big deal because if you land it,
Speaker 1: if you get a screening for your film at south By,
Speaker 1: there's the possibility that a distributor might pick up your
Speaker 1: movie and give it a wider distribution and then suddenly
Speaker 1: millions of people can see your film. So having the
Speaker 1: festival get canceled means these filmmakers lose out on that opportunity. Now,
Speaker 1: all that being said, I think canceling the event was
Speaker 1: the right thing to do because we're in a pandemic,
Speaker 1: even though it means that you know, musicians would lose gigs.
Speaker 1: Austin is going to have a major setback because a
Speaker 1: lot of businesses depend upon South Buy for helping out
Speaker 1: with their annual revenue. So it shows that just because
Speaker 1: the decision is the right one, because public health is
Speaker 1: most important, it doesn't mean that the decision is an
Speaker 1: easy one. And I don't want to say like, well,
Speaker 1: of course they went with this or that should have
Speaker 1: been the case all along. It's not that easy of
Speaker 1: a decision as it turns out. All right, I'm going
Speaker 1: to take another quick break because I'm getting tongue tied.
Speaker 1: But when we come back, we'll talk about a few
Speaker 1: more cancelations and then other effects that the coronavirus has
Speaker 1: had on the tech sector. Okay, guys, we're not done
Speaker 1: with cancel culture just yet. And no, I didn't come
Speaker 1: up with that joke. That joke has been done a
Speaker 1: billion times. You're probably all tired of it, but I
Speaker 1: figured I had to get my version in there too.
Speaker 1: So Google has canceled both the Google News Initiative Global
Speaker 1: Summit and the Google Io Developer Event. I O is
Speaker 1: uh the one where Google will unveil new products, new
Speaker 1: services and give developers sort of a boot camp approach
Speaker 1: to how to use Google technology to build apps and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Facebook canceled a marketing of event and
Speaker 1: then went on and took a bigger step and canceled
Speaker 1: their F eight conference, So that's not happening anymore. IBM
Speaker 1: s Think Conference, which I have attended in the past,
Speaker 1: has also been canceled, although now IBM plans a digital
Speaker 1: event in its place. I haven't heard more about that yet,
Speaker 1: but I'm excited to learn exactly what that means. Just
Speaker 1: before I came in to record this episode, I saw
Speaker 1: news that Microsoft has now canceled it's Build conference also
Speaker 1: for developers. That one was originally scheduled to happen in
Speaker 1: Seattle on May nineteen through the twenty one, and there
Speaker 1: are lots of others. There's the Adobe Summit, which takes
Speaker 1: place in Las Vegas at the end of March. Now
Speaker 1: it's going to be an online only event. There's def
Speaker 1: Con China, which was supposed to happen in Beijing in April,
Speaker 1: but now that's being postponed. Uh. There's the Red Hat
Speaker 1: Summit twenty twenty that's been converted into an online event.
Speaker 1: The list goes on and on. Now there are a
Speaker 1: few conferences that, at least as of the time of
Speaker 1: this recording, are still scheduled. Some were already slated for
Speaker 1: later in the year, so presumably will be on the
Speaker 1: other side of the pandemic by then and it won't
Speaker 1: be an issue. These include things like the Cisco Live event,
Speaker 1: which happens at the end of May in Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: which might be a bit ambitious, or the Oracle Code
Speaker 1: one event that's currently scheduled for September. By the time
Speaker 1: you hear this podcast, some of those details may have changed,
Speaker 1: so if you were planning on attending a specific conference
Speaker 1: or event or festival, make sure you look into it
Speaker 1: to see if it's still scheduled or maybe if something
Speaker 1: has changed. And of course the tech events again are
Speaker 1: just one victim of the spread of COVID nineteen. Lots
Speaker 1: of other large gatherings, from music festivals to sporting events
Speaker 1: have likewise been canceled, postponed, or otherwise affected. So those
Speaker 1: are the big, big profile ways that the COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: disease and the coronavirus have impacted technology, but there are
Speaker 1: lots of other ones that may not be quite as
Speaker 1: visible depending on where you are. For example, over in China,
Speaker 1: this was very visible if you were in China, stores
Speaker 1: were closing, some of them were closing before any sort
Speaker 1: of mandates were being listed from a government perspective, But
Speaker 1: we're coming from a corporate perspective. Apple, for example, closed
