Ask HN: Are you surprised how impotent technology has been with respect to Covid - nangz
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trash3
No. As a young bioinformatician in industry who has to nearly beg for a salary
greater than a PhD stipend for a skill set which would net +30-50% in other
settings with more than a years experience and disproportionate
responsibilities relative to colleagues(who all get paid equally or more for
skills which are more widely available)... I'm trying to leave this field. As
a whole I don't recommend it, and if it's not someone like me doing this work,
then who is.

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082349872349872
Technology has been very potent. WFH would be difficult to impossible without
widespread networking. Home-delivered pasta would have been possible with a
landline, but is still much easier today.

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muzani
I'm not sure where you live but technology has been extremely potent where I
live. We managed to lower one of the most rapidly growing pandemics from 4
digits a day new infections to one. And we also managed to safely get back
into the new normal with no increase in new cases, drive back to the office,
open malls, have gatherings.

A lot of this is via communication, daily press conferences, contact tracking,
rapidly drafting new laws and emergency procedures. 10 years ago, we wouldn't
have been able to effectively work from home. If we were at the tech levels 50
years ago, this would have been a disaster.

And if you think US/Brazil and so on are doing badly, they've still managed to
flatten the curve and ramp up mass manufacturing. A lot of that was done via
citizen campaigns, weeks before governments started to take action. Twitter
may have saved thousands of lives.

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robodale
The fact there are simultaneous vaccines entering final phases of testing as
I'm typing this is breathtaking. These usually take years, decades even.

And Yes, I've really enjoyed getting my food selected, paid, and delivered
from my phone.

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Roybot
what? no.

