The human and economic impacts of COVID-19 … What should business leaders do now, to support people and society, whilst also sustaining their businesses?

March 26, 2020

It’s a difficult time. All around us, the news updates on television screens and social media are relentless as COVID-19 multiplies across our cities, nations and continents. The human tragedy, concern for our loved ones, frustration at politicians, admiration for health workers, disbelief at those still socialising, adaptation to new routines under quarantine or lockdown, affects us all. As a society there is a huge concern for each other, whilst as business leaders we know we have to keep our businesses going too.

In years to come we will look back, sociologists and economists, at the way in which we behaved, and the positive and negative impacts it had. Questions will rage about the causes and effects. From the impact of climate change and urbanisation that likely sparked the leap of the virus from animal to human, the global connectedness of travellers that accelerated the contagion’s spread, to the panic buying of some, and the total lack of social responsibility of others.

Of course, Bill Gates was right when in his 2015 TED Talk, he argued that the biggest threat to humanity was not economic or conflict, but a global pandemic for which we were woefully unprepared.

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