Abstract:

The outbreak of the coronavirus Covid-19 has evolved very quickly in several countries of the world and has caused many businesses of several industries around the world to close. Many businesses did not have the tools to have their employees working at home and suffer dearly from it. In some cases, many of them will go bankrupt. Many office workers have the ability to work online but those who carry out physical work cannot. Even universities, all around the world, do not have the tools to promptly switch to online courses. This pandemic has shown that many people in the world do not enjoy medical insurance nor clean water to wash their hands frequently and that people in the highest class are not safe if poor uninsured people get sick because these last ones can infect them. During the coronavirus crisis some workers are highly essential, like delivery workers, truck and bus drivers, medical professionals and professionals of the food, among others who carry out physical activities. Others are not that visible although are indispensable, like the ones in the utilities industry. After all, every worker is needed. More automation [1] is needed during epidemics like this, in medical services, convenience stores, cafeterias, restaurants and universities, in order to avoid physical contact, but it will take a lot of time to get in underdeveloped countries [1]. “Big Brother” devices, like drones and cell phones were used handily in a few countries, to track, monitor and control people’s activities. In a lot of countries governments incentivize people to use public transportation in order to diminish greenhouse gas emissions but during the days of the crisis public transportation is risky and has been greatly reduced, being private transportation the most convenient and safest transportation mode. In most affected countries a reduction of pollution is expected as their economic growth suffers. In this paper the success of virtual education in several countries is analyzed in order to recommend what to do in Mexico in which several public universities are rushing to implement most of their teaching online notwithstanding that education at distance requires self-taught students who are able to research using several tools in order to succeed in their learning as well as good computers and high speed internet. The barriers and opportunities for implementing teaching-learning processes online as well as lifelong education in Mexico that this crisis has uncovered are identified.
[1] D.N. Dominguez-Perez, N. Dominguez-Vergara, R.M. Dominguez-Perez, J.L. Pantoja-Gallegos, A future of isolation: control and automation in the developing countries, ICERI 2017 Proceedings, pp. 7964-7973, 2017.

Keywords:

Education at distance, policy, covid-19, global change.