Stories and News No. 1194
The video call’s time.
Who could believe that it would become a regular, unmissable and fundamental event during our every day.
It is for those who continue “to be” school, despite the necessary full-time curfew; for those who work remotely, if the job carried out up to the day before the so-called lockdown allows this chance; for people who intend to feel close to the loved ones, maybe living alone; and also for those who just want to have a good chat.
The video call’s time is a precious, useful and rewarding one. However, things don't always go as smoothly as we would like.
For instance, maybe the streaming with the professor's lesson becomes slow and the image lags, or arrives late. So, instead of providing IT advice, I invite students to remember that according to UNICEF data dating back to April last year, more than 175 million children - which correspond to half of the preschool population in the world - they are not even enrolled in kindergarten...
Of course, it is also true that we are not alone at home and we often connect together. It may happen that the broadband is congested and that the video freezes on the best moment.
Well, in that case let's remember that according to the Global Digital 2019 research of the "We are social" agency, about 43% of the world population does not have internet, 4 out of 10 people on the planet...
Okay, but staying closed at home because of the Coronavirus, that face-to-face dialogue, albeit a digital one, could be the only comfort of the day.
So, in that case let’s think back to the fact that almost one billion people in the world, or about 840 million, do not have access to electricity...
Okay, no problem, right? There is time, we all have more time. We can talk later, maybe after
dinner, when there are fewer people connected to the network. In the meantime we could enjoy the chance to take a walk at least at home, or even just two push-ups in the room.
Well, between one bend and another, annoyed by having the same walls before our eyes, we could keep in mind that one billion and six hundred million people in the world live without adequate shelter...
Fortunately, there is an excuse for shopping, right? Never as in these times we have found ourselves appreciating that short walk with the bage and maybe a note with the things to buy. But when we find the dust mask and the queue more annoying than other times, let’s try to focus on a 2019 FAO report; it says that over two billion people in the world do not have the opportunity to feed on safe food, while about 800 million don't even have that...
Then we go home and when the chosen moment arrives we try again to video call, since the others are all sleeping, now, and nothing can go wrong. Not before we washed our hands with care and attention, of course. And as we rub them let’s close our eyes and think of the words by UNICEF and the World Health Organization, which estimated that two billion and two hundred million people in the world do not have drinking water services managed in safety, almost twice as many do not access to properly sanitized bathrooms and at least three billion cannot wash their hands...
Okay, finally we can connect, we warm up the PC, we search for the right App on the cell and I recommend, let's try not to talk about the usual daily charts, perhaps to share our alleged scientific opinion on the pandemic. We haven't all become doctors yet, right? Think if you lived in Africa, where each million people in Ethiopia and Sierra Leone there are only twenty-two doctors, in Niger and Malawi 19, and in Liberia there are 14, about one each hundred thousand...
Nonetheless, once the last virtual conversation of the day has ended, we cannot help but think of experiencing a difficult period.
There is a disease that kills outside and this scares us, inevitably and in a completely understandable way.
Therefore, when the fears become more distressing than usual, let's not forget the reality that still exists beyond the borders of our home, however closed. It tells us that, due to the aforementioned serious hygienic conditions, billions of people in the world, especially in the poorest and developing countries, they face the daily risk of contracting dangerous infectious diseases; and that only because of Tuberculosis in 2017 there were one million and six hundred thousand deaths; more than two hundred thousand of them were children.
This is the world that existed before our every video call and that is still out there, now, to face Coronavirus too and everything else...
Subscribe to Newsletter
Who could believe that it would become a regular, unmissable and fundamental event during our every day.
It is for those who continue “to be” school, despite the necessary full-time curfew; for those who work remotely, if the job carried out up to the day before the so-called lockdown allows this chance; for people who intend to feel close to the loved ones, maybe living alone; and also for those who just want to have a good chat.
The video call’s time is a precious, useful and rewarding one. However, things don't always go as smoothly as we would like.
For instance, maybe the streaming with the professor's lesson becomes slow and the image lags, or arrives late. So, instead of providing IT advice, I invite students to remember that according to UNICEF data dating back to April last year, more than 175 million children - which correspond to half of the preschool population in the world - they are not even enrolled in kindergarten...
Of course, it is also true that we are not alone at home and we often connect together. It may happen that the broadband is congested and that the video freezes on the best moment.
Well, in that case let's remember that according to the Global Digital 2019 research of the "We are social" agency, about 43% of the world population does not have internet, 4 out of 10 people on the planet...
Okay, but staying closed at home because of the Coronavirus, that face-to-face dialogue, albeit a digital one, could be the only comfort of the day.
So, in that case let’s think back to the fact that almost one billion people in the world, or about 840 million, do not have access to electricity...
Okay, no problem, right? There is time, we all have more time. We can talk later, maybe after
Well, between one bend and another, annoyed by having the same walls before our eyes, we could keep in mind that one billion and six hundred million people in the world live without adequate shelter...
Fortunately, there is an excuse for shopping, right? Never as in these times we have found ourselves appreciating that short walk with the bage and maybe a note with the things to buy. But when we find the dust mask and the queue more annoying than other times, let’s try to focus on a 2019 FAO report; it says that over two billion people in the world do not have the opportunity to feed on safe food, while about 800 million don't even have that...
Then we go home and when the chosen moment arrives we try again to video call, since the others are all sleeping, now, and nothing can go wrong. Not before we washed our hands with care and attention, of course. And as we rub them let’s close our eyes and think of the words by UNICEF and the World Health Organization, which estimated that two billion and two hundred million people in the world do not have drinking water services managed in safety, almost twice as many do not access to properly sanitized bathrooms and at least three billion cannot wash their hands...
Okay, finally we can connect, we warm up the PC, we search for the right App on the cell and I recommend, let's try not to talk about the usual daily charts, perhaps to share our alleged scientific opinion on the pandemic. We haven't all become doctors yet, right? Think if you lived in Africa, where each million people in Ethiopia and Sierra Leone there are only twenty-two doctors, in Niger and Malawi 19, and in Liberia there are 14, about one each hundred thousand...
Nonetheless, once the last virtual conversation of the day has ended, we cannot help but think of experiencing a difficult period.
There is a disease that kills outside and this scares us, inevitably and in a completely understandable way.
Therefore, when the fears become more distressing than usual, let's not forget the reality that still exists beyond the borders of our home, however closed. It tells us that, due to the aforementioned serious hygienic conditions, billions of people in the world, especially in the poorest and developing countries, they face the daily risk of contracting dangerous infectious diseases; and that only because of Tuberculosis in 2017 there were one million and six hundred thousand deaths; more than two hundred thousand of them were children.
This is the world that existed before our every video call and that is still out there, now, to face Coronavirus too and everything else...
Subscribe to Newsletter