Big Tech and the coronavirus

Context: Despite benefiting hugely during the crisis, big techs are lacking in their efforts to provide help towards healthcare management and pandemic control.

Opportunistic pandemic for the Big Techs.

• Work from Home: amidst pandemic has made them the clear winners as most of their work is online.
• Beneficiaries of Social distancing norms: 

• Has made e-commerce firms like Amazon the biggest gainers as people avoid going out shopping.
• Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud Services providing Over the Top entertainment at home.

• Rising Wealth: For E.g. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jeff Bezos of Amazon have each seen over $30 billion added to their wealth between mid- March and mid-May.

Certain initiatives by Big Techs during COVID:

• Video-conferencing solutions: and adoption of cloud services has been pushed forward by Microsoft; offering these services to companies fighting at the forefront.
• Contact Tracing: tech is being planned to be dominated by Google and Facebook.
• Production of vaccine: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the biggest funder of the World Health Organization (WHO) and investing in Covid-19 Therapeutic Accelerator.

Inadequate efforts by the Big Techs:

• Failed to check the spread: of the virus in Amazon’s warehouses and is now facing lawsuits.
• Lack of focus in healthcare: A few years ago, Amazon was set out to disrupt healthcare, now it has restricted itself to hiring additional people and donating contributions. 
• Incapable of designing practical solutions: 

• Using AI and robotics to offer solutions in hospitals.
• In developing better PPE or ventilator systems.
• Using big data analytics to develop insights into future protocols.

Conclusion: 

• Caution against the rising power of Tech giants: 

• Privacy concerns: Rising role of Google and other tech firms in developing contact tracing systems affects the privacy of people and put these firm on controlling positions.
• Increase in automation: will give a huge fillip to the detriment of human employees.

• Neglect of healthcare: Government, venture capitalists will also shun healthcare due to increased importance of Industry 4.0 and low profitability in healthcare respectively.