Three future healthcare trends whose roots are embedded in the present

A robot named Mitra, which is used by Covid-19 patients to communicate with their relatives, stands ready inside the intensive care unit (ICU) of a hospital on the outskirts of New Delhi, India. — Photos: Reuters

A tiny, spiky, “crown”-wearing virus is, almost with sentience, continuing to upend the most carefully-made calculations and predictions by healthcare experts, governments and societies.

Cities have been locked down, reopened, then locked down again; epidemiologists’ estimates of peaks and community transmission rates keep changing; the nature of immunity bestowed by antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus is being debated; the global economy is in turmoil and wondering if the cure may be worse than the disease – the list of uncertainties is long.