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<~?~Commence Afterword> Afterword How COVID changed the course of our digital future While I was writing this book, I spent a lot of time thinking about how the COVID pandemic accelerated innovation on the infectious disease front. But it also ushered in a new era of rapid change that goes way beyond health innovations. In March 2020, when most of the world adopted strict lockdown rules, many people were forced to find ways to replicate in-person experiences from the safety of their homes. In places like the United States,* we turned to digital tools like videoconferencing and online grocery shopping to fill the gap, using them in new, creative ways. (I remember thinking that the concept of a virtual birthday party seemed so strange back in the early days of the pandemic.) I think we'll look back at March 2020 as an inflection point when digitization began to accelerate rapidly. Although the world has been becoming more and more digitized for decades, the process has been relatively gradual. In the U.S., for example, smartphones seemed to become * The pandemic has accelerated digitization all over the world in different ways, but I'm going to focus on high-income countries where the pace of change has been the most dramatic.