On 5 May 2023, the World Health Organization announced that COVID-19 was no longer a "public health emergency of international concern", which it had declared in January 2020. The virus had not disappeared, but the emergency phase had passed.
What the pandemic left in technology
- A permanent hybrid world. Video meetings, online forms and shared documents are now normal in workplaces and schools.
- Faster digital services. Governments, banks and shops moved services online that might otherwise have taken years.
- A boom in skills learning. Free online courses grew, and many adults retrained for digital jobs.
- A sharper view of inequality. Cost of data, power and devices decided who could take part.
What learners need now
The lesson for children is not that everything should be online. It is that people who understand technology can adapt when the world suddenly changes. They can set up a shared document, solve a connection problem, build a simple website or automate a repeated task.
That is why we pair technical skills with confidence: a child who has built a project from scratch is less afraid of the next new tool. Whatever changes next, adaptable learners will manage it better.