The Role of Information Technology During COVID-19: Asset or Obstacle?

Over 6.8 million deaths, and over 760 million confirmed cases over time! These astronomical numbers from the World Health Organization’s March 16, 2023 report reflect the catastrophic impact coronavirus disease (COVID-19), an infectious disease that is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has had on our world. Although the effects have decreased in recent times, they continue to be significant. Based on a quick analysis of publicly available data, 26906 individuals died across the world due to COVID-19 in the 28-day period from February 16, 2022, to March 15, 2023, i.e., a daily average of 961. Moreover, the number of daily deaths has declined in all six continents. During the same period, about 3.92 million new cases were confirmed, for a daily average of about 140,000. The number of confirmed cases has been dropping since February 2022, both worldwide and in five of the six continents. Asia continues to have an increasing number of confirmed cases. However, this continuing rise in confirmed cases is largely influenced by China, which has shown a continuing rapid increase in the number of cases; the rest of Asia is similar to the other five continents with declining number of cases. Amidst this global pandemic, which has caused worldwide economic problems and has been viewed as “a tipping point of historic proportions” (McKinsey, 2020), information technology (IT) has played a prominent role, with significant effects on individuals as well as organizations. This editorial examines some of those effects, including some that could be viewed as positive, and some that could be seen as negative.