Speaker 1: its stores in Chinese cities fairly early on, but let
Speaker 1: me get back to that a little bit later. And
Speaker 1: you also saw companies like Tesla, Samsung, Microsoft, and Google
Speaker 1: closing offices and manufacturing facilities in China, and an effort
Speaker 1: to mitigate the spread of the disease and this is
Speaker 1: where we get back into the whole issue with supply chains. Now,
Speaker 1: I've talked about supply chains a lot in recent tech
Speaker 1: stuff episodes, but generally speaking, we're talking about the sequence
Speaker 1: of components and events that have to happen in order
Speaker 1: for us to get access to the X that we want, right,
Speaker 1: because different parts of those products are made in different
Speaker 1: manufacturing facilities, many of them, in fact, I'd argue most
Speaker 1: of them are in China. So if you look at
Speaker 1: a smartphone, then a couple of manufacturing facilities are going
Speaker 1: to be responsible for the vast majority of all the
Speaker 1: pieces that come together to make that smartphone work. And
Speaker 1: while most of those facilities are not located in Wuhan,
Speaker 1: they're actually located in other areas of China. It was
Speaker 1: this disease was still impacting the whole operation of getting
Speaker 1: those components manufactured and assembled into final products. So part
Speaker 1: of that was because the disease was, you know, going
Speaker 1: outside Wuhan, although China was doing its best to contain
Speaker 1: the disease as fast as possible, and that meant that
Speaker 1: companies needed to shut things down in order to prevent
Speaker 1: the spread from getting even worse. Another part of it
Speaker 1: is that Wuhan is part of the the shipping chain
Speaker 1: for stuff coming out of China. So while it wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily being manufactured there, a lot of the shipping goes
Speaker 1: through Wuhan, and with so much of the population essentially
Speaker 1: out of commission, that meant that it can no longer
Speaker 1: really fill that role. The result for the rest of
Speaker 1: the world is that we either have seen or we
Speaker 1: will see shortages in certain products as we wait for
Speaker 1: this supply chain and shipping chain to ramp back up
Speaker 1: after the you know, the outbreak has sort of subsided
Speaker 1: in China, so it's kind of a on a delay
Speaker 1: timer if you think about it, because it's going to
Speaker 1: take a while for those effects to get to the
Speaker 1: point where we can notice them. And honestly, right now
Speaker 1: we've got other concerns on our hands which we should
Speaker 1: be washing. But you get it right, like you could
Speaker 1: expect there to be shortages and things like computers or
Speaker 1: smartphones or tablets or other electronics because the places that
Speaker 1: are responsible for putting them together have been shut down
Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks. So that's one way that
Speaker 1: we've seen the impact on the tech industry. Um another
Speaker 1: is that a lot of companies have put in travel
Speaker 1: restrictions to parts of the world, including China. In fact,
Speaker 1: primarily China. That was more of an effort to prevent
Speaker 1: the outbreak from expanding beyond China. Unfortunately, that didn't really
Speaker 1: matter because if you look at the timeline, there are
Speaker 1: there are tools online, by the way, where you can
Speaker 1: look at the spread of the disease as an animated map,
Speaker 1: and it's remarkable how quickly it spreads. So as it
Speaker 1: turns out that limiting employees traveling to China probably helps
Speaker 1: slow down the spread of the disease, but it didn't
Speaker 1: stop it. I mean, it's everywhere now, and in fact,
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons why I find travel bands
Speaker 1: at this point point to be a little um useless,
Speaker 1: not even counterproductive. It's not necessarily counterproductive. Maybe in some
Speaker 1: cases it is, but it's it's more like the saying
Speaker 1: of you shut the barn door after the horse has
Speaker 1: already gotten out. Well, that's saying, you know, summarizes it right.
Speaker 1: The problem is there. The problem. The problem is that
Speaker 1: the horse is no longer in the barn. It doesn't
Speaker 1: help you to shut the barn door after the horse
Speaker 1: has already gotten out well. The disease is now worldwide,
Speaker 1: so banning travel to certain areas doesn't necessarily stop the
Speaker 1: spread the disease. Social distancing will do much more than
Speaker 1: just you know, trying to feel like that that you know,
Speaker 1: you don't go to China anymore, you don't go to
Speaker 1: Europe anymore. That's not going to be nearly as effective. Now.
