The healthcare crisis brought on by the coronavirus pandemic
has forced the nation to accept new standards of doing things, from people
being encouraged to telecommute, to bars and restaurants in conservative states
like Texas and Kentucky being allowed to deliver alcohol to patrons in the
safety of their own homes. If necessity is the mother of invention, then a
global pandemic is the mother of modernization.
We have watched the United States, like other democratic countries
in the world, undergo an unprecedented shift in the curbing of individual rights
in the interest of public safety. Right along with that, there’s been a
dramatic shift in how business is being done, services are being delivered, and
how government is operating. This ground shift has led to an upending of norms
in just about every industry and societal system, which begs the question, why haven’t
we adopted these changing norms all along despite having the capability to do
so?
During every biennial legislative session in the Texas
legislature, we routinely hear horror stories of people who travel hundreds of
miles to show up to testify on a bill, only to be held up at the Capitol until
the wee hours of the morning, as legislative committees endure the drudgery of
marathon hearings. Similarly, working class citizens are routinely hard pressed
to show up for City Council meetings or public hearings that take place smack
in the middle of the workday in Downtown, making it impossible for a staggering
number of the population to ever make it before their elected representatives
to present their case.
It’s time for America to accept these critical lessons as a
clarion call that we heed by adapting these new norms, which will help
transform our society as we approach the 2nd quarter of the 21st
century. To achieve this transition, we must build a robust online security
infrastructure, which leverages blockchain technology and the latest security
tools to help protect basic online transactions. The federal government should
similarly build a secure internet system to support every level of government,
which would provide a platform and portal through which smaller local
governments can process their transactions and also backup their systems, helping
them avoid breaches by nefarious online actors that have become all too common.
Taking these foundational steps will help us build a
platform through which we can fundamentally modernize government at every level,
and adopt a new standard where online and technology supported systems are the
primary option for everything from car registration to voting, with manual/hard
copy serving as a backup system for redundancy and security. This would speed
up the process of helping smaller governmental entities better serve their
constituents, operate more efficiently, and increase their capabilities. Within
the next five years, all public meetings by governmental and quasi-governmental
entities should be accessible online, with key witnesses and stakeholders being
able to provide testimony via teleconferencing. Furthermore, citizens will be
able to conduct more transactions online, saving them time and making
government more accessible.
Earlier this week, in a fell swoop Texas’ governor Greg
Abbott waived the physical meeting requirement of the Texas Open Meetings Act,
allowing political bodies and governmental agencies to conduct their meetings
via teleconference. Similarly, at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak,
major universities all over the country promptly announced they would be moving
all courses online for the remainder of the semester. Public school districts
have also begun following suit with several transitioning to online virtual
learning. One issue that this transition online will undoubtedly make glaring
is the digital divide that has existed and become further exacerbated over the
last five years, as technological advances were made with 4-G and recently 5-G.
Notwithstanding, public K-12 education should immediately
shift all curriculum design to include an online track for parents to follow,
which would also be a backup for students to fall back on during illnesses,
seasonal disease outbreak, and other emergencies. Higher education should
increasingly shift to an online model, with students only being compelled to classroom
attendance for exams and laboratory exercises. Furthermore, universities and
colleges need to make emergency preparedness a standard part of the education
degree (minor) offerings for their social and natural science departments, so
that we have more localized expertise that can step up in times of crisis.
On the industry side, telecommuting for work should become a
readily acceptable work model, particularly during seasonal health outbreaks,
natural disasters, and other man-made disruptions. We now see the critical need
to possess internal manufacturing capacity, as supply chains have been
significantly strained, first by China’s slowdown following the outbreak, and
now due to restrictions on public movement. We need to invest more
significantly in 3-D manufacturing, light manufacturing, and small-scale
personal manufacturing capability. We also need to incentivize the local
manufacturing of critical goods that are essential in crises situations,
particularly medical equipment, sanitary goods, and non-perishable food items.
The healthcare industry needs to shift its model to one
primarily reliant on telemedicine for routine patient visits, non-critical
emergencies, and continuous care. Through existing available technology,
doctors can issue prescriptions online for patients, and pharmacies would be
able to deliver to prescriptions to patients who are immobile. Additionally, we
need to have a public health option that serves as an appendage to the existing
private healthcare system.
We should further consider setting up an Emergency Disaster
Preparedness fund for every American. This can be done in the modified form of
a universal basis income, which provides one-time payments to every adult American
at age 20, 35, and 50, which will be in a restricted account that accrues over
time and can only be accessed during federally declared disasters. This in
effect sets up a personal disaster escrow account, which is invested on behalf
of every American, can be easily accessed when affected individuals are
experiencing a disaster without need for action by Congress or the federal
government having to spend money it does not have budgeted.
Laolu Davies-Yemitan is a real estate broker
and developer who specializes in housing, multifamily development, and urban
revitalization. He editorializes on issues related to affordable housing, real
estate markets, and public policy. LaoluD.blogspot.com;
Twitter: @laoludavies
