COVID-19: Critical impact and legacy

What will be the long-lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the digital critical infrastructure industry? It may be too soon to ask the question given that, at the time of writing, the virus is taking its toll at scale across the world. But Uptime Institute has been asked this question many times, and it’s a discussion point on several upcoming (virtual) conferences.

In a recent Financial Times column, the economist Tim Harford speaks of “hysteresis” — a concept borrowed originally from electromagnetics. Hysteresis describes how some events have a long-lasting, lagging impact, even after the original cause of the change has long gone. Some of the effects of the coronavirus pandemic are elastic — industries, behaviors and business models, for example, are pulled around, but they will spring back their original shape as the risk passes. But others behave more like plastic: once stretched or broken, they stay that way.