Healthy is the new certificate
Healthy is the new certificate
Is the level of healthy living or health clause the next invaluable criteria to consider when moving to a new place, buying real-estate, or simply existing and moving freely in the world?
If we want to be farmers, we move to the rural areas. If we want to have a career in business, we move to the crowded cities to be in the heart of it all. In the later case, we accept higher rents, less free time, more stress. In the first case we are not so stressed but we might miss some excitement from time to time. Where does our wish to preserve our health longer, to work longer and live a quality and fulfilled life fits in? Has pandemic irreversibly changed our values when it comes to preferences? How it will affect the real-estate market and us?
Health and immune system will be our new passport and a CV entry, as well as means of rating when it comes to employment, subletting, health insurance and raising a loan. In this new era where, up to now, people were just trying to survive from pay check to pay check, now their rating will depend on that one thing they sacrificed the most in order to make all those ends meet.
It is very likely that, after being subjected to such scrutinizing assessment, they will assess the world differently themselves in terms of leaving places which are exposing them to more health risk factors in terms of landfills, low quality of ecosystem, hazardous materials and sources of radiation. Further on it will determine their moving to a place to buying real-estate to choosing lifestyles which will make them move in a different direction.
Healthy living index, is the new currency. According to AIA Ltd. (American International Assurance Company), established in Kuala Lumpur, healthy living index measures consumers’ satisfaction with their health and various behaviours[1]. They conducted a survey in 2016 on Malaysian adults and came to the facts that people are generally dissatisfied with their health and feel it had worsened during the course of time. The respondents felt as though their bad eating habits and health conditions were a product of their lifestyle. The awareness of how our environment affects our lifestyle choices has risen and so is the need for creating a toll or rather tools to create a healthy environment. For most of the time people were held accountable for the state being of their health and lifestyle choices leaving them often times with the feeling of shame. But it is next to unreasonable to expect that a person makes healthy life choices when working hours are increasing, as well as the availability at any time conditioned and stipulated in our working contracts. Not only that but during that single lunch break it is barely possible, time wise and money wise, for an individual to provide a healthy food choice for himself. Therefore it was reasonable to expect for the curser of responsibility for the bad health conditions to be turned to the bosses, unhealthy air quality, small income, higher costs of our daily necessary purchases, economy destroyed by politicians, people being enslaved by the capitalism. It is by far barely anything new.
The thing that is new is people eventually giving it all up and changing their professions, moving in a different yet better direction, with the purpose of investing in their health clause. The first and the most important reason will be that people will eventually get tired of being constantly conditioned to maintain good health under impossible living and working conditions. Also they could get tired of their health being assessed by agents and companies as a precondition for travelling, getting a bank loan, insurances, freedom of movement on the streets and through their countries. Limiting our human and fundamental legal rights to an extent rarely experienced in peacetime had become once again emphasized during the corona virus pandemic. It is true that most of these limitations pandemic wise are to curb the spread and safeguard public health and life, however, stalking people through their cell phones, creating apps to verify the immunity of people and health immunity passports, green tracks of travelling through EU in places where Schengen used to be, will change the awareness of people. Having apps to approve our every move and add yet another stamp in our passports could be overbearing.
According to OSD (Östereichische Staatsdrückerei) the app developed especially for such purpose will offer a digital proof of immunity. In their effort to exclude discrimination the data of one’s immunity will be stored in his phone on which, after crossing the border, will receive a request from the border’s official device. After which the data exchange will occur in order to verify one’s identity and immunity, followed by a regular check up and information exchange, with the individual’s consent. Having obtained a digital proof of immunity, the travelling will be safer and people under increased supervision. The right to health, the freedom of movement, the right to religion all carefully tracked with civic freedom tracker, an oxymoron. This kind of oxymoron of limiting one for his own good is not reserved for the most defenceless ones, but states as well. They will also have a state immunity tracker which will be their ticket for financial aids, budgetary measures, economic growth or stagnation. Is a larger mutiny on the horizon? This will be yet another political tool which in wrong hands with wrong intentions could be very detrimental to the initially good purpose it was created for.
Restricting movement on the basis of biology, lifting the restrictions on those who are presumed to be immune, seems to be a one-way street for violation of those restrictions. Also it aids to creating a platform for human rights violation, discrimination, spreading of fear and threats, all of which does not contribute to safeguarding public health.
Before covid-19 crisis there was a discussion between the central European states about multi speed European Union. That discussion came to a large disapproval and fear of being left out for the economically and politically less potential member states. In a post Brexit EU world that topic seems to have left the negotiation desks and was replaced by green corridors and immunity passports for now. The fear of being left out reserved for the weaker ones remained. The only change covid-19 crisis brought along is that now anyone can become weak. Since the epicentre or danger and weakness can change quickly, the restrictions can now be politicized as well and not a single country is immune to them. Having in mind that everyone can become marginalized group we are all faced with more scrutiny and the chances of being judged, therefore left out of our everyday privileges. The scenario in which the countries who can implement immunity passports can ban from travelling to countries that do not stipulate them. A great veil of uncertainty is knocking at the door, yours as well as mine.
How to create and maintain trade, entrepreneurships, lifestyles and keep the people, markets, states and nations working? China issues virtual health checks, contact tracing, digital QR codes to limit the movement of people, while Chile already releases medical certificates. All of which is subdued to expiration dates and requires regular renewal.
Will EU become more united after this crisis or chased further apart to a great divide? For so long EU Member states complained how they have been missing a unity based on identity, joint values and cultural discourse as the glue that keeps the EU in place. But now, that the discourse and issues are shifting a new chance for becoming stronger should not be missed again.
Restoring unity of regional organisations as well as the international ones will be the key in order for them to preserve legitimacy and authenticity. All of these plans will naturally be faced with the bitter taste when people remember how paralyzed the institutions were when the decisions had to be made in the midst of crisis.
The states could recognize the power of artificial intelligence and invest in its development. Will states invest more in AI? Debates on AI’s future development have been going on for the past decade, from expressing fear of being a threat to mankind to it’s possible saving grace. The power of AI technology has been emphasized across all sectors. From helping in the fight against the virus to predicting which nations will develop respiratory diseases from the virus. Using it in smart diagnosis to help identify pneumonia from a CT scan within seconds, to chat bots helping to distinguish the type of symptoms and offer guidelines in further conduct. Such techniques could save lives and safeguard the medical staff. China has already used robots in delivering pills, meals and measuring temperature to reduce local transmission, as well as in sterilization and cleaning of facilities after quarantine. AI can identify and analyze large amount of data and aid to discovering more effective strategies in planning security policies and future conducts, as well as detect, prevent, respond, recover and handle every stage of initial crisis management and its maintenance. Despite AI’s growing momentum, the nation’s repression, depression and fall will grow.
Raising awareness of the need for a healthy living and investing in it will become the next turning point where decisions to improve one’s life quality will have to be made. Stronger immunity through healthy food and food supplements and cosmetics we use to finding better job alternatives and the impact of surroundings on our health, will gain momentum because this world we have know so far, needs those changes.
[1] AIA is a subsidiary of American International Group, Inc. (AIG) and is one of Malaysia’s largest life insurers and offers a full line of life insurance and investment linked products.