Photo: Pixabay
On March 11th, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. On March 13th, a US national emergency was declared over the novel coronavirus outbreak. Many companies, large and small, have offered employees the option of working from home, which is turn is a welcome change for many. After all, your office chair is now your couch, your commute is just across the hallway, you don’t have to race to the coffee pot anymore, and you now have the liberty to blast your favorite music or swear out loud without running into the risk of getting a memo! Wow, that all sounds great, but the reality is that life will soon start feeling monotonous, many will miss the social life that comes with the office setting, and more importantly, the fine line between work and personal time will eventually disappear. But as humans, we learn to adapt to situations, and who knows this might change from option to necessity if the only way to beat the virus is by instantiating stay-at-home directives. Imagine, the entire country, and possibly the entire world, going into a lockdown, even for just a few weeks. In order to work from home, we need a fast and reliable internet connection. Are we ready? Do we have the infrastructure in place? How many of us have an internet subscription, let alone a broadband?
Photo: Pixabay
As of March 14th, 2020, 142,534 COVID-19 infections have been confirmed worldwide, 81,021 of which are in China where the outbreak started in December 2019. Countries that have confirmed novel coronavirus infections are shown in the Coronavirus Outbreak world map below (note that this map will be updated as new data becomes available). Also shown below is the Internet Usage world map that shows the percentage of internet users in various countries in 2016. Only a few countries like Iceland and Luxembourg have close to 100% of its population using the internet. In China, where most COVID-19 infections have been confirmed, only 52.3% of the population use the internet. The internet usage, as expected, is better in the US, with 76.2% of the population using the internet, but this is still a far cry from the required 100% should there be a country-wide stay-at-home directive.
Across the US, households with an internet subscription ranged from low 64.9% and 67.4%, respectively, in Mississippi and Arkansas to high 85.2% and 84.9%, respectively, in New Hampshire and Washington in 2017, as shown in the Households with Internet map below. The good news is that almost all these subscriptions are broadband subscriptions, as shown in the Households with Boradband map below.
This still leaves a quarter of the US population without an internet subscription and a much larger portion of the global population without it. So, are we all set up to work from home in case we absolutely have to? Not really, but for those who have a broadband internet connection and who can work from home, this is a good option indeed to have during this ongoing global pandemic. Stay home and stay safe, and enjoy this time when you can slack around in your jammies and work. But don’t limit your audio and video calls to just work, talk them just like used to in the office setting – tell them about your weekend plans and what you had for lunch and how smart your child is :)
Photo: Pixabay
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