Speaker 1: I did say at the beginning that there's some better news,
Speaker 1: and part of that better news is that, as I
Speaker 1: said earlier, China has observed a decrease in the number
Speaker 1: of cases day to day, like a number of cases
Speaker 1: diagnosed day to day, and it indicates that the country
Speaker 1: has started to really get a grip on the disease
Speaker 1: outbreak and that it may be on the downside of
Speaker 1: an epidemic, and that as a result, some companies like
Speaker 1: Apple are starting to reopen their operations because the risk
Speaker 1: of the spread of infection has now declined. We are
Speaker 1: seeing it kind of fade away, so that that's encouraging,
Speaker 1: not just because we're going to have our tech. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's kind of superficial to say, like, oh good, I
Speaker 1: will be able to get my smartphone or whatever. But
Speaker 1: more that we know we can defeat this if we
Speaker 1: take the proper precautions, if we take the right course
Speaker 1: of action. Unfortunately, that means having to disrupt our lives
Speaker 1: in the short term, but it means that we decrease
Speaker 1: the length of time that we have to deal with
Speaker 1: this in the long term. So if we do practice
Speaker 1: this social distancing, if we do practice good hygiene, if
Speaker 1: we do make sure that we sequester ourselves, if we
Speaker 1: if we pick up that we've got some symptoms and
Speaker 1: then we go get tested and it comes up positive
Speaker 1: as COVID nineteen, if we quarantine ourselves so that we
Speaker 1: don't infect others, we can slow down and stop the
Speaker 1: spread of this virus and thus reverse this course of action.
Speaker 1: If we don't do that, if we continue to try
Speaker 1: and go on as business as usual, and we're like
Speaker 1: keep a stiff upper lip and you know, you go
Speaker 1: to work even if you're sick. If we try and
Speaker 1: muscle through that, and some of us don't have the
Speaker 1: options of others as I mentioned earlier, But if we
Speaker 1: go with that route, then we're just going to see
Speaker 1: this outbreak get worse and worse until it gets about
Speaker 1: as bad as it possibly can be and while many
Speaker 1: of us, in fact most of us will be able
Speaker 1: to get to the other side of it after just
Speaker 1: being sick for a couple of weeks, a lot of
Speaker 1: people won't and that and that alone should be enough
Speaker 1: for us to say, we need to make sure we're
Speaker 1: making the right choices so that we are not putting
Speaker 1: other people in danger. So that's what I wanted to
Speaker 1: really stress. And we're going to continue to see the
Speaker 1: repercussions of this illness throughout all of the economy, not
Speaker 1: just the tech sector. But it's going to be something
Speaker 1: that is uh going to be felt for a long
Speaker 1: time because it's going to start companies having deeper conversations
Speaker 1: about what to do in these sort of events, to
Speaker 1: have kind of a disaster preparedness policy and play so
Speaker 1: that employees can remain safe and productive. If you don't
Speaker 1: have safe employees, then you can't do your business anyway.
Speaker 1: So even from a business perspective, if you just want
Speaker 1: to be cynical, it makes sense. It also means that
Speaker 1: we're getting people discussing things like like healthcare policies here
Speaker 1: in the United States. That is a huge topic of discussion.
Speaker 1: As we are also in an election year, and in
Speaker 1: an election year, you've got candidates who are arguing about
Speaker 1: the best approach toward healthcare. This particular outbreak has highlighted
Speaker 1: some let's call them deficiencies in US healthcare policy. And
Speaker 1: there's not not total agreement on what the right course
Speaker 1: of action is, but a lot of people say something
Speaker 1: needs to be done. An increasing number of people say
Speaker 1: that tech may play a part in that when we
Speaker 1: finally see some changes coming down the line. It certainly
Speaker 1: has the capacity to But ultimately, I want all of
Speaker 1: you guys out there to be safe. I want you
Speaker 1: to be healthy. I want you to be as careful
Speaker 1: as you can be in an effort to not get
Speaker 1: sick and not to spread the disease to other people.
Speaker 1: And I want you to send me ideas for future episodes,
Speaker 1: things that maybe are a little more lighthearted or just
Speaker 1: something that you've always been curious about in the world
Speaker 1: of tech. So if you have a suggestion for a
Speaker 1: future topic of tech Stuff, reach out to me on
Speaker 1: Facebook or Twitter. The handle we use at both is
Speaker 1: text stuff h s W and I'll talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon. Tex Stuff is an I Heart radio production.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.