Not the usual editorial today due to the holidays and hope that you managed to enjoy! We’d like to take this opportunity to reflect on the meaning of each.
Passover is the celebration of a people’s escape from bondage, led by Moses. Do we really need to draw parallels to the overarching intrusions and controls presently in our lives that both governments and tech are now enacting, globally?
How many times have we heard lately that the world will never be the same again? Time will tell, and important to see how habits have changed in the relatively short amount of time that has elapsed since the onset of the Wuhan virus panic.
People are working, eating – and cooking – more at home. Many restaurants have shuttered – some, at least, only temporarily – and we suppose that there’s just so much McDonald’s and pizza one can consume on a daily basis. Don’t have mad skills in the kitchen? As we mentioned last week, Blue Apron’s stock suddenly soared. We’ve also noticed more FreshDirect trucks on the street, and no surprise that Instacart is hiring 300,000 grocery shoppers (although, workers protest at Instacart, Amazon and Whole Foods for health protections and hazard pay, reports the Washington Post). People are presumably cooking and note to self: there will always be businesses that do well, as conditions and circumstances change and also note, re the WaPost piece: “Grocery store, delivery and warehouse workers have unprecedented leverage to demand better working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic because their labor has become essential for millions of Americans.”
In a world turned upside down and gripped with panic, we thought we’d point out a few pieces of information that you might have missed, and a few potential opportunities that you may be missing:
Evidence over hysteria — COVID-19. Keep calm and carry on, and if you’re constantly checking the somewhat sensationalist Johns Hopkins bubble map, this is a must read.
FYI: the headline is a reference to a poem by Ogden Nash:
A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, “let us flee!”
“Let us fly!” said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.
The Wuhan Flu has certainly been consuming the headlines globally and we all know the drill: wash your hands often with soap and water (using hand sanitizers does have consquences) avoid large crowds (is it canceled yet? your list of cancelled large industry events); companies are encouraging employees to cancel non-essential travel; dispense with hand-shaking as a salutatory greeting, hide under your desk and cover your head, in case of a nuclear attack…