Just a few short days ago I doubt we knew quite how life-changing this situation would be. The coronavirus outbreak has become a massive health and economic emergency across the globe. Now, today, we’re coming to terms with the hard realisation that nothing will be the same for quite a long time to come. Not only that, but even after we’ve come out the other side, we’ll be a lot poorer with a lot less high-street names, brands and companies.
Here in the UK some £330 billion has been injected into a sinking economy. Mortgage holidays are being offered, but cafes, bars, theaters, restaurants, coffee shops and other stores have no customers. They’re struggling already and their staff are worried.
Flights are grounded, trains are emptying, roads are becoming quieter. The economic impact
alone is going to be colossal.
A continuous cough will now see your entire household on lock-down for 14 days. It could be a slight cold but it might be more, and it could prevent one or two bread-winners earning properly for a fortnight or more. It also means that companies lose staff who are fit but have to isolate with their family.
People are worried, stressed, anxious and the click-bait media are stoking the flames – hyping the situation into a daily dose of alarming and shocking alerts.
For us at Coolsmartphone, we’ve collectively taken the decision to try and keep our output as “normal” as possible. We all know how serious this situation is – it’s unheard of – but we’re going to try and maintain some essence of normality if we can.
If you’re lucky, you can work from home, but there’s a huge group of people who simply cannot do that. Then there’s another group of people who will have to stay at home and, as the days pass by, I think a lot of us will be in that group at some point.
This, for me, is the hardest part. Working from home or simply spending more time there might sound like a good thing, but if you’re unable to get outside it’ll become almost prison-like very quickly. Maintaining social cohesion and mental health is going to be a challenge.
For other countries across the world – Italy, Spain, France – things have already progressed significantly and the movement of people is becoming severely restricted.
So we’re also going to be concentrating on what you can do at home to maintain some sense of normality and contact with the outside world. To keep physically and mentally active and healthy. We’ll be calling these features “Home Active”, so keep an eye out for them.
If you guys are already in this situation and have anything you’d like to suggest, we’d love to hear from you.