Supply Chains in the Time of COVID-19
Who could have imagined that between our last newsletter and this that the world would change so much?
The last time the world faced a health crisis of similar magnitude to covid-19 was more than a 100 years ago during the 1918 influenza epidemic, or “Spanish flu”. According to The Conversation “In the pandemic of 1918, between 50 and 100 million people are thought to have died, representing as much as 5% of the world’s population. Half a billion people were infected.” At various times in our history humans have faced bubonic plague, tuberculosis, polio, HIV/AIDS, SARS, MERS and a myriad of other diseases.
Such times test us. We face our mortality. We live with fear and uncertainty. We glimpse the unimaginable grief of losing the people we love. But as someone much wiser than me once said “life’s only certainty is change”. This will change. There will come a time when we have a vaccine, or a cure, or we contain the virus. Life will go on.
One of the positives to emerge from the present crisis is the realisation of how vital transport and logistics is in the life of every Australian. People working in the industry have always known this. But when stocked supermarket shelves and accessible medications are all you’ve ever known it’s easy to take the supply chain for granted.
