‘COVID-19 was a bit of a rehearsal for the kind of world we are entering’ – 20 quotes from India’s pandemic struggle

Launched in 2014, StoryBites is a weekly feature from YourStory, featuring notable quotable quotes in our articles of this past week (see the previous edition here). This special series of compilations focuses on India’s COVID-19 struggle. Share these quotes and excerpts with your networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights.

See also our pick of Top Quotes of 2021 on Entrepreneurship, Investment, Digital Transformation, Storytelling, The India Opportunity, Pandemic Resilience, Failure Recovery, Design, and Art.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a glaring display of challenges to healthcare in terms of affordability and social inequity. It has also re-emphasised the need for safely accessible, value-based care. - Ram Kishan Agrawal, Optum Global Solutions (India)

Women were already at a higher risk of facing burnout as compared to men, and then the COVID-19 pandemic came along and almost doubled the gender gap for burnout. - Bhavna Toor, Shenomics

The International Labour Organization (ILO 2020) report has indicated that as a result of COVID-19, an estimated 400 million informal sector workers are at risk of abject poverty in India. Women bore the brunt of these job losses because much of their work is invisible; and they are more likely to work in informal work arrangements. - Anil Parmar, United Way Mumbai

The real challenge was the pandemic. A lot of businesses hit rock bottom. - Shashank Jain, Strawfit

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As most parts of India are facing a severe heatwave with the temperatures soaring massively and another wave of COVID-19 taking off slowly, health and wellbeing take a centre-stage once again. - Rushikesh Chavan, The Habitats Trust

Cardiovascular diseases account for over 27 percent of deaths in India now as compared to only 9 percent in the 1990s. The cause is obesity and a lack of nutrition. It’s an epidemic bigger than the COVID-19. - Abhishek Gagneja, Yoga Brands

COVID-19 was a bit of a rehearsal for the kind of world we are entering, which is going to be more dynamic and complex than anything we have seen before. This world requires agility. - Puneet Chandok, AWS

During the pandemic when my daughter Vama showed interest in starting up a business, we both came together and started Soap Chemistry. - Pratiksha Sangoi, Soap Chemistry

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Companies that created customer delight and stood the test of time in the last two to three years were the ones that focused on the most crucial business metric — customer retention. - Avlesh Singh, WebEngage

Employee experience has come to the forefront over the past few years, especially aided by the pandemic. - Anirudh Goutham, Texperia

Flexible work schedules and remote work options are no longer a bonus but expected features of the workplace. - Neha Bagaria, JobsForHer

Since the pandemic has caused a paradigm shift in the global art market, the purpose of art fairs has taken on a new relevance. - Jaya Asokan, India Art Fair

COVID-19 has reinforced to people that life is uncertain, hence, we cannot keep postponing goals that are important to us. - Vivek Mansingh, ‘Achieving Meaningful Success’

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While economies have been down globally, COVID-19 showed that consumerism in India is significantly high. - Ruchi Kalra, Oxyzo

With the pandemic hastening the transition to the digital space, it is not surprising to see the internet becoming the go-to place for mothers- especially millennials, to fulfil their shopping needs. - YouGov

The pandemic has shown the way some of these [cloud] platforms have scaled. Some of them were built in days. - Rahul Sharma, AWS

Despite the vulnerability brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic in the business ecosystem, there is a visible silver lining that has shone through. [C]ompanies have realised the importance of revamping business models via digitisation. - Vineet Toshniwal, Bizzo

YourStory has also published the pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups’ as a creative and motivational guide for innovators (downloadable as apps here: Apple, Android).