As the world raced to contain COVID-19, it effectively launched a necessary but costly experiment: Move all possible economic activity online to flatten the pandemic’s curve and save lives. But digitally recreating the economy-as-usual has its limits and the “Great Lockdown” comes with devastating economic costs.
States are now rushing to reopen to mitigate the damage, but that could come with enormous consequences for public health. The U.S. is missing clear-eyed, data-driven policies for lifting the lockdown that respect American principles. We are not learning from the experiences of South Korea, Singapore and, most notably, China, where technology has been essential to identifying infection hotspots and contact tracing and determining mobility of citizens.
Domestically, Google and Apple have launched a collaborative initiative to start on contact tracing in the U.S., with requisite privacy protections; but without policy guidance and stewardship, these private initiatives, while laudable, will produce errors as people go to work based on partial data. Government leadership is needed to coordinate a public-private partnership using such tools — and mandate, if necessary. Tech companies and policymakers must coalesce to win public trust in technology.
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In addition to contract tracing, the digital experience needs fixing. Even as companies slowly return to business as usual, we’ll continue to see record numbers of people working remotely for the foreseeable future. During the peak of the surge, web traffic in San Francisco alone increased over 48 percent since the beginning of 2020. And while the internet has mostly held up, 88 out of the most populous cities critical to American productivity experienced a network slowdown by the end of March. San Jose, New York, Austin, Charlotte, Washington D.C. and Houston experienced an unacceptable 24-44 percent decline in internet speed. In aggregate, this will have significant economic costs. City governments should work with large employers to coordinate and prioritize peak-time use, much in the way municipal authorities plan for snow removal, re-routing of vehicles and synchronizing traffic lights to streamline commutes.
In some states, schools will remain closed through the end of the school year, meaning students will continue to rely on accessing WiFi from home. Poorer neighborhoods, populated by those without the luxury of knowledge-based white-collar jobs and where internet activity is the weakest, will continue to struggle. Governments can start remedying this by extending an idea from a Federal Communications commissioner and prioritizing hotspots for loans to enhance last-mile access to all disadvantaged communities, their schools and other providers.
In addition, with broadband access among the most expensive in the world, subsidies are needed to compensate for this ugly American reality. While cable and telecom companies have agreed to defer fee payments and even raise data caps temporarily, these periods have to be lengthened and the fees reduced indefinitely until there is clarity on lifting of restrictions.
And while government stimulus checks have started to hit bank accounts, those who need the most help from the $2 trillion stimulus package will get it last as the most disadvantaged are on the wrong side of the digital divide. Individuals and families without a significant digital footprint – e.g. electronic banking, electronic tax payment, digital financial services – will be at the back of the queue. What is needed is a government audit to evaluate gig and contract workers’ digital capabilities and tailor payments accordingly. Ninety-six percent of Americans have cellphones and 81 percent have smartphones; so that’s a place to start.
Finally, remember that the U.S. economy is still tied to others. Many services essential for American employees, from payroll to health benefits, are handled by workers in other countries. A third of India’s IT workers are forced to go into their offices despite India’s country-wide lockdown to keep these benefits running. As the federal government eases domestic lockdown, U.S. policymakers can enact new rules to also ease requirements built into offshoring contracts, which require back office workers to physically go into dedicated offshore development centers. But they must be creative in preserving confidentiality and addressing other concerns.
It is an abomination that we lost time in the U.S., and thousands of lives, thanks to ignorance and arrogance. This needs to change now, but we can’t rush into reopening states haphazardly. While we flatten the pandemic’s curve, we must act to minimize the flattening of the economy. Technology is no silver bullet, but it’s the only tether holding that economy together – so let’s focus here. Yes, there is a smarter way to get into and out of a lockdown.
Bhaskar Chakravorti is dean of global business at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is founding executive director of Fletcher’s Institute for Business in the Global Context, where he has led the Digital Planet research initiative for a decade